Paula Deen's My First Cookbook:

[TheMightyFavog]

http://www.amazon.com/Paula-Deens-My-First-Cookbook/dp/1416950338/ref=sr_1_5?s=gateway&ie=UTF8&qid=1285527980&sr=8-5

Alternate Title: "Paula Deen's How to make sure your kid has their first heart attack at age 28."

[kentauros]

1. I'm not even going to look.

My first cookbook should be everyone's first cookbook: The Joy of Cooking :D

[cwydro]

2. Mine too!

Still have it, though it is bespattered and worn...

[Chan790]

3. Mine was Veganomicon.

I loved it then and now, it's duct-taped together and right next to the second cookbook I ever owned: How It All Vegan and the third: Passionate Vegetarian.

Arguably the three best vegetarian cookbooks ever written and I own all three. :D

[kentauros]

4. I'll have to look for them.

I'm not vegan but am vegetarian. I wasn't, though, back when I first started cooking on my own, thus my recommendation for The Joy of Cooking. I'd still recommend it to veg*ns, too, because it covers technique and equipment, not to mention plenty of vegetable and fruit dishes :)

[revolution breeze]

5. My mom gifted me her 1938 copy of The Joy of Cooking

I collect antique cookbooks, it was originally my grandfather's cookbook. He worked as a sous chef at Antoines Restaurant in New Orleans, but left to work offshore for the oil companies, making three times as much. Unfortunately he slipped coming out of a helicopter to the right and drowned. I still use the recipes from that book! Whenever you are stumped with a way to prepare anything, it is in that book (like the time our Guatemalan neighbors gave us the skin from the pig they had slaughtered, I made cracklins and they loved me).