SFAH - teaches you the basics of food, although it's not very recipe heavy. the graphics are so cute. so many tiny paintings
tender heart has really good recipes! the chapters are organized by veggies so you can buy like 5 pounds of cabbage and you can read through the different ways to cook them!
i don't really like her recipes bc i have a delicate palette (lol) but molly baz's cookbooks have the BEST graphic design. i think her husband is her graphic curator.... so spunky and cute
