I love Julia Child*. She kinda grew on me over the years.
Anyway, I’ve prepared a few of the dishes I watched her do on her shows. I’ve decided to buy one of her cookbooks because I like what french foods I’ve tried and I like her methods.
So, should I start with her first book, or would you reccommend a later work. I’m primarily interested in “everyday” homestyle dishes.
*I recently watched an excellent biography on Julia Child on PBS. I think it was this one.
I forgpt to say;
Thanks
mangeorge
I really like The Way to Cook, which is one of her later ones. It’s arranged by basic techniques (e.g., roasting, pastry-making) and recipes (e.g., basic beans) and then variations on them are suggested. Everything I’ve tried has been excellent and I really learned a lot from the book even though I had been cooking for years. The photographs of various techniques are very helpful, too.
Well, the classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking has a lot to recommend it. It’s an excellent reference work, for one. And if you read Julie and Julia, a book by the girl who blogged making every recipe from it in a year, you’ll just have to get it. And you should read that, because it’s a real hoot.
This may draw a better response over in Cafe Society.
Moved from IMHO to CS.
Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant (ethnic and regional recipes from the cooks at the Legendary Restaurant.) Excellent vegetarian recipes! My fave is the Shepherd’s Pie. Sometimes I just make the mushroom gravy part for potatoes.
Thanks, Frank.
I was torn between CS and IMHO when I first posted, but wasn’t sure which was appropiate.
Okay, I’m off to my local book store or B&N to get Zsofia’s Julie and Julia to read while I wait for “Mastering” and maybe the others to arrive from amazon.com.
I really prefer a local mom and pop, but amazon is way cheaper.
Backyard snails, say your prayers! 
Thanks all.
Can’t let a cookbook thread go by without mentioning Irma Rombauer’s cookbook bible “The Joy of Cooking”. Get it and buy other cookbooks from there.
Second.
Yeah, Joy and Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison are my kitchen staples. Even if you’re not a vegetarian (I’m not), Madison’s recipes are fan-freakin-tastic. I’ll also confess to a fondness for “Insanity” Rose Levy Berenbaum’s Cake Bible and Pie and Pastry Bible. Her incredibly detailed, anal-retentive recipes produce great results if followed to the letter, although more often than not, I find myself saying, “12 hours to make a blueberry pie?! I think not, Rose,” and turning to The Joy of Cooking recipe.
I have (had) “Joy”. I gave it to my old girlfriend many years ago in the hopes of “One More Time”. 
Alas, no such luck. She did remain a good friend, though.
I’ll maybe get another.
But what I’m interested in here is Julia Child’s brand of french cooking.
I’m on a mission, you see.
I recently acquired Alton Brown’s I’m Just Here for the Food and highly recommend it. What I like best about it is that he explains **why ** food does what it does when you cook it, and why one method of preparation is better than another for different foods, so you can really generalize what you’re learning.
If you want a taste of Alton’s style he has a show on the Food Network called *Good Eats * (airing these days at 11:00 pm, I think. check your local listing).
I also like his sense of humor. YMMV
Julie and Julia is the one good example I’ve read of how a blog can become a great book. (The book is almost sort of a memoir of writing the blog/doing the project, really.) It’s really hilarious in parts and it’s made me cook a lot of things in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, because they have a “story” behind them now. I just can’t believe her whining about finding ingredients when she lives in New York City. I mean, surely she just isn’t looking hard enough! Come on!
For the umpteenth time, Nigel Slater and any of his books. If you don’t want to click the links, the executive summary is: he tells you about the ingredient, then he tells you what makes it great, then all the ways to cook it, and only after that does he give you a recipe - but permission to fuck with it.
Without doubt he’s the best food writer I’ve ever encountered - with rich, enthusiastic prose - and I shill him a lot on the SDMB because he’s so brilliant.
Since the OP is looking for votes on which Julia Child cookbook to buy first (not that I couldn’t recommend a million other cookbooks), I’ll add a vote for starting with “The Way to Cook.” It is clear, basic, and teaches you to understand what you are doing in the kitchen. It feels less dated to me than Mastering the Art of French Cooking, maybe because it was written much later.
And I’ll third THE WAY TO COOK recommendation. I use it ALL the time! You can’t go wrong. And the MASTERING books are way too putzy!
I’m reading “Julie and Julia”, as reccommended by Zsofia, so I pretty much have to get “Mastering”. But I’m convinced so I’ll also get “The Way”.
“Julie and Julia”, so far, is a real blast.
“America’s Best Recipe” from the “America’s Test Kitchen”/Cooks Illustrated folks.
Each recipe is prefaced by a long essay detailing the process used to tune the recipe just right, explaining the processes and false starts. Really great.
Ah, but alas, the book is not by Julia Child. (And it IS a mighty fine book!)
“America’s test Kitchen” is not fair!