Jacques Pépin's Complete Techniques

Authoritative, and precisely written. Offers excellent grasp of the basics of French cooking. I would have preferred color photos for better demonstrations, but still the best I've found, so far, with Louis Diat's Basic French Cooking Techniques as a very close second. (I was very surprised to see that I'm the only one on librarything who own's Diat's book.)

A wonderful book that has taught me much. I still refer to it often whenever doing something new or for a refresher on a seldom used technique (such as rolling croissant). I also like the accompanying video series which was made about 10 years later.

It is an amazing work considering the time it was made before the age of digital cameras and the number of photographs it includes.

An excellent introduction to basic recipes and techniques. I only wish the extensive, step-by-step photographs were in color instead of black and white.