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Graduation is right around the corner, so give your graduate a cookbook that will help them live on their own.

The end of May is approaching, meaning that graduation season has begun. Many high school and college graduates will soon be on their own and no longer under the wings of their parents, which means that they must provide for themselves. Every parent wants to know that their child is feeding themselves properly and that they can take care of themselves.

So gift to these recent graduates, give them a cookbook to help guide them through cooking on their own. With these reference guides, you'll feel better knowing that your child has a cookbook that they can rely on whenever they are in the kitchen.

5. The Good Housekeeping Test Kitchen Cookbook

Not only does this cookbook provide 375 recipes made in a test kitchen, but it's all held together by a ring-binder, making it easy to flip through while you're cooking. This cookbook is filled with all sorts of recipes varying in cooking methods and nutrition. In fact, some dishes come with a smart phone tag that links the user to a how-to video for more help.

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Photos by Katharine Shilcutt

The moment I opened a thick, brown envelope this week and saw its contents, my heart skipped. Two jewel-toned books slipped out of the package. With hardy, fabric-covered hardcovers and gold trim on the edges of their pages, these were no ordinary cookbooks. They reminded me vividly of the first time I'd received an equally beautiful copy of Little Women, and how much I cherished that gilt-trimmed book throughout my childhood.

Just in time for Mother's Day, publishing company Andrews McMeel is releasing an ingenious collection of historic cookbooks, reprinted on thick paper stock and bound in beautiful, richly-hued hardcover format. The two I received in the mail were only a couple of the series that Andrews McMeel has planned for its American Antiquarian Cookbook Collection.

The American Antiquarian Society currently possesses more than 1,100 cookbooks documenting our nation's culinary history -- starting with the very first cookbook, published here in 1742. It was a reprint of the popular British bestseller The Compleat Housewife, which the AAS holds in its collection alongside other historic works such as Amelia Simmons's American Cookery, generally considered to be America's first truly indigenous cookbook.

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Now in bookstores and grocery stores across the country.

I'm not much for diet books. I'm not much for diets, period. They're too often nonsensically restrictive and disappointingly uneducational.

So you lost ten pounds on the Atkins diet -- what did you learn from that other than how to avoid potatoes and Cinnabons? So you dropped a pant size on Weight Watchers -- do you actually know the ingredients in the shakes you're drinking or just how many points they cost? Do you really have a better or more thorough understanding of nutrition when you're on a diet? Or are you simply avoiding food?

You can't go the rest of your life on an avoidance-based diet. We all need to be smarter about the fuel we're putting into our bodies [at least] three times a day, and recognize that there's more to food than pure calories. That's why I perk up when books like Rich Food, Poor Food come across my desk.

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Consider the Fork by Bee Wilson

If your idea of a perfect evening is curling up under a blanket, sipping on a cup of tea and learning all about why butter knives are dull. then Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat is for you. This is the book that will answer all the burning questions you have ever asked yourself about your kitchen. (And plenty that you haven't, like that one about butter knives. The answer: so your neighbor would be less likely to stab you up once people stopped carrying personal knives.)

Seriously, though, Consider the Fork is an interesting read that covers -- as its subtitle indicates -- the history of humans and their cooking and eating habits: from fire to forks, from microwaves to measuring cups.

My mom picked this book out for me as a Christmas present after I lent her my copy of Bill Bryson's At Home: A Short History of Private Life, raving about how much I had adored it.

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Photos by Christina Uticone

Not only are the photos by Christina Uticone, SO IS THE FOOD.

Molly Dunn really needs to stop writing about cookbooks, because I'm going broke and gaining weight. That goes for you, too, Patrise Shuttlesworth!

I was browsing the shelves at Brazos Bookstore less than two weeks ago, and mentioned to manager Jeremy Ellis how much I had enjoyed the cookbook Plenty, which I picked up after Patrise recommended it here on EOW.

"Have you seen The Smitten Kitchen?" Jeremy asked, leading me over to a display. As I flipped through the pages, Jeremy mentioned that one thing that really sets The Smitten Kitchen apart is what a great read it is -- SOLD.

Since purchasing the book 13 days ago, I have been reading it during between conference calls. I brought it to the gym. I baked a cake on a Monday, and then baked the same cake all over again the next Friday, after we had finished the first one.

To say that I am obsessed is an understatement.

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Photos courtesy of Barnesandnoble.com

I have a confession to make: I am a cookbook-aholic. I absolutely love reading and collecting cookbooks.

Sometimes I like to sit in Barnes & Noble and read through all of the new cookbooks displayed in the food section of the store. I love the pictures, I love the author's story behind each recipe and I want to make everything I see.

Every year for Christmas, nearly half of my Christmas list is composed of cookbooks. I have reduced my never-ending list to the top five cookbooks you can add to your own list -- or give to someone -- this holiday season. Mom and dad, please take note.

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Photo by Molly Dunn

After moving to Paris in 2004, David Lebovitz experienced everything that any foreigner living in Paris would expect to encounter: different lifestyles, different norms and different food. In his book, The Sweet Life in Paris, Lebovitz recounts events that shaped him as an American living in Paris, accompanied by recipes.

Although it was released last year, the book is something to read any time of the year. You'll be entrapped in the stories he tells of his first impressions of Paris and how he dealt with uncomfortable situations, and you'll bookmark all of his recipes at the end of each chapter...even without pictures, they are enticing.

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Photo by Leigh Beisch

Fat: That dirty little word that America has spent the last 30 years and millions of dollars trying to avoid. Where did that get us? Even fatter as a nation. Avoiding fat has not significantly impacted our collective weight gain, but it has obliterated our palates.

There is no denying that the fat is where the flavor is in any animal. But it is also not the cheapest means of obtaining fat today. Just as I mentioned in my post Foraging for Flavor, America likes things faster, bigger and cheaper. When scientists learned how to make margarine and extract oil from plants, the processed food craze took off like wildfire. Processed oils were inexpensive and extended the shelf life of baked and fried products, and they were soon incorporated into food products and prepared foods. Yum!

Chef Jennifer McLagan understands this history and the science around our misconceptions about fat and has written an excellent primer called Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient. She covers the most common types of animal fat that are easily accessible to the home cook: butter, pork, poultry, beef and lamb. She includes some over-the-top, decadent recipes and some very light and refreshing recipes, all of which use animal fats. (I include a few below.) This is an informative and enlightening read for not only the home cook but chefs, scientists and health nuts, as well.

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Photos by Jonathan Lovekin

I can count on half of one hand the number of cookbooks that have made me want to prepare each and every dish. And make no mistake; I have a cookbook collection that would rival any library or bookstore. Famous chefs, non-famous chefs, home cooks, every coast, every country, nearly every cuisine imaginable -- you name it, I probably have a cookbook about it.

So when I picked up Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi, I wasn't expecting more than a few recipes that I would try, with a great vegetable reference for my shelf. Boy, was I wrong!

Plenty is a work of vegetable genius that is totally accessible to the home cook, embraced by professional chefs and seen on the shelves at some of the most famous restaurants in the country. Check out Monica Pope's bookshelf the next time you are at Sparrow Bar + Cookshop. It has also been seen at Le Bernardin and The Savoy and been referenced by Gordon Ramsay, Alice Waters and David Chang.

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Potter Publishers

There are fads, there are trends and then there are those ideas that are so clearly right and time-honored that we must take notice. Alice Waters started it on the West Coast, and Monica Pope started it on the Gulf Coast -- locavorism, sustainability and seasonality. These are ideas that served our forefathers very well, before we seemed to get in our own way by wanting things faster, bigger and all the time.

An offshoot of locavorism and seasonality is foraging. Houston is lucky to have a local expert -- Chef Randy Rucker. I just finished reading Foraged Flavor by Tama Wong and Eddy Leroux and was immediately reminded of the lesson Rucker taught me at a recent wine dinner where he was cooking.

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