"This is the only cookbook you need," the giver promises.

This compendium may serve you well for years. Then one day you're enjoying a plate of phad thai at your local Thai joint and wonder, "Can I make this at home?" Madison and Bittman are no help. So you spring for Alford and Duguid's "Hot Sour Salty Sweet." Surely this will be the end of it, at least until you realize you need a good baking book.

At this point, the makers of bookcases start slavering, knowing that you've entered a positive-feedback loop that will not end even on the day you purchase a book entirely about polenta.

If you kept every cookbook, your bookcase would explode, but because cookbooks are tools, they're hard to give up. There could always be one great recipe lurking inside an otherwise useless cookbook. But the great books are about more than mere recipes. Just as a great pop song forces you to get up and dance or play air guitar, a great cookbook is one that forces you into the kitchen. Here are a few I'll never abandon, because they always make me play air spatula:

• "Hot Sour Salty Sweet" by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid (Artisan, 2000, $40). Thai food has become a staple for many Seattleites, but there is a vast world of Southeast Asian cooking beyond phad Thai. The authors of HSSS dragged their cameras and kids through Vietnam, Cambodia, Burma, Laos, Thailand and southern China and returned with photos, essays and 200 unusual recipes. These include vibrant salads such as Cambodian pomelo-coconut, homemade sausages and, yes, a great phad thai recipe. Every time I pick up this book I discover a treasure.
 

Adapted from "The Babbo Cookbook," Mario Batali (2002)
Just when I was sure I had enough Italian cookbooks to last a lifetime, "The Babbo Cookbook" insinuated its way onto my shelf. Author Mario Batali is a chef from Federal Way, and there's something a lot more Seattle than Siena about this recipe.
4 salmon fillets, about 8 ounces each, skin on (Batali calls for king, but I've had great luck with sockeye as well) Salt and pepper to taste 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, divided 1 English cucumber, halved, seeded and cut on the diagonal into half-moons 1 shallot, thinly sliced 1/4 cup red-wine vinegar 2 teaspoons sugar 2 scallions, white parts only, thinly sliced 1 teaspoon yellow mustard seeds 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar 1. Preheat the oven to 500 degrees. Season the salmon with salt and pepper on both sides. Put 1 tablespoon olive oil into a 12-inch nonstick (or cast iron) ovenproof skillet and place over high heat until oil is shiny. 2. Add the salmon fillets to the pan, skin side up. Sear one minute. Flip the fillets and transfer the pan to the oven. Roast until medium rare, 6 to 8 minutes (you can check for doneness by peeking between the flakes). 3. While fish is roasting, place the cucumbers in a bowl and add the shallot, remaining 3 tablespoons olive oil, vinegar, sugar, scallions and mustard seeds. Season with salt and pepper and toss well. 4. Divide the cucumbers evenly among four plates. Place a salmon fillet, skin side up, on top of each portion of cucumbers. Drizzle with balsamic vinegar and serve. — Adapted from "The Babbo Cookbook," Mario Batali (Clarkson N. Potter, 2002, $40) Printer-friendly version.

• "Cucina Simpatica" by Johanne Killeen and George Germon (HarperCollins, 1985, $30). This is my favorite book in my entire collection. Restaurant tie-in books are rarely more than souvenirs, but this book of rustic Italian recipes from the Al Forno restaurant in Providence, RI, is a keeper. Germon is the inventor of grilled pizza, and the book includes his method. Even better are the recipes for rich baked pastas, such as penne with a lemon asparagus cream sauce. All a worthy foundation for a whole philosophy of cooking based on intelligent experimentation with quality ingredients.

• "Alice Medrich's Cookies and Brownies" (Warner Books, 1999, $23.95). There are plenty of books with endless cookie recipes (one is even called 1001 Cookie Recipes), but this slim volume is the one I always go back to. These are classic American cookies, lovely to begin with and fertile ground for improvisation. This book endeared itself to me most with its clever new brownie method called the "Steve Ritual" — there's no one "best brownie recipe" in the world, but when you take Medrich's brownies to a party, you leave with a reputation.

• "Serious Pig" by John Thorne (North Point Press, 1996, $6.64). As you can see, my collection is biased toward Asia and Italy, but I make room for some great American cookbooks like this one. It would be unfair to call John Thorne the dean of American food writing because the word "dean" connotes starchy and conservative. Thorne defends our regional food traditions, but equally enjoys skewering sacred cows. He is starchy in a way, though: he loves starch, and Thorne's recipes for corn bread and home fries have become regular features of my dinner table.

• "The Oxford Companion to Food" by Alan Davidson (Oxford University Press, 1999, $65). When this one-volume encyclopedia was published a few years ago, no reviewer could resist pointing out topics the author failed to address. "Sure, it's a good book, but there's no entry for cotton candy!" It's true that Davidson spends much time on fish and English food, his specialties, but this is the book to turn to when you need a brief history of any national cuisine or just to read an elegant essay on the topic of "washing up." For a reference work, this one is lovably eccentric: Davidson notes that the paca (an animal native to the Americas) is "regarded by some authorities as the tastiest of all rodents."

My collection began with "The Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook," a present when I went to college. It has since fallen apart and been replaced with a hardcover edition that sits on the shelf alongside about 200 other cookbooks (some of which came from my wife's collection). Cookbook collecting runs in my family. My mother, Judy Amster, has 3,000.