I am not a professional chef, and it is very, very unlikely that I will ever be in the future. However, when I stumbled across “The Professional Chef” put out by the CIA, it looked interesting, so I bought it.
WOW. This has got to be the BEST instructional book I have ever laid hands on. It basically has everything you would ever need to know to cook anything whatsoever. Tons of excellent photos and descriptions of techniques and ingredients and common/popular bases and recipes.
It is geared towards professionals – the recipes are 10+ servings, but scaling down a recipe certainly isn’t that difficult.
And on a subject that is very near and dear to my heart – they have an entire chapter on potatoes.
It’s over 1200 pages, weighs a ton and isn’t too expensive through Amazon.com.
Wish I’d gotten hold of this years ago.