Cooking for Dummies Cookbook

Ok, Dan Goodman's comments in a different thread got me to thinking what is good source for a primer or starter cookbook that aren't kids or college students when it hit me.

Look to see if there existed a "Cooking for Dummies" cookbook and Lo and Behold! Such a thing exists!

Now, I'm a computer programmer by profession and someone that likes to learn something by playing around with it. My wife, OTOH, has to have some kind of structured training to learn, say, a new computer program. One time, I upgraded the software on her PC and deleted WordPerfect from her PC and replaced it with MS Office. Let's just say that I ate a lot of fast food for a few weeks because of it and let it go at that, shall we? Anyways, she's screaming about how she doesn't know how to use MS Word, so thinking fast I told her to buy a book on it. She went and purchased MS Word for Dummies. She, in about a week spending a couple of hours each night, learned how to do stuff I, who had been using it for a couple of years, didn't even know it could do.

So I'm thinking this may not be a bad way to approach cooking. Get one of those "for Dummies" book. Has anyone tried them? Would you recommend them? I'm looking for a source that I can refer to that will explain, hopefully with pictures, the how-to's of techniques. Like, how to hold a knife while dicing. How to hold the other hand while dicing. I've tried the curled-under technique and I have to admit that not only does it look awkward when you see someone doing it, it's even more awkward (IMO) while doing it oneself.

If "Cooking for Dummies" isn't as good as another source, please let me know.

TIA, Bret

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