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Some people have family Bibles, and for Traister's family, the Bible just happened to be a cookbook.
For my family, it's The Fannie Farmer Cookbook. When I moved out of the house, my parents insisted it was the only cookbook I needed. When my sister was sent off to Germany while in the Army, I bought her a copy.
We were not transformed by FFC's somewhat traditional cuisine, but I cannot make an apple crisp, a bread pudding, or countless other dining staples without grabbing my copy and turning its food-splattered pages. (You should see the page with the recipe for Newberg sauce; it's barely legible.)
My mom's original copy (a paperback) is yellowed, coverless, broken into sections, and held together with a rubberband.
