Cook's Illustrated

A great way to get the full year of the Cook's Illustrated magazine in a high-quality, library-worthy binding. If you like your recipes in printed book form, or if you want to browse the recipes in magazine format, this is the way to go. You also get book reviews and the homey "flavor" of the magazine this way. BUT if you are a cook just looking for a very good recipe (a particular one, or one that uses a specific ingredient) or looking for information on certain ingredients or tools, I would recommend subscribing to the website, which gives you access to all previous years' recipes (you pay an annual fee). There, you can do simple searches, which is a lot faster than going to the magazine indexes in these annuals. The website has also recently been revamped and shows video intros and "how-to's" for certain recipes. I used to collect these annuals, but now subscribe to the website because it suits my needs better.

Every serious cook should subscribe to Cook's Illustrated. It's reviews on products, recipes, and technique are exhaustively thorough and the lack of paid advertising leaves little doubt that no bias exists.