Food & Wine Magazine's Annual Cookbook

I love these recipes either directly from the book or using them for ideas and modifying them accordingly. This particular year, 2000, has some of the best soups I've seen from these books over the years. My girlfriend loves them and requests them again and again. Personally, I think dishes, if made from a recipe, should be made as closely as possible to the original the first time (of course altering certain ingredients if you can't eat them or stand them), that way you are more likely to find new and interesting taste combinations that you otherwise probably wouldn't have discovered. After that, as far as I'm concerned, it's open season on modifying it to your taste.