Ben - I'm not a professional in any sense of the word when it comes to cooking, but know what I like in a cook book. Have enough of them! and the collection keeps growing.
Some of my favorites have dual listing of imperial/metric measures in the ingredients list. Also colour pictures of some of the more unusual dishes, ones that people may have trouble picturing/ may not have seen before. And a good index at the back is essential. I prefer it when they have dual listings, say under the general catergory, e.g. chicken, beef, salads, and then under the actual recipe name alphabetically. Otherwise you get fed up lookiing for the name of the recipe thru the whole index and it gets frustrating.
And a list of oven temperatures - although most experienced cooks will know what mod hot oven etc means, and many other books have listed them before, its always handy to have it as a reference in the book you are reading, to save time referring to another book. A list of common cooking terms helps, doesn't need to be extensive, just some of the basics to help the learners out there.
One thing I find lacking in most cookbooks is dishes for breakfast - its all lunches, dinners and deserts. And then if they do, its mostly based on eggs eggs more eggs. Not everyone likes/can have eggs.
Well, enough from me. Good luck with it!!!
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