> This is a basic cookbook. It is intended to help two sorts of people: first, those who are just beginning to cook and say they don't even know how to boil water, and second, those who have been trying to cook for a while and wonder why their meals don't taste like mother's cooking or the food in good restaurants.
Cookbooks? I find celebrity cookbooks to be sort of dumb but there are plenty of great American food cookbooks out there and that might be right up her alley.
http://www.amazon.com/James-Beard-Cookbook/dp/1569245347/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1292871063&sr=8-1 for starters.