I know almost the entire civilized world hates him with his "pukka" Essex boy image, but if you give him a chance, Jamie Oliver has written some really really good books with nice simple (and not much washing up) recipes. He advocates the use of tinfoil parcels to cook stuff in the oven, reducing the need to scrub baking sheets and the like - which is always a plus point in my book! I would recommend his first book "The Naked Chef" to start with - it's so good he's even got a culinary challenged bloke like me cooking my own bread! (and no, i'm not his agent.)