Classic Margarita: Mix equal parts Triple Sec, Tequilla, and lime juice. Use fresh lime juice if you can; add sugar if you must. No Cointreau.

Nibby Cream: Heat cocoa nibs with cream. Let it luxuriate for 20 minutes, strain, then chill and whip the cream. Than which there is no better. For details and more, see Bittersweet

40-Garlic Chicken: Cut one chicken into parts and brown deeply with 40 garlic cloves, separated but with paper skins left on. Toss into casserole dish with a pint of chicken stock and half a bottle fruity white wine. Add sprigs of fresh thyme and salt; bake, tightly covered, for 45 minutes at, say, 375 degrees. Don't forget bread: the juices are divine; the garlic heavenly. A caveat: use free-range chicken only. Not because they taste better, but because it's the right thing to do.

• Necessary Dreams: Ambition in Women's Changing Lives. Anna Fels.
  Even more than a meditation on ambition, an exploration about the moral importance that recognition plays in people's lives
  
• Women Don't Ask: The High Cost of Avoiding Negotiation—and Positive Strategies for Change. Linda Babcock.
  Message of the book: it don't hurt to ask; and it can hurt—in overall lifetime earnings—not to
  

• How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk. Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish.
  The Bible
  
• Siblings Without Rivalry. Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish.
  Surprisingly easy steps that are surprisingly effective (and cartoons make it go down fast)
  
• Sex & Sensibility: The Thinking Parent's Guide to Talking Sense About Sex. Deborah Roffman.
  The best book on sex communication out there for, parents and school teachers alike. I've assigned it to my undergraduates, too. :)
  
• Yes Your Teen Is Crazy: Loving Your Kid Without Losing Your Mind. Michael Bradley.
  A book beautifully sympathetic to the life of adolescents, it also translates new evidence on brain development (and its, ummm, lack) into concrete advice to dealing with said adolescent.
  

• Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior. Judith Martin.
  
  
• Miss Manners' Basic Training: The Right Thing To Say. Judith Martin.
  Operationalizing kindness. Best line: originality is over-rated when it comes to congratulations and condolences; thoughtfulness ain't.
  

• Crossing to Safety. Wallace Stegner.
  Semi-autobiographical by a master, it tells the story of two academic couples—and is one of the most beautiful studies of gratitude in modern literature.
  
• The Nice and the Good. Iris Murdoch.
  One of her classic studies in moral psychology, it is also a rousing good romp
  
• Middlemarch. George Eliot.
  'Nuff said
  

• A.J. Ayer: A Life. Ben Rogers.
  
  
• A Life of H.L.A. Hart. Nicola Lacey.
  
  

• Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. Annie Lamott.
  
  
• Elements of Programming Style. Brian W. Kernighan and P. J. Plauger.
  Hey, my geeky husband has been hacking my list again
  
• The Deluxe Transitive Vampire: The Ultimate Handbook of Grammer for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed. Karen Elizabeth Gordon.
  
  
• The New Well-Tempered Sentence: A Punctuation Handbook for the Innocent, the Eager, and the Doomed. Karen Elizabeth Gordon.
  
  
• They Say/I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing. Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein.