I recently bought this as a gift "for my wife". It's a collection of about 250 recipies from all over the world, with simple instructions to walk you through getting the ingredients, preparing and cooking. It has voice recognition (to go forward and back) so that you can keep your hands free - this was a little quirky for us, but worked reasonably well.

The recipe collection is great, and it's probably easier to use than a cookbook for many people. A very cool "game", and the kind of application that someone should develop for smartphones as well.