L.A. Times Cookbook Hotlist

1.’The Cake Mix Doctor” by Anne Byrn (Workman, $14.95). How to turn a box cake into something special.

Last Week: 1

Weeks on List: 49

2.”Sugar Busters!” by H. Leighton Stewart, Morrison C. Bethea, Sam S. Andrews and Luis Al Balart (Ballantine Books, $23.95). Lose weight the New Orleans way.

Last Week: 3

Weeks on List: 4

3.”Mexico One Plate at a Time” by Rick Bayless (Scribner, $35). The companion piece to the master instructor’s PBS series.

Last Week: 7

Weeks on List: 15

4.”How to Cook Everything” by Mark Bittman (Hungry Minds, $25). A fresh approach to the cooking encyclopedia, with more than 1,500 recipes.

Last Week: 8

Weeks on List: 112

5.”Kitchen Confidential” by Anthony Bourdain (Bloomsbury Publishing, $24.95). Life in the culinary trenches.

Last Week: 2

Weeks on List: 36

6.”Julia’s Kitchen Wisdom” by Julia Child (Knopf, $19.95). Distilling 50 years of great cookbooks.

Last Week: 5

Weeks on List: 10

7.”Charlie Trotter Cooks at Home” (Ten Speed Press, $32.50). A Trotter book for the kitchen, not the coffee table.

Last Week: --

Weeks on List: 1

8.”Hot Sour Salty Sweet” by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid (Artisan, $40). A brilliantly photographed tour of the food of Southeast Asia.

Last Week: --

Weeks on List: 1

9.”The New Joy of Cooking” by Irma S. Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker and Ethan Becker (Scribner, $35). The updated version of the cooking classic.

Last Week: --

Weeks on List: 46

10.”Eat More, Weigh Less” by Dean Ornish (Harper Paperback, $6.99). Low-fat cooking advice from the well-known author.

Last Week: 4

Weeks on List: 4

Rankings are based on a Times poll of national and independent cookbook sellers.