For theory, I like Understanding DSP by Rick Lyons, which also has some nice "recipe-type nuggets".
More practical, and much more "nuggetty" is Streamlining DSP, same author. There's some really interesting stuff in there (IMHO!). Some of it is of the "lost knowledge" variety - especially in these days of just running Matlab's filter design functions. Some of it relates to limited hardware machines (which is great for tiny microcontroller or FPGA implementations).
The articles are written by serious, practicing DSP engineers (many of whom hang out on news:comp.dsp) in a very accessible style.
(I'm afraid I'm no good with cooking analogies though :)
