s/o Best of Lists -- Cookbooks

RiverPlate · December 2013

How often do you buy cookbooks?

I feel like I have a lot of cookbooks, and I have maybe 15, many were gifts when we got married, and I probably only use four regularly. It surprised me how many of the 'best of' lists included a category for cookbooks, and had multiple contenders. I tend to think of foodie books as memoirs with a few recipe ideas thrown in for sparkle (Anthony Bourdain, Ruth Reichl) or food awareness (Joel Salatin), and not really 365 Days of Soup.

booneybear · December 2013

I love cookbooks. I have a ton and I keep buying more.

SusieBW · December 2013

We have a bunch, but we use the America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook like it's the holy grail of cookbooks. There are maybe one or two others that we ever look at. Most of the others should really get out of my pantry to make room for other stuff.

I would very much like to own both volumes of Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, though I'm not sure I'd ever really use them.

Menrandes · December 2013

I have a bunch. Mine all used to be primarily cookie cookbooks because I love to make cookies. But now they are gluten free/paleo/primal cookbooks. Specifically gluten free recipes were easy and basically "buy a gluten free version of such and such an ingredient". The paleo/primal books opened up my eyes to how much fun cooking really was and how creative you can be. So I love cookbooks.

SnShne322 · December 2013

I probably have about 30. There are only 2-3 that I use often and one includes my self made one. by self made, I mean the magazine clippings and printed recipes that I put in plastic sleeves in a binder. I use that the most.

SusieBW · December 2013

SnShne322 said:

I probably have about 30. There are only 2-3 that I use often and one includes my self made one. by self made, I mean the magazine clippings and printed recipes that I put in plastic sleeves in a binder. I use that the most.

I need to do this. I have a messy pile of papers crammed into a corner of one cupboard, wedged in by the plates. Take out menus are mixed into the same pile SUCH a mess.

sfgiantsjo · December 2013

SusieBW said:

SnShne322 said:

I probably have about 30. There are only 2-3 that I use often and one includes my self made one. by self made, I mean the magazine clippings and printed recipes that I put in plastic sleeves in a binder. I use that the most.

I need to do this. I have a messy pile of papers crammed into a corner of one cupboard, wedged in by the plates. Take out menus are mixed into the same pile SUCH a mess.

I copied down a ton of recipes that my mom and and I had gathered over the years into a notebook and decorated it with stickers and stuff and then gave it to my Mom for Christmas one year. The recipes were ones we loved form random cookbooks, or cut from a magazine, or even family recipes no one had ever really written down before. My mom loved it, but MAN it was a lot of work!

Pebble_Cafe · December 2013

I love cookbooks! I don't buy too often because they get expensive plus many are hit or miss. I usually borrow from the library to test them out. If it's one that I really like I'll buy it.

Not cookbooks, but I love Cook's County and Cook's Illustrated magazines.

My very-much-loved cookbook is a Puerto Rican one my mother's cousin gave her and in turn I "borrowed". I love it because it has all the recipes similar to how my grandmother cooked.

ThisModernLove · December 2013

I thought I had a lot at 10! I want more though for real.

I mainly turn to my Cook's Illustrated full huge cookbook and my Mark Bittman books.

booknerd226 · December 2013

I have about seven or eight. I use none of them lol. I need to sit down and go through them and bookmark several recipes to try but I keep making the same ol' stuff instead.

GilliC · December 2013

I just dumped my cookbook collection in my last move. I had about 2-3 dozen, and I culled it down to a dozen.

It's so much easier to look recipes up online that the only ones I use regularly are my basic Better Homes & Gardens New Cookbook (which I've had since college and is now in many pieces) and some regional cookbooks for things that are harder to find online in English.

angelrx4 · December 2013

I ask for a cookbook every year for Christmas. I have 2 binders full of hand written recipes and magazine clippings as well. Like @shshne322 I use those most often. I probably have about 20 cookbooks and use 2 regularly.

booneybear · December 2013

Not only do I have a ton of cookbooks but I have issues of Bon Appetit, Gourmet, Food & Wine and Cooking Light from 2009 through the present. That is a shit-ton of magazines.

CeeCeeSugaPie · December 2013

I probably have about 30-40 cookbooks. My favorite is a hand made one from a bank I used to work at. Everyone had contributed to it and then sold it for charity. The bank was on Maryland's Eastern Shore and most of the contributers were the wives, daughters, etc. of watermen. Tons of delicious seafood recipes!

RhymeReason · December 2013

SnShne322 said:

I probably have about 30. There are only 2-3 that I use often and one includes my self made one. by self made, I mean the magazine clippings and printed recipes that I put in plastic sleeves in a binder. I use that the most.

I do this too. I have one binder that's just chicken and one that sectioned off with stuff like apps/deserts, sides, beef, etc. Plus with plastic sleeves the recipes stay cleaner when I am cooking.

I also made one for a friend for her shower of my favorite recipes and a print out I found once of all kinds of useful substitutions for just about everything when you don't have an ingredient.

One Sweet Shannon · December 2013

I used to have a ton of cookbooks, but other than a few favorite recipes, I didn't use them much. My favorites are How to Cook Without a Book by Pam Anderson, which is mostly about technique and being able to come up with variations on each technique, and The Family Circle Good Cook's Book, which isn't really a cook book, but a general kitchen reference book. My favorite sources for recipes are Cooking Light and allrecipes.com.

I used to deal with magazine clippings and web printouts, too, but I don't do that anymore. Now when I find a recipe I want to try I email myself the link and a copy of the recipe, plus any notes from reviews that I think are helpful, and any of my own personal notes. I file it in a folder for recipes to try, and refer to my ipod or kindle while I'm making the recipe. I move any successes over to a recipes to keep folder and add any other notes from when I actually made the dish. I used to do this with Toodledo (evernote, dropbox, etc. would work as well) but I just find it easier with gmail. That way, too, I can look up ingredients at the store from my phone or ipod, which has been so helpful.

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