Cookbooks. How many do you have?
I just counted and I have 16. I have no idea why I keep buying them. Yesterday I picked up another one off the library sale table for $3.00 and everything in it looks SO GOOD!
Ina Garden Go-To Dinners. You can never go wrong with an Ina Garten cookbook but this one looks especially promising.
For starters the pictures are gorgeous, and her recipes are always really straightforward and contain hardly any oddball/hard to find ingredients.
Heirloom tomato and blue cheese salad? Yes please!
Maybe when the HH asks me what I want for my birthday this year I’ll pick out four recipes from this cookbook and ask him to make them for me.
Yes! I think that’s a grand plan, don’t you?
Breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert. Not all in one day though. Maybe over the course of a weekend?
What a great gift that would be. 🙂 I’m doing it!!
So cookbooks… How many do you have? Curious minds want to know.
Do you find yourself still buying them even with pretty much all the recipes online these days?
~Mavis
Tracy says
I have in excess of 100 cookbooks. I don’t even know why, I don’t really use them very often. I seldom use a recipe when cooking dinner. Crazy I know. But I just enjoy looking at cookbooks and most of them have been given to me or came from a thrift shop or yard sale.
Erin says
I hate using my phone for recipes. Every site has an obnoxious amount of ads these days, even on the “print” pages now. Or the page constantly reloads because I try to skip the ads, I definitely use cookbooks all the time. I have many go-to recipes where I don’t need one, but I love trying new recipes. I mostly have America’s Test Kitchen cookbooks (Mediterranean, Chinese, two gluten free ones), but I also have two great Vietnamese cookbooks (amazing soups!), the old school Better Homes and Gardens book, the one my mom put together of her family recipes, & a couple others. I found that I never used them until we remodeled a kitchen & put the cookbooks in a glass cabinet. They were out of sight, out of mind before that. Now I see them & use them every day, & it’s been great!
Mavis Butterfield says
I love the America’s Test Kitchen cookbooks and Cooking light. Some of the best recipes I’ve ever made are in those!
Erin says
Ohh! I’ll have to check out Cooking Light. I’ve never seen theirs. I bet my library has some I can borrow.
Nancy Settel says
Oh any old Ina Garten cookbook is great to me! I love them. That being said I don’t like to watch her on tv though. I have about 5 of hers and oh how many cookbooks all together? heaven knows . I just have always loved a good cookbook.
Carrie says
10… after a lot of downsizing I have the “cooky” cookbook my grandmother used, a photo album with hand written 3×5 recipe cards from over the years, a few basics and 4 of Ina’s. Her recipes are the right amount of elevated without being crazy complicated and I’m inspired every time I flip through them. Overall, I love her style, her memoir was one of my favorite reads.
Mavis Butterfield says
I liked her memoir too!
Dawn says
I probably have about 10 cookbooks. My most used ones are the stand-by Better Homes and Garden’s red and white checked one and my George Hirsch “Know Your Fire” cookbook, both of which I have had for probably 30 years. I can’t remember the last time I bought a cookbook. If anything, I’m now wondering if maybe I should donate them if I’m not going to use them.
Sue says
My cookbooks are mostly from pre-internet days. I love being able to look at multiple recipes for the same item and then cobble my own.
I do sometimes buy specialty cookbooks (anything by Ina Garten would certainly be worthwhile). My most recent one has recipes from old Cape Ann, Mass. inns and bakeries. But I bought it specifically to learn how to make authentic Anadama bread.
linda says
I keep buying them. Love Inas cookbooks. Have way to many.
Joely says
I have a whole bookcase full of cookbooks. They are treasured resources that I return to. Many are ones from loved ones who are now gone. The handwriting in the margins and signs of age/loving use are a great comfort and connection for me. I
Julie says
At one point I had more than 200, but have gotten rid of a lot of those. I do collect local, spiral bounds and/or older (pre 1960s) cookbooks. Otherwise I love Laurel’s Kitchen for vegetarian, any edition of Joy of Cooking, and the Wellesley Cookie Exchange for phenomenal cookies. There’s also Cook & Tell which is comprised of recipes and stories from a newsletter.
Mavis Butterfield says
I love cookie cookbooks!!
Christa H. says
Well…. good cookbooks and nice antique ones are my weakness since I taught cooking for many years. I do not like clutter, but I do like organized books in my home. Many are from library book sales, thrift books online, or gifts.
They all have a place to be since I have a library room and a large built in cookbook wall in my house that people love to peruse when they visit. They are organized by category. I do look through them for inspiration and they make me happy. I would guess by looking and counting the approximate number on each shelf that I have well over 1500….not joking. 🙂
Mavis Butterfield says
Oh my word! I would love to see that!! I’ve always wanted a “library” room.
Anne in VA says
I have a bunch although I have gotten rid of a lot. My go-to’s are the old Betty Crocker basic cookbook and some Pampered Chef ones from probably 25 years ago. Its sad when I keep the cookbook because I have one or two recipes in them that I love.
I mostly look online these days but there is a certain comfort to pulling out the old, semi-stained cookbooks from many years ago. I love a church cookbook also. I like to read through the names of the contributors and reminisce about times past.
Carla says
I did downsize a few years ago. I think I’m down to only 4 or 5 of the really treasured ones. I rarely try new things in the kitchen unless it’s a mod of a dish I already do. If I do try a new recipe, it’s often from a search on the internet.
I have at least 3 of the old time church cookbooks that I pull baked goods out of, but most main dishes are variations on the same dinners I usually make, so no recipe is needed.