Lets talk some more about our obsession with cookbooks.  Shall we disclose our inventory?  I will if you will.  I have not only pure cookbooks, but also cook/craft books, Christmas books with recipes, novels with recipes, and books about food, chefs, critics and restaurtants without any recipes.  My wish list is at least half cookbooks.

Annual series include Taste Of Home Annual, TOH Light and Tasty, Southern Living, Cooking Light, Gourmet, Food and Wine, Bon Appetit.  Mercy!!  And I am still looking for certain volumes to complete the series, or at least bring it up to date.  I saw some County Cooking annuals on the site, and I have 2002, thinking about the others, but what I should do is trade off the one I have. 

I am going to put an island in the kitchen with bookshelves in it as I have run out of shelf room in or near the kitchen.  Is that nuts, to add furniture to an already tiny kitchen just to have more shelf space for books I dont' have yet?  I think so.  I already removed the doors on the cabinet over the refrigerator and made it into an open bookshelf - for books I want to keep but rarely actually use.  Didn't use that cabinet for much anyway.  Thinking also of putting clear glass doors on the cabinet over the microwave and range, don't use it a lot either, but need to keep the grease off the books I might store there.

Anyone ready to share?

I'm not nearly as "far gone" on acquiring cookbooks as some of yez, it seems.  But I do believe in changing the ones you work from every once in a while.  For this summer place I now have, up north, I got a couple-three  "American" or "Prairie" or Midwest cookbooks, and have really been enjoying them. 

Sometimes I look for recipes at the public library for whatever food comes "in season".    Ha ha ha ........... I found one my family likes for zucchini (the veggie that is in overabundant supply in late summer).  It is in Spices of the World, a cookbook put out by the McCormick/Schilling spice company.

I always read the Taste section of the Star-Tribune, too, although sometimes some of the 'takes' on something strike me as some chef somewhere trying just too hard to do 'something NEW'.   But not always . . .  

I regularly use a recipe for spaghetti alla bolognese that I first read in a magazine called Apartment Living. back when I was single (that is. before September, 1955).   I can't use a "jar' sauce . . . . this family is contemptuous of such stuff.

A dozen or two Swedish dishes I make occasionally keep hubby (son of an emigrant) happy.  My late MIL wrote a few out, and gave me two different Swedish church ladies' cookbooks.   But we do NOT have lutfisk at Jul!   No way . . . . .no desiccated codfish for me!   and no "sill" (pickled herring), either!

And finally, I learn new things from my two grown daughters.  Of course, friends who cook and bake share recipes, and I think most of them are flattered when one asks for them.

OK all you lurkers, post your addiction.  The boards are more fun with more people participating!!

Bonnie, maybe you would share that recipe for the spaghetti alla bolognese?

Ooh goody!   Farmer Larry included a red cabbage in this week's bunch of produce, and I am making Sweet and Sour Red Cabbage from a delicious recipe from Spices of the World . . . . this Sunday dinner is going to get me compliments . . . .

I made PBS lists here of my books so that I could keep track!  I love cookbooks,  books about food, food related cozy mysteries, ect.  

I find I tend to cook from one cookbook/magazine for a while then move on to another.   Currently I am cooking from Blue Eggs and Yellow Tomatoes

by Jeanne Thiel Kelley.   I also have subscriptions to Taste of Home: Simple and Delicious and Healthy Cooking,  Whole Living and 

Cooking Light.

At the moment I am searching through my cookbooks for a good spanish style potato soup.  Any ideas?

My Grandmother started my love of cooking when I was 3. I used a stool and "helped" her make fried eggplant. She was an award winning cook, in our area, and TG she wrote down her recipes for everything from Thanksgiving Dressing to Fudge. I have her recipes, then inherited my Aunt's cookbooks when she died. So, I have a collection of really old 3G (third generation) cookbooks. IMO, if I obtain 2 or more KEEPERS from a new cookbook it was worth the price. Plus, I love to browse magazines and cookbooks of friends.

Mary

I agree - even finding just one really good recipe that works its way into my regular rotation makes a cookbook gold!   

Mary - how wonderful to have 3G cookbooks!  I have slowly been using the tastebook website to record the recipes I have received from my mom and grandmas,  plus my own favorites.  

I would like to create a cookbook so that I have them recorded, not only for my own use but so that I can easily pass them onto my kids.

Nicole: Another good reason for writing recipes down for your daughters and granddaughters is to avoid those long, expensive phone calls when one of them calls you asking "how do you make that ______________?   (Of course, that happened to me back when LD telephoning was expensive, and both my daughters had married and gone off  to live several states away!  Nowadays, that's not as 'pricey' a way to get a cooking lesson from Mom or Grandma as it used to be.)

"tastebook website"

Thanks Nicole, I did not know about "tastebook."

Mary

I was wondering....if you all had to pick your favorite cookbooks in your collection, what would they be?  I know I just asked the impossible!  LOL  Or - maybe...what cookbook or collection of cookbooks do you feel like your collection would not be complete without?  (I am always looking for more books to add to my wishlist)

I am not a vegetarian but I really enjoy the Moosewood cookbooks.  I will sit and browse and try new recipes from the books all the time.  I also use Nigella Lawson's "How to Eat" a lot.   The only downside to these books is that they have very few pictures  and I love seeing what the finished product looks like.

My top FAV is Giada de Laurentiis. I first purchased EVERYDAY ITALIAN, after watching the same named TV show. I have since purchased all of her cookbooks and found KEEPER RECIPES in each book. Her PASTA PRIMAVERA with roasted veggies is wonderful. The STUFFED TOMATOES with rice and basil is  another I use. 

My 2nd FAV is BAREFOOT CONTESSA'S BACK TO BASICS.  Also from her TV show. The special recipe from that book that I use over and over is her recipe for Italian Meatballs from the recipe ITALIAN WEDDING SOUP. I make the meatballs from freshly ground chicken breast in my food processor. I have never made the soup. The meatballs were too good without the soup. Also, her ROASTED BUTTERNUT SQUASH SALAD with WARM CIDER VINAIGRETTE is a keeper. However, peeling those butternut squash is slippery.

I also rely on my Mother's Meta Givens 2 volume cookbook, called ENCYCLOPEDIA OF COOKING. Very retro. 1959.

Mary

I guess you could say I had my eyes opened some years back about collecting things just for the sake of collecting things..........when I had to be soley responsible for dismantling my grandmother's entire household in order to sell it when she had to be placed in a nursing home @ 90 years old. She had so much excess of stuff.......crafts, cookbooks, magazines, sewing notions........it was hoarding at it's best. I decided right then and there I was NOT going to saddle my 3 kids with the same painful decisions and responsibilities when the time comes for me and my husband!!!! I started to look at "collecting things" through a fresh set of eyes. Grandma is gone now and I tried my best to give her worldly possessions to good homes or donate it.........unfortunately, a lot got tossed because others had too much of their own stuff to deal with.

Thus, began my long and slow process of "dejunking" my house (which I'm still working on by the way!) and that's when I decided to part with a lot of my cookbooks. However, thanks to PBS, I don't feel so bad because I know they are going to good homes of other book lovers. On the flip side, I have also picked up some more cookbooks because of PBS! LOL.........But I look at it like  PBS helping me become more selective and refine with my cookbook collection. I try to go with either the classics or specific diet related cookbooks rather than how I used to be...........buying anything and everything I would see in the stores just because and then never use half or most of them. There is something to be said for the old saying, "less is more"!!!!!!!!

Maybe it is a blessing that I married a military man.  LOL  In the last 10 years we have moved 7 times.  You have to really want something to pack and unpack it that many times!  So I am a little picky about what cookbooks I buy but I still collect a lot.  I would say at least half of my wish list is cookbooks. Every once in a while I find that I get a book that I don't want to keep and pass it on, but not often. 

However even though I love to read and look at cooking magazines, I have no desire to keep them.  After they are a couple months old I pull the recipes I want, add them to a binder and toss the magazine.   So wait....am I getting rid of magazines or am I slowly creating my own binder cookbooks?   

Haha, that's a very good question, Nicole! About the same as me getting rid of cookbooks but adding more to my list that I see available on PBS. I guess as long as we both don't go replacing our collections with as much or more than we just got rid of, we can still consider ourselves ahead of the game! I keep wanting to put my loose recipes in a binder but never do. However, I did buy a computer program for recipe collections called "Cook'n" and that's helped me get rid of a lot of those scraps of paper, cutouts or index cards I used to have laying all over the place. I've also cut way back on my magazine subscriptions and only buy every once in awhile at the grocery store. Like you said you need to be a little picky about what you are buying. Also, being an empty nest now, it's just too hard to cook at the pace and capacity I used to for the 5 of us. What I do like about cooking for two now is if you want to make recipes with more expensive ingredients, you can do it a lot cheaper for two than a family of 5!

P.S. Nicole........God Bless you and your family for living the all too often difficult life that military families live.........and many thanks to your husband for serving and protecting our great and wonderful country!!!!!!! I work for a local police station where many of them served our country (and still do!) so I have a deep appreciation and love for those serving and protecting. Not everyone like me gets to work with heroes every single day! :-)

I recently discovered the website EatYourBooks and managed to enter a number of my cookbooks.  By the time I was finished I was rather stunned to realize I have managed to acquire over 500 of them!

Many are in electronic format (including a number of Cooking Light Annuals that are in my MasterCook software program).  I belong to a group that formats all the recipes in each issue of Cooking Light so I am always assured a monthly infusion of new recipes! ;D

Some of my favorite cookbooks are The Frugral Gourmet series (as much as I deplore the accusations made against him in his later years I truly enjoyed his show).  I'm also a fan of EatingWell and Cooking Light cookbooks as well as numerous cookbooks focusing on diabetes and low-carb cooking.  Some of my favorites to read and enjoy include James Beards wonderful works, Julia Childs' later books (Way to Cook, Baking with Julia and her collaborations with Master Chefs).  I also love cookbooks by the Cook's Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen crew and Jacques Pepin.  I find that I am especially drawn to cookbooks by chefs whose shows I enjoy.  Although lately many of the Food Network shows have done nothing for me.

I have a fondness for various Gourmet and Bon Appetit cookbooks - especially those that focus on weekends and entertaiing.  And I had to have the Essential NY Times Cookbook as well as a number of those edited by Craig Claiborne and Pierre Franey's 60-Minute Gourmet classics.

Some cooksbooks I keep for the historical associations or family attachments - my father's Good Housekeeping Cookbook, my mother-in-law's Better Crocker Cookbook (both held together by tape and rubber bands).  I also have a series of older Betty Crocker, McCalls and Better Homes & Gardens cookbooks.  It's interesting to see how cookbooks have changed over time.  My BH&G from the 1940s and all the chicken recipes call for a whole chicken - no boneless, skinless chicken breasts or thighs and several recipes for preserving, canning and freezing the produce grown one's garden.

I find that I pefer cookbooks that I can enjoy reading as well as for cooking.  As as much as I might enjoy glancing through some of the more gourmet offereingsout there, my own preference is for more homestyle recipes and cooking methods.

But I completely understand the need to occasionally weed through one's collection to make room for new offereings.  I am regularly pruning those cookbooks I no longer feel the need to keep in order to make room for new favorites.  It is often a difficult decision and I have often ended up re-acquiring one that was let go before its time. ;D

It has been so enjoyable reading these entries.  While in the process of cleaning out from a flood, I thought I would take a break and do something that pleases me.

Food magazines - I get hand me downs from my mom.  Southern Living, Bon Apetite, Semi Homemade, and a few others.  With the clean up I don't have time to read a book so catching up on a a back log of magazines has been my entertainment.  I read, pull and toss.  Then I file the recipes I pulled into a box called recipes to try.  There are folders in that box with categories.  When I find a winner it then either gets typed up or the actual page gets placed into a protective sleeve and placed into one of my three ring binders that also have the same categories....maybe a few more.  So currently I have 3 3" 3 ring binders (was there an easier way to say that?) with successful recipes in them.  Years ago I also typed up all of my mom's and grandmom's successful recipes.  It was a huge project but I got er done.

Some of you mentioned cookbooks you use.  Out of the Giada one I love her Italian Wedding Soup.  Every recipe I have tried out of that one has been successful.  I saw her speak at last year's NY Food and Wine even.  She was adorable.

In Jacque Pepin's memoir his French Onion Soup was heavenly.

My go to cookbook is Joy of Cooking.  Computer is tie.

I too, find myself heading to the computer more then the library or a bookstore now.

I am really into salt although I just read an article that says these fancy salts do not have iodine which is necessary for your thyroid to work properly so keep that in mind.

I am glad cool weather is coming because I prefer one bowl foods.  Soups, stews and chilli.

I love reading food memoirs and own a ton and have read many.  Guess I will post that on that other entry you made.

Happy eating.

Debbie, I like those Bon Appetit weekend and entertaining books too.  I bought one at the library sale only to find I already owned it!  So, it will go on the bookshelf this weekend when I can get to listing some things.  I, too, have a copy of The Good Housekeeping Cookbook I received as a wedding gift, and it is the one I turn to when I need to know something basic like how long to cook a roast or turkey.

Nicole, I do the same thing with recipe magazines.  I use photograph albums, they have the sticky paper, and a clear acetate cover on the pages, so all I have to do is cut and stick it down.  I add sheet protectors to the binder (about 36 in each album) so I can just slide in whole pages when I want the whole thing.  I cut out the pictures too.  I have four of these filled up, and I need to get another one.  They provide so much inspiration when I have run out of ideas on what to have for dinner, or serve to guests.

For potlucks, I go to Taste of Home.  I love their Potlucks section of their cookbooks, as it gives quantities larger than just for a couple of people.

Thanks for the websites, I have not seen either EatYourBooks or Tastebook.  There was another thread on the main thoughts forum about cooking websites, and I found a couple more ideas there.  I mainly use two - Epicurious and Taste of Home.

The addiction continues, I received three more cookbooks in the mail this week. 

I have a bookshelf (the tall one from walmart type) filled and books piled in boxes on the floor in front of it - not counting individual recipes and recipes I've saved online. I really need to go through my books and cull them down - some I thought would be good but have tried several failed recipes..just hate to toss anything in case something else in it is worth it!

I will appreciate your favorite soup/gumbo/one-pot recipe. THis is the season.

Mary

I am adding a bunch of Christmas books that have half recipes and half decorating/craft ideas.  I have a few more cookbooks on the shelf now too.  But, no way will I ever get rid of all my cookbooks no matter how much I use the internet.  I still like the feel of a book in my hand.

Mary, I replied to your other thread about the one pot recipes.

I think I am begining to share in your obsession.  Although, my new cookbook collection is an interesting assortment of Raw, and Vegan books.  Whether or not I will ever use them remains to be seen - though obsessed still, lol. 

Well, I am still at it, I have received three cookbooks from PBS since Christmas and I just got two more on my wish list offered.  Of course, I had to accept!!

Please tell me the titles of the cookbooks that you received. I may need it!!!

Mary

OK, you remember, you asked!!

Recently Received -

The Best of Gourmet 1992 Featuring the Flavors of France

Bon Appetit Entertaining with Style

The Best of Gourmet 2003 Featuring the Flavors of San Francisco

On the way -

Taste of Home Annual Recipe collection 2007

The Best of Gourmet 2001 Featuring the Flavors of Sicily

I am really excited to get so many in the Gourmet series lately, these have been WL for quite a while.