Ahh, cookbooks. I love cookbooks! Cookbooks are another serious obsession for me. I love to look at them, read them like books, look at the pretty pictures, dream about all of the recipes I want to try, etc. I use those little post-it flags sometimes to mark the pages of the recipes I want to make. I always have the best of intentions. And yet, I rarely cook out of them. I do try a few things, but for the most part, I just like to have them to look at and maybe use “one day”.
I also daydream about the day when I get a bigger kitchen and I can put my cookbooks on some shelves in the kitchen, or nearby. Right now, the majority of my cookbooks are in an old bookcase in the hall, nowhere near my kitchen. One day, I hope to have a built-in set of shelves on the side of an island or cabinet, or maybe a built-in desk area with shelves above it, so I can display my favorite cookbooks. I do have a few in the kitchen, in a wooden cookbook stand on top of my refrigerator. But, I have so many that storing them is an issue. Some of them are here:
That’s today’s Question of the Day: Do you like cookbooks? Do you buy many cookbooks? Do you cook out of them much, if you do? And equally important, where do you store yours? If you really want to get all involved with your answer, give me a ballpark estimate on how many cookbooks you have. You can also tell me which one is your favorite, if you can pick just one. I can’t! 🙂
P.S. I’m cheating again, and using this for today’s photo over at my Project 365 blog. Blogger privilege 
I love cookbooks too! I try to only buy one a year! I have really enjoyed the Southern Living and Taste of Home yearly collection cookbooks. Those are my very favorite! I probably have around 30 cookbooks.–(Concerning the Hallmark movie–this particular movie just showed for the first time on Saturday night–it is the latest of a whole series of movies!)
Um…yep. I don’t buy that many. Most of mine have been gifts. I keep them in a bookcase right by my kitchen. Hmmm…I don’t know how many I have. Possibly between 20-30 (some because of my “pretty” cookbooks that I don’t cook from but decorate with!). I do have one specific one on my list…Sara Foster’s cookbook. I hear it’s really good.
Well, I don’t really like to cook any more. I do it out of necessity. I do have a decent amount of cookbooks stored in a drawer.
My favorites are Taste of Home.
I love looking at cookbooks. I have about 25 of them. But although I love to look at the fancy schancy ones I find I gravitate the most toward the ones that use everyday ingrediants that I have or will use again. My favorite and most used one is my very first. Betty Crocker. It’s literally falling apart and held together with duct tape. I can’t find the exact one anymore to replace it. Another fave is Creative International Cookbook with bright glossy pages and pictures and recipes easily made from around the world. My next purchase will be Ina Garten’s Family cookbook which has been highly recommended by several people I know.
Do you like cookbooks? Yes
Do you buy many cookbooks? I love buying them. Not for myself but for my husband who loves cooking.
Do you cook out of them much, if you do? My husband does but he also enjoys making some variations to fit his taste.
And equally important, where do you store yours? He puts them on the shelves near the kitchen.
If you really want to get all involved with your answer, give me a ballpark estimate on how many cookbooks you have. I’m not really sure.
You can also tell me which one is your favorite, if you can pick just one. I love his dessert cookbook. 🙂
I have about 20 cookbooks, but only use maybe 2 or 3 of them. Like Susanne, I have an old Betty Crocker, a Better Homes & Garden, and I think a Good Housekeeping that I use most often. I see you have a Fix-It and Forget-It. I’ve looked at that one a few times, but haven’t bought it yet. I do have a recipe box that had been my mother’s and I use some of her old recipes. Plus I made up a loose-leaf binder of recipes that I use a lot – most of them from online sites. I keep all of them in my pantry in the kitchen, so they’re close by when I need them.
Oh, I also like those little bound cookbooks that are put out by women’s clubs or churches and such that have recipes submitted by members. I like simple foods and simple recipes. No Galloping Gormet for me!
Do I like cookbooks? Do cats like to sleep??? I love cookbooks. I use them almost everytime I make dinner, because I can not remember all the little ingredients that maybe needed off the top of my head. I too do the sticky flag thing, but just for what will be made during the week, since I don’t have a menu plan specifically day by day.
I have about 30 cookbooks in the room next to the kitchen, though I will admit that one is a drink book, one is a cookie book and one is for the bread machine, so they may not get used too often.
oh and Rachel Ray’s magazine too.
I am a fan of the cookbook 🙂 I have a baker’s rack in my kitchen that I store about 15 on, the rest are in with my other books.
The one that I use the most is “Saving Dinner” by Leanne Ely, the Fly Lady’s friend! It has really awesome recipes in it.
I also have several Rachael Ray cookbooks that I like a lot.
I think we should ask Org Junkie to ask the menu plan Mondayers to choose one recipe from their favorite cookbook and post it next week 😀
Sherry
I like cookbooks for the same reasons you do. I started to get an obsession about buying them (during our early years of marriage), but I made myself stop. I have so many good recipes in the books I DO have, that I decided to stop buying new ones. I have about ten. My favorite is one called Light Cooking.
I do love cookbooks. I’ve got a bookcase in the kitchen for them. It also houses my Taste of Home and Simple & Delicious and Food & Family magazines. My rule is I can’t buy any more than will fit in the bookcase. But to be perfectly honest, I rarely use them. I do use my Simple & Delicious mags a lot though.
Ahh. I love cookbooks too! I buy them. Collect them. Read them. Study them (yes I”ll go through 3-4 to find the perfect recipe for something. I do not buy the annual ones like Taste of Home anymore. I need to save room for all the others I enjoy much more!
Great QOTD as usual!!!
I have tons of cookbooks and used to read them like books, as well. I just don’t have the time to read them like that anymore. I also don’t buy them as often as I used to. Many of them are *church* cookbooks, as I think they’re the best. Alot of my collection was passed on to me from my Grandma who loves cookbooks, as well. I do cook from them but not too often. As for where I keep them … some are ina disginated kitchen cabinet and the others are in a wooden chest I have.
I also have tons of cookbooks…probably close to 100 (or more)! I have many “church” type cookbooks, many from the Taste of Home family (I love those $5 sales), and then a huge variety. I do a lot of baking from my Betty Crocker Best of Baking, My DH is Italian so I have many Italian cookbooks-the one I use the most is “The Men of the Pacific Street Social Club Cook Italian”, I regularly use teh Good Housekeeping and Better Homes and Gardens Cookbooks, the Fix-It and Forget-It, and I get all of the Taste of Homes magazines, but the one I use the most is Simple and Delicious. I find several new recipies in each issue; many work “as-is” and others need adjustment to my family…so I make it and make notes on the page until it is perfected…then copy it on a recipe card. I copy many on recipe cards when my DH classifies them as “keepers”. 🙂
Love cookbooks! I still buy cookbooks even though I try to convince myself that I can find any recipe I’d want on the internet. There’s something about sitting at the table looking through pictures, reading recipes, tearing a bit of paper to mark ones that sound good that cannot be duplicated in an internet experience. I usually try a few recipes from each book. Some have become favorites, most are enjoyed that one time and then forgotten about.
I probably have 1-2 hundred cookbooks. I’m counting the paperback ones you buy at the grocery store – Pillsbury, etc. I have a shelf in my dining room for knick-knacks that has groupings of hardback cookbooks. And I have the cutest little shelf I bought at a junk dealer for #4 that I’ve painted and it holds all the little paperback ones. It’s five shelves high, each shelf about 15″ long. Then I have a drawer that holds all my Pampered Chef cookbooks and recipe cards. On the kitchen counter, next to the microwave are my two 3-ring binders. One holds my own favorite recipes that I typed up and the other is a cookbook we put together for a family reunion. It has recipes from all the families.
Plus, every summer, after school is out, I check out stacks of cookbooks from the library. Summer is when I get adventurous and try new recipes.
Good question! No, I don’t buy cookbooks–almost all that I have were gifts. I store them in a small cabinet above the stove. Not the best place for them, but at least it is in the kitchen. Some of them I just like to browse and some (like the Joy of Cooking) I use a lot. I bet I have around 20 cookbooks.
Have a great day!
Do I like cookbooks? I’ll use the phrase that you said you didn’t get: do Baptists drive buses? lol!
Yes I like them, but you knew that. I buy them sometimes, get them as gifts, like from you 🙂 I like to read them, look over them, collect them and occasionally cook from them…..I probably tend to mostly use local ones that came from say a church or civic group. I even bought one this past summer from the dude ranch we went to in Colorado, have read it but cooked nothing from it! Now that I have organized my recipes in a binder, that is what I use the majority of the time.
Probably have 20-30 and they are on shelves in the kitchen, a few stray ones are on the office shelves.
You have just given me an idea about a Wordless Wednesday picture:-). I love, love cookbooks also. I have actually downsized them a bit so I can fit them on shelves in my kitchen *giggles*. I use tons of my books, but actually I have never followed a recipe all the way. I just use them as a refernece so to speak, I have to add my own touches to all the recipes is use*giggles*. I also have a few of the recipe type books that you hand write in. I have recipes boxes too, that house recipes handed down to me by some special people that are no longer here:-). I find that if you take a book down and each week take one of the recipes and make an effort to cook it. You’d be suprised how fun it is to incorporate them into a weekly routine :-).
Have fun !!!
I love cook books, cooking magazines and the Food network. I will say I have cooked more out of the small town cookbook that was put together by the community then I do the bigger Betty Crocker types. I don’t know why though. I look through them, and like you, have good intentions about making them and even mark the pages but usually don’t come back to them. I don’t know why that is.
I don’t have tons of them. About 15 or so I would say. I keep them on a large built in shelf in my dining room. I use more recipes that I see on TV or I will get an idea and run with it but in my own way and taste. I also get alot online. Maybe I should challenge myself to make some in my books.
Thank you for the inspiration.
I LOVE COOKBOOKS!! As do all your commenters is seems! I just picked up a Sandra Lee Semi Homemade cookbook at Costco the other day. I loved looking through it and picking out the things I would love to make. I also love laughing at the ABSURD recipes that I have NO intention of ever making! I have a TON of them because when I got married, my mom split between my sister and I the little ones by Betty Crocker you can pick up at the grocery store, and so I have about 500 of those, since my mom has been collecting them as long as I can remember!
I have meant to tell you that we bought two new cookbooks this month:
Fix It And Forget It 5 Ingredient Favorites Comforting Slow Cooker Recipes by Phyllis Pellman Good
and the
Fix It and Forget It Cookbook Feasting with your Slow Cooker by Phyllis Pellman Good.
Might be getting some new ideas from them! We love cookbooks!
Oh good heavens! You know I don’t cook, but I have more cookbooks than the local library. 🙂 I even get 4 cooking magazines.
Most of my cookbooks are displayed on top of a DVD storage unit that has turned into a Vader’s stuff storage unit in the kitchen. But, I mostly cook out of my Light & Tasty and Quick Cooking magazines.
Together Jeff & I managed to prepare a crock-pot receipe for dinner. Funny that it took two of us, but it was really really good. (Those five-hour cooktimes don’t work well for someone who is away from home for over nine hours a day.)
I have about 10 cookbooks at the moment. Once or twice a year, I purge them and pass along to others. (now I’ll know where to send them to!) I tend to hop online and find a recipe if I need one, then add it to my binder. My favorite one is probably the Fort Bragg OWC (Officers Wives Club) that I’ve had for about 10 years now. It’s one of those that lots of people contribute to. I do enjoy looking at cookbooks, but cannot justify buying new ones since I so rarely use them to cook from.
I have a few in a wood rack on top of the refrigerator and the rest are in a cupboard above my canned goods. I only keep 2 or 3 cans of each item at a time, so that cupboard is rarely full.
It’s so good to be back and visiting again. It will take me forever to catch up on everyone’s posts for the last 10 days!
I like cookbooks but don’t really collect them. My favorites are the ones that have low fat recipes and include the nutrition information. I keep them in the cabinet above the stove. I don’t have a whole lot, so they fit. Most of them are free paper cookbooks I receive in the mail like Kraft Foods. I do have some church cookbooks and Pampered Chef cookbooks. I mostly make desserts out of them because I can’t resist the pictures!!
I like cookbooks too! We have around 20 or so. This does not include my Kraft magazines. Our prize possession is a handmade cookbook that was handed down from Alan’s mother. She was a person that loved being in the kitchen. She had some great recipes, and they are all cherished treasures now that she is gone. I will say that we don’t cook out of the cookbooks as often as we should, even though we say we want to try new things all of the time! We keep our cookbooks in a shelf above the spices in a kitchen cabinet. They are out of reach for me, unless I get my step stool.
P.S. How is the fence coming along?
I love cookbooks but they have to have lots of colorful pictures in them. I like to be able to visualize the outcome.
[…] My Thursday Thirteen this week is dedicated to my blogging buddy, Stacey at Exceedingly Mundane in response to her cookbook post earlier this week. I wanted to leave a comment on her question of the day but I didn’t have time so I decided instead to spin it off into a post of my own. […]
Stacey, I answered your cookbook question in my Thursday Thirteen today. Stop by when you get a chance!
Have a great Thursday!
Hi! This is my first visit to your site and I just had to jump in on the cookbook question. I love cookbooks! I probably have 65-70 of my own and my dd12 has started a collection for herself. She probably has 5 -7 so far. We love to sit and browse through them. They are inspiring and calming…even if I never cooked a thing out of them. I have several favorites: My old Betty Crocker, Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon, Hearth and Home by Karey Swan, and a Mennonite cookbook called Heart and Hearth (this one is autographed by the authoress!).I also have one very beautiful one full of watercolor paintings called Perfect Picnics (sigh). Let’s see, I should mention Fix it and Forget it and of course the very best, as far as tried and true delicious recipes are the old church cook books. They are always full of the best of the best Pot luck recipes! Yes, I do buy them…we have a huge old used bookstore with a cooking section that I could spend days in! I store all of these on an old small shelf right inside the kitchen…it is overflowing!
This is so funny. I have probably 15 cookbooks. And I’ve used one of them exactly once.
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