I have a crazy number but I am really tempted to join this very cool website called www.eatyourbooks.com . I haven't actually joined - yet ($25 per year) but what it does is allows you to find any recipe from your own recipe collection in seconds. So you enter all the cookbooks you own and blogs you subscribe to and then you can do searches on them. Best of both worlds...
madcow19, I am a big fan of eatyourbooks.com, even with the annual fee. It's pretty fun to type in a few ingredients and get suggestions for recipes from books I'd almost forgotten I had.
Due to space constrictions, I have a short cookbook library - 20 books at a time. I give them away when I'm no longer use them and borrow lots of stuff from my library, that has a wonderful culinary section. I'm actually envious that people have room for 400-plus books, that's my ultimate dream :)
I reduced my collection down to about 12 including a 1.5" 3 ring binder which is my to-do list, my go to book is the Flavor Bible (by Karen Page & Andrew Dornenburg), other than that I've been using the web, food52 and Food & Wine magazine.
Probably 5 or 6 hundred, give or take a few. I gave away a couple hundred a few years back when I colleague was establishing a library at the high school where he taught. Truly, I'm afraid to get rid of any more,because I've found myself looking for several I got rid of when I wasn't currently using them. And, since I've promised my collection to the Food Studies Program at NYU, I probably can't until I retire and give them the bulk of them. There are probably about 50-ish that I will never get rid of.
I try not to buy more, but.... my friends keep coming out with new ones, so I want to support them.
I forgot the binders of handwritten recipes, recipe boxes, magazines, clipped recipes as well as the binders of printed recipes from the web...and on and on. On an ironic note, I am a professional organizer, hanging head in guilt... a case of do as I say not as I do...
I recently moved and sold or gave away about 25 boxes of books.
I kept 25 boxes of cookbooks, I'll have to go count them but it
fills three bookcases. Love them all and refer to them often.
I counted 325+ and while adding them up found my Great Aunt Rose's cookbooks. She was a famously bad cook (she burned everything) but the recipes she wrote in longhand, especially the dandelion wine recipe, really touched my heart. Thank you for the prompt. I buy a lot of books second hand and have multiple copies of my favorites and out of print books just in case I want to gift them to new cooks. Vegetarian Epicure I and II anyone?
About 400 right now, maybe 3,000 over the years. Do I look at them now? No ... (I have an App for that)! In hindsight, all that money over all those years ... and now it's on your damn phone.
Far too many - 1,455! But as long as I have space for them I can't bear to part with them. And I do now use them a lot more since starting eatyourbooks.com. Given how many recipes they must contain, you would think I would never need to get a new one, but they keep seducing me (no willpower).
And like Pegeen I try to use the library. If they have a new book I'm thinking about in their collection, I'll try it out for free first and see if it's one I just enjoy reading once or if I "need" it.
I lost a lot of cookbooks and other books (plus other stuff) in a home flood. It has changed my home habits. I do not plan on replacing them. I am grateful for sites like this where I can get information when I need it. I often read cookbooks to lull me to sleep at night... the library is great for that.
I'm sure we could give you loads of suggestions! First, it would be helpful to know what sort of cook you are -- beginner or more experienced? -- and what sort of food interests you most.
I have 1 cookbook in my apartment that was a recent gift. But I have been accumulating 1000s of recipes in my Evernote notebooks from blogs, magazines, the occasional cook the book post, and Food52 of course. I try to keep up on organizing these recipes in a way that is useful to make it easy to find the tried and true favorites.
There are some books I would like to have but have not had the funds for since my move. There are a few ones that my mom has that are good references. I feel like I should get one of those. Any good suggestions?
I probably have about 150, plus a decent collection of magazines. And at any given time I have 5-10 out from the library for an audition. I, too will mention the insurance issue because I am in the process of increasing my coverage - do you all have enough coverage to replace your collection, along with your other possessions, should something happen?
In my kitchen I have two, relatively short, bookshelves where the cookbooks I use regularly live (you have to "earn" a spot in my kitchen!). Elsewhere in the house there are many more shelves filled with cookbooks. I feel like a wimp admitting it, but only buy/keep cookbooks that prove themselves useful, so the total is less than 100 and probably closer to 60. I ruthlessly and regularly purge (after, of course, binge-ing!).
I've never really counted, but between 75-100 on a bookcase dedicated solely to cooking. I had a moratorium on purchasing new cookbooks for 4 years which was only lifted about 6 months ago when I HAD to buy "Every Grain of Rice" by Fuchsia Dunlop.
I'm in the same league as dymnyno and a charter member of eatyourbooks. Lately, I've been buying cookbooks on Kindle for portability and in an attempt to convince myself I don't need to own the physical book. I do own a few in both formats, those I rely on more frequently.
A recent move was an excellent purging experience. One possession which was seriously culled was cookbooks. Ever since, I've maintained the vow to not fill the voids all over again. I have space in my closet, room on the closet floor, and space on bookshelves - for books as well as cookbooks. My collection of the latter is under 100, and I intend to keep it that way. I receive many as gifts, and regift many of those. I only have or keep what are genuinely important to me, whatever the reason. The number of truly significant new ones published each year is small, so re-accumulating the overflow is honestly not a temptation.
My cookbook collection is somewhere around 500 "real" books, and about 60 ebooks. Due to space limitations, I try to avoid buying new books, but it's a hard habit to break.
I'll ballpark it at 250, but sadly, I only use about 10% regularly...and yet, I can't seem to ditch the rest. Magazines are a different story. Those I've torn recipes out of and purged with no problem.
I hope y'all have considered your insurance policies. Generally you can't insure a "thing" in a useful way, unless it's over $1,000 or so. But if you had a large collection, that could be insured. And evaluated by the insurance company. Also worthwhile checking out sales of cookbook collections on eBay.
Maybe I am lucky. I "had" about 1,200, but got tired of lugging them around and not using most. The good ones I donated to various local libraries, the others to charities. The very good ones I donated as prizes for various events...and the extremely good ones (like my Salvador Dali, Bucose, first edition Julia etc) I kept.
I find most anything I need is on Google. I will sometimes search Google via "Google Images" and let that lead me to a recipe.
But lately I have been building a library of ideas and recipes on Food52 ! ! !
Maybe I am lucky. I "had" about 1,200, but got tired of lugging them around and not using most. The good ones I donated to various local libraries, the others to charities. The very good ones I donated as prizes for various events...and the extremely good ones (like my Salvador Dali, Bucose, first edition Julia etc) I kept.
I find most anything I need is on Google. I will sometimes search Google via "Google Images" and let that lead me to a recipe.
But lately I have been building a library of ideas and recipes on Food52 ! ! !
When we moved I took about 15 boxes of books to the resale shop and culled down to about 100. Needless to say it grows by one or two every time I go to the bookstore or something interesting pops up here.
I have about 40, although the count is rapidly growing. Don't scoff, I suppose I'm a fledgling compared to all the rest of you. After all I'm only 22! For heaven's sake!
Close to one thousand. A very good number. I do cull periodically but also buy so I think I am steady state. I live in a tiny row house in the Bronx so there are limits.
I have 421 that eatyourbooks.com recognizes plus some older, odder, or foreign ones that they don't include in their list 124,977. Every time I read that dymnyno has 2000, I think I should invite myself up to visit her.
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I try not to buy more, but.... my friends keep coming out with new ones, so I want to support them.
I kept 25 boxes of cookbooks, I'll have to go count them but it
fills three bookcases. Love them all and refer to them often.
In hindsight, all that money over all those years ... and now it's on your damn phone.
There are some books I would like to have but have not had the funds for since my move. There are a few ones that my mom has that are good references. I feel like I should get one of those. Any good suggestions?
I find most anything I need is on Google. I will sometimes search Google via "Google Images" and let that lead me to a recipe.
But lately I have been building a library of ideas and recipes on Food52 ! ! !
I find most anything I need is on Google. I will sometimes search Google via "Google Images" and let that lead me to a recipe.
But lately I have been building a library of ideas and recipes on Food52 ! ! !
You guys put me to shame!