There are way too many cookbooks out there. When I go to our local new/used bookstore, I can spend many hours flipping through the pages. And sometimes it’s easy to covet cookbooks (any books, really!). But I find that ultimately, I prefer to have fewer books on my shelf — just the basics. Otherwise, the clutter drives me crazy both literally (I’ve got a small book shelf after all) and figuratively (even with a relatively small cookbook collection of perhaps a dozen books, there must be a jillion recipes I could choose for dinner tonight!!) So, here are the books that I have on my shelf:
My Kitchen Book Shelf
Betty Crocker’s Cookbook – the ninth printing of the 1969 copyright.
The Enchanted Broccoli Forest — Mollie Katzen
The Joy of Cooking — Irma S. Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker and Ethan Becker
Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home — The Moosewood Collective
The New Laurel’s Kitchen — Laurel Robertson, Carol Flinders, and Brian Ruppenthal
The New Moosewood Cookbook — Mollie Katzen
The Vegetarian Cookbook – editor Nicola Graimes, by Parragon Publishing
The Vegetarian Epicure — Anna Thomas
The Bottom Shelf
Afternoon Teas — Between Friends publication
Cheese Primer — Steven Jenkins
The Laurel’s Kitchen Bread Book — Laurel Robertson, Carol Flinders, & Bronwen Godfrey
The Tassajara Recipe Book — Edward Espe Brown
The Recipe Box
I’ve got a little wooden recipe box that is absolutely stuffed with recipes, many from family and friends. I’m not much for clipping recipes, but few I have clipped I often will add to my …
Favorites Recipe Book
This is a great spiralbound little recipe book in which I keep some of my favorite recipes. Because the book is handier in my small kitchen, I often copy favorite recipes from the recipe box into the book.
I love the library …
Since I’m really not interested in collecting cookbooks, I really like hanging around the library’s cookbook shelves. It’s a kick to pick through the shelves randomly, or when I get curious about a particular cuisine not fully covered in my small library. I’d be interested to hear from you about your favorite recipe books — maybe I’ll check them out!
