Do you see this chaotic, disorganized pile of books?
Yep. It’s my cookbook collection. (Because I am all about things being perfectly organized.)
This is where my chaotic cookbook box usually resides. (Summer is doing her best Puzzled Yorkie
Imitation for reasons only she understands.)
Last Saturday, as I wrestled the top books out-of-the-way so that I could find the book I was looking for at the bottom, it occurred to me that there had to be a better way of storing those indispensible-to-my-existence books. I definitely wanted to keep them close to the kitchen (for obvious reasons), but was not immediately aware of any nearby place that could accommodate the organization of a dozen or more books.
While I pondered my Cookbook Conundrum, I sat down for a minute and started leafing through a few of the books. Before I knew it, half an hour had passed as I transported myself down memory lane reliving good memories, good recipes and good times.
Take this book, for example. Some friends of ours gave it to us as a wedding gift thirty-one years ago and I have loved it and used it often. (As you can tell from the stained, worn cover.)
And this book. This is a great one. Really good recipes that can be made really quickly. Love it!
This book is one Steve’s mom gave me about fifteen years ago. I’ve always loved compilation books because they include the best of the best recipes from any given group of people. This one also includes nutrition info which is a big deal for me.
I found this book in a thrift store and fell in love with its vintage vibe. Although I don’t bake with Bisquick a lot, I have found some tasty recipes in here. The extra bonus of this book is getting to peruse recipes from long past decades.
I have carried this book around with me for years and years; probably at least twenty-five. Since our family lived full time in an RV for 16 years, the title of the little booklet appealed to me immediately. ( If you want to know why we lived on the road, click here and scroll to the bottom of the page.)
However, even living in a regular house with a regular kitchen, I still revisit some of these recipes—partly for old times sake and partly because the recipes are efficient, tasty, and quick.
This one is special because it’s a compilation put together by families who have had children with Neuroblastoma. I have a couple recipes in here myself.
This is another one I found at a thrift store; it’s not a cookbook so much as it is a primer about EVERYTHING having do with cooking.
And I mean everything.
Suckling pig, anyone?
Thankfully, the book also covers the basics of cooking as well and what could be more basic than rice? I just love having a book that answers every single question I could possibly have with pictures and step by step instructions. Even after many decades of cooking, it’s amazing how many times I run up against a prickly cooking situation and have no idea how to proceed.
My dear childhood friend, Lorrie, gave this book to me a few years ago. Since cooking ahead is a fantastic way to save money and time, this book is a great resource.The basic premise is that if you have a few hours on a Saturday morning or Sunday afternoon and can do some pre-cooking, then on Thursday evening when life is frantic, you don’t have to order in pizza—you can pull out something you’ve already prepared and be good to go. I love this sort of idea and use it often.
And the sweetest cookbook I own? It’s this one.
It was sent to Sarah and me several years from a person whose name you may recognize–Mrs. Pam. (She is a faithful reader and frequent commenter.)
One of its recipes is for fairy toast. Don’t you just love that?
And my favorite recipe? This one.
As enjoyable as it was to sit and reminisce for a few minutes, when I was done I was still no closer to finding a solution for my Cookbook Storage Conundrum.
And then suddenly, I thought of a possible solution–this coat closet, three steps across the hallway from the kitchen.
I realized that all the stuff on that top shelf didn’t need to be there. (For instance, the tan bag was full of little toys and coloring items for children to play with when they come over.) I moved the bag upstairs and immediately opened up a large space for . . .
cookbooks!
I am a happy woman.
What about you? What are your favorite cookbooks and why? Do you have any cookbooks with stories behind them or interesting histories? We’d love to hear about them!
I love your house! You should also add to your cookbook collection… The Pioneer Womans cookbooks! They are awesome and I have fixed many things in them for my hubby. He made me slow down on it though cause I was making him gain weight.. 😀 Have a blessed week!!
Kaye,
Yes, I do love PW’s recipes but as you said, they’re a little on the fattening side! I would love to own one of her cookbooks though since I am a big fan of her website.
My mother in law gave me The Best British Cookbook when we bought our first house together, which is a firm family favourite. And I do also own The Pooh Cook Book 🙂
Rebecca,
The Best British Cookbook sounds like it would be a real treasure to have! And how fun to meet someone else who own the Pooh Cook Book. You’ve got Pooh and British cooking–what more could you ask for?
🙂
Becky, THANK YOU so much for sharing your special cook book collection with us!!! I SO enjoyed reading your blog AND all the interesting comments!!! What a special lady Mrs. Pam is….. I have a cook book made when I was in school with all my classmate’s favorite recipes in it. It was for Mother’s Day. I wrote a note to my mom in the front of it and cut out a fruit bowl and fruit from construction paper glued to the front page. The teacher ran off copies of all the recipes and put our names under each one. I think I was in first grade. It has a blue construction paper cover. My recipe was for “carrot cake”. I like to read through it and remember my classmates. 🙂 Very special.
Bea,
That’s pretty amazing that you still have a handmade cookbook from back when you were in school; you must have taken very good care of it. I can only imagine how many wonderful memories it contains!
I guess the one that really has been used a lot is my Betty Crocker. We were married in 1966, so it really looks like it’s been through the wringer (sort of speak). My favorite is my 1885 book that also lists ways to clean stains. Soaking certain items. The recipes don’t really give amts. of tsp., Tablespoons, cups, just take your skinned rabbit . . . and then it’s a little bit of this and that.
Sharyn,
Hmmmm. I’m not sure if any of my cookbooks have to do with “taking a skinned rabbit . . .” You win the prize for the most unique! It sounds like a fascinating book.
I would love to know where Mrs. Pam got that Winnie the Pooh cookbook? It looks like you are set!!
Laura,
I don’t know where she got it but it is truly a delightful book. Especially for us Winne the Pooh fans.
I LOVE cookbooks!! And I have LOTS!! I have a whole cupboard in my kitchen that is cookbooks. I have the first one you pictured. Can’t remember where I got it but in August we will be married 40 years and I think I have had it from the beginning!! I have two of my great grandmothers cookbooks, and several of my grandmothers. I love them most for their handwritten notes. The sad part is most of the time anymore I just google a recipe I am looking for!
Vicky,
Isn’t it so special to have cookbooks with the handwriting of people you have loved? That’s the very past part of the old books. It’s fun that we got the same cookbook when we first got married. 🙂
I am addicted to cookbooks, just incase you didn’t know. My favorites are the 1957 Betty Crocker Cook Book for Boys and Girls (my first and I still make some of those recipes), my 1976 Becky Crocker’s Cookbook is my stand by, and my favorite is my Mom’s 1951 Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook with all her hand written notes (I bought her a new copy several years ago at her request). Another one I often read was given to my by my Aunt Moureen, The Saturday Afternoon Club of Santa Rosa, that’s where the chicken salad recipe I gave you came from. To give you an idea how out of control my cookbook addiction as become, there aren’t enough shelves in my house! Now I download free ones to my Ipad. I really need to be stopped!
Cindy,
I can sympathize with running out of room for cookbooks. They are more than recipes; they are just great reading and have such interesting pictures and info. You are such a wonderful cook; all those cookbooks have definitely paid off!
There are several cookbooks I hold dear, even though I mostly cook from my recipe boxes…some newer recipes that I have found in the newspaper, magizines or online since becoming vegetarian, and some passed down from at least my great-great-grandmother in Nova Scotia. Two cookbooks are compilations from my church, one from the move into our new building in 1988 as a fundraiser (although I wasn’t born yet), and one from 2001 when we celebrated our 150th anniversary as a congregation. Another cookbook was compiled by my graduating class from highschool in 2008, and includes recipes from most of us/our folks along with some from our teachers…and some of their words of wisdom! Lastly, I have a cookbook that was a going-away gift from the daycare I worked at the summer of 2009. I have many others, including most of the Company’s Coming cookbooks. My personal favourite from there is “Muffins and More”.
MusicGirl,
Sounds like your cookbooks represent the whole history of your life. Isn’t that why cookbooks are so great? They are reminiscent of memories and experiences and beloved people. I love that you have one from your great-great-grandmother. What a treasure!
Future Husband and I love cooking. Like A LOT! Although nowadays, we use blogs most of the time to get our recipes, we do have a couple of cookbooks we like more than others. Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi is one our of favorites, along with the Green Kitchen Story cookbook (just out a couple of months ago) and a French one called Petits plats végétariens : 360 recettes en 10, 20 ou 30 minutes. Those are all vegeterian as we don’t eat meat here, but our non vegetarian families love everything we have cooked so far for them!
Here are a few blogs I follow. We get pretty much all our recipes/inspiration from them, especially the first two:
http://foodblogandthedog.wordpress.com/
http://www.101cookbooks.com/index.html
http://www.mynewroots.org/site/
Yum yum, I love eating! 🙂
Renee,
You and Future Husband sound like you have many happy cooking years to look forward to together! Your cookbooks sound so interesting and exotic–I would love to come to dinner at your house!
Thanks for the recipe links; they are really fun places to browse!
Becky, we will be happy to cook for you if you ever stop by Canada’s capital region 🙂
Renee,
Don’t even tempt me! 🙂
Cooking is really not my gift in life (nor my husbands) and we always impressed by people gifted in this area. Between the two of us we make meals that- if not usually exactly all that exciting- at least are nutritious and come from recipes that have come from tried and true experience (meaning all the cooking disasters leading up to us finally figuring out a recipe!) One of my goals is to improve in this area- even if I don`t have the `gift`maybe I can at least get a little better!
Given we are not really big into cooking, we are not much into cook books either. However, there is one book that the two of us both use on a very regular basis. When it got ruined, in fact, I made a desperate run to replace it at our local Chapters bookstore. It is aptly named “Clueless in the Kitchen.`it is geared for teenagers just learning how to cook and has funny comments and drawings to appeal to an age group about twenty years younger than us! And it is the greatest cook book ever- just my speed!
I am going to learn how to make jam within the next few days- the river banks by our home are overflowing with the most delicious wild saskatoon berries and I`ve so far picked 15 cups of berries!<
É
Thanks for an interesting post! How are you feeling with your RA and COPD. Hope you are feeling well!
Jenna,
Clueless in the Kitchen–what a great title. I love it!! And I can see how you would become attached to that book if you don’t feel that cooking is your gift. But you’re about to do something I’ve NEVER done and that is to make jam. You should be very proud of yourself! 🙂
Jenna,
Forgot to answer your health questions; I am actually feeling quite well these days; adjust to the meds and getting good results from them. Thanks for inquiring!
that was fun…seeing my cookbook. sorry, Mary H., but I have NO idea where I got that book. I use to paint Winnie the Pooh murals on my friends’ babies’ rooms 40 years ago. And Winnie the Pooh was always a monthly Jr. Kdg/Preschool theme. I actually visited the 100 Acre Wood in 1996, and threw sticks from St. Louis off Poohsticks Bridge.
I used to love reading cookbooks, too. My favorites were probably local ones
(Jr. League and churches) where I would recognize the contributor. Bisquick has some yummy Impossible Pies recipes that i use to make.
The mother of Louise one of my best friends learned to cook from her neighbor Irma Rombach (The Joy of Cooking). Louise’s mother was a great cook and could always identify unusual ingredients in other people’s cooking. as a teenager, that always impressed me.
Mrs. Pam,
I would also be impressed by someone who could identify ingredients in someone else’s cooking. Unless it’s something very, very obvious, I would be clueless.
You are quite the artist if you can paint Winne the Pooh murals–impressive!
Becky, I have collected cookbooks for decades, and have far too many on large shelves above my kitchen desk. I primarily collect the Pillsbury Bake-off booklets that go back as far as 1950, as well as General Foods items as my grandfather was a salesman for their products. I love the graphics and lithography of the older booklets. Fortunately, I have cookbooks from both my grandmothers. These days, I rarely use the cookbooks, but rely on the internet to look up recipes. The books that line my shelves serve to remind me that the old ways worked well too, and have many stories to go along with the recipes in them, unlike the impersonal computer.
Several of the books in your collection are also in mine.
Hope you are surviving without Sarah’s company this week. She must be coming home soon, I would think.
Liz,
You’re so right–computers are easy for looking up recipes,but they don’t have the history of those beloved books sitting on our shelves. I know you are so grateful to have books from both of your grandmothers; what treasures those are.
I have a lot of cookbook, but I don’t cook much any more, to much work for just one person. any how I have the big red betty crocker’s cook book held together with duct tape.. I have several little ones put out by different churches where I have friends and one from my mom’s church with has a couple of my childhood favorites in. I also have the bisquick one you do. but my prized ones are the autographed by the author ones. I have Sherry Gore’s first one Taste of Pinecraft. from the stage to the stove by Michela Brown of the brown family (they are a family singing group from Iowa) and my Pit Stop in a southern kitchen by Martha Earnhardt and Carol Gordon Bickford, who are of course Dale Earnhardt’s mom and Jeff Gordon’s mom. I feel real honored to have these.
Sharon,
I follow Sherry Gore on FB and love to read her writing in general but especially her writing about food and cooking. She’s an amazing lady. You’ve done well to have gotten so many cookbooks signed by the authors–what fun!
My mom has a cookbook that belonged to her mother – she has to keep it in a ziplock bag as it’s seen better days. When my parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary (June 4th was their 64th), I compiled a book of all my mom’s favorite recipes. If I knew where she got the recipe or had a tidbit about who liked it, I put that at the bottom. We gave these to everyone that came to their reception. Obviously this one is near and dear to my heart. I’d be happy to share it with you, I can either e-mail the word document or send it via mail.
Phyllis,
What a fabulous idea to compile your mom’s favorite recipes for their anniversary; I can only imagine how delighted everyone was to receive a copy. Love that idea.
And I would LOVE to have a copy of that cookbook–thanks so much for your generous offer to share! You can email it to me at smithellaneous@yahoo.com Thank you so much!!
I read my cookbooks often, almost like magazines. When menu planning, when I come across a recipe that uses a particular ingredient that may have a short shelf life or a higher price tag, I look for 2 or 3 recipes in which it appears. I make my shopping list accordingly so as to avoid too much waste.
Kristy,
That’s a good idea. I agree that it is frustrating to find a recipe to try which calls for an ingredient you don’t normally use and yet it’s fun to branch out in cooking too. Your solution is perfect!
Oh Becky, we must have similar souls :-). I absolutely love cookbooks and my favorites are ones that churches compile, they have such wonderful recipes in them and I love to look through them and think about the people who have conributed to them. I have to say though that my favorite is a very small one called “Cookin’ and Goodies”. It was done by my six year old daughter(who by the way is grown now with an eleven year old daughter of her own) and her friends in her Sunday School class as a Mother’s Day gift to their Moms. (I happened to be one of the teachers and believe me it took lots of planning ahead and secret keeping to get it done and not have the Moms know why we were asking for their children’s favorite recipes). The recipes are cute and simple and remind me of the children so much, things like Peanut butter sandwiches with jelly added, Popcorn and chocolate candy. An everlasting joy to my heart each time I look at it. It is getting old and worn but I would not take a million dollars for it (wait,much much more than a million) Thanks for sharing your cookbooks and thoughts, it made smile on a Friday work day (oops, I am working, I am working say it over and over again) 🙂
Gail,
Cookin’ and Goodies sounds like a book that not only delighted YOUR heart but also the hearts of ALL those moms who were the fortunate recipient of such a treasure. Fabulous idea!
Becky, been trying to reply to Phyllis Lines, and it won’t let me comment to her, so that I can request a copy of the cookbook she compiled for her Mom’s anniversary if she wouldn’t mind me having one. Would you mind to pass along my e-mail to her, it sounds just like my kind of cookbook. vgpuckett@northeaststate.edu
Gail,
I will forward the email from her (with her permission) that contains the recipe book attachment. Let me know if it doesn’t come through.
What fun it is to look through cookbooks and I have spent many hours doing just that – like looking through an old phone directory – recipes from the past bring so many thoughts of times and people that we have lost or just lost sight of. I have a few that are very special. One was my aunt’s – hilariously funny little book with witty sayings and great recipes but definitely from a bygone day. The next is my mother’s – it is really a very small binder entitled “Family Favorites” which contain recipe cards in her handwriting. As very special as it is to see her handwriting and remember the delicious food that was produced from following those directions, her method of writing a fraction of a measurement is unique – ask my daughter who mistook 1/4 cup of milk for 4 cups of milk in a cookie recipe! Seems my mother liked to write the fraction hanging down a little too far into the next line – we have since learned her tricks and her recipes are used over and over. The other book I do not have anymore and have searced for it – it was a wedding gift – Good Housekeeping, it was orange, hard cover, binder form – it contains the best strawberry shortcake recipe and many others. I will continue the search.
I would love that Winnie the Pooh book – where did you find it, Miss Pam? I love Winnie the Pooh and Tigger too….
Thanks, Becky, that was fun. I think tonight I just might read some cookbooks.
Mary, I am wondering if you are thinking of the 1969 Betty Crocker cookbook. It was a red/orange and in binder form, and does have a good strawberry shortcake recipe. Have you tried find the cookbook on eBay? Usually a good place to start with fairly reasonable prices.
Loved your story about your mom’s binder with recipes in her handwriting. Those are true treasures!
Thank you, Liz! I will definitely try eBay as I would love to own that cookbook again and the year and description fit perfectly to my receiving it as a bridal shower gift. Off to eBay…..
Sure hope you find what you are looking for!
Mary,
That’s so funny about your mom’s unusual way of writing fractions. I guess 4 cups of mile vs. 1/4 cup of milk would make just a bit of a difference in a recipe! 🙂
I agree that it’s so wonderful to see a loved one’s writing on a recipe card; you’re blessed you have some of those with her writing. I have one recipe card with my deceased grandma’s recipe for 60-minute rolls and I pull it out and look at it occasionally with a little tear in my eye. Recipes are stories of lives, not just stories of food.