Skip to main content

Building a Cookbook Library

Handmade Gatherings

How to Build a Cookbook Library

Pizza
How to Build a Cookbook Library: LauraKBray

I collect cookbooks. 

I know I could look-up just about any recipe online, but I can't give up my cookbooks. I love sitting down with a stack of cookbooks and planning a holiday meal or dinner party. Sometimes, if I'm feeling bored or anxious, I'll pull a favorite cookbook off the shelf and just read it. I love the photos. I love to daydream about making the dishes. Sometimes they inspire me so much I get up and bake something.

To me, cookbooks are so much better than cooking blogs. Is it just me or have they gotten impossible to navigate? First there's the pop-up ads that always seem to crash the website at the very moment I'm rushing to check how long the brownies are supposed to bake. By the time I reload the website, I have burnt bricks of chocolate.

I also hate the long, drawn-out stories before I get to the actual recipe. Don't get me wrong. I love a good story behind a recipe. Heck, when I share my recipes, I usually give you a story. What I hate about most food blogs though is that the story is usually so peppered with keywords to ensure it's SEO status that it no longer makes sense. 

To alleviate some of this frustration, I have just started sticking to my cookbooks. 'If my cookbook doesn't have it, maybe I don't need to make it.' has become my motto. Honestly, that just about sums up my view of the internet and the state of the world anymore. Who needs to add any extra irritations to their life in the form of pop-up ads? Who wants so many choices that they become frozen and unable to make dinner because they are simply too overwhelmed by the sheer number of sheet pan chicken recipes they can make? Or, more likely, have spent so long looking up recipes that they run out of time to actually make anything? (Guilty as charged.) I'm simplifying my life and I'll just pull a cookbook off the shelf and I'm none the worse for it. I have a big enough collection to be able to source a few different versions of a recipe, and I'm told I'm a pretty darn good cook too.

So, in that vein, I thought I would share some of the cookbooks I use the most consistently. The ones that have been workhorses for me, that I can depend on good getting good results from every time. The ones that have scribbled notes about how long my own oven takes to bake something or an ingredient I've added or subtracted, The ones with splashes of sauces and slightly rippled papers. The ones I imagine my daughter will inherit one day and treasure because my handwriting is on the pages and she will be able to get a taste of her childhood if she uses the recipes.

Get the list here.

Comments

  1. NicoleApril 12, 2023 at 3:50 AM

    I do still use cookbooks, even though I am not exactly precise when it comes to following recipes. All my cookbooks, like yours, have notes and adjustments written in them. If I am going to make something that's online, I actually write the recipe down or print it off, and then I put it in my big cooking notebook. It's kind of a jumble, to be honest. I have a book my mom gave me that is a church collection, the Lutheran Ladies' Family Favourites and it's kind of gross when it comes to dinner food, but the baked goods cannot be beat! (I have written about it before, but some of the recipes are things like Vera's Weiner Pie, and there is an entire section of jellied salad with meat in it, you get the idea). I do love looking through cookbooks, it's very soothing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Laura BrayApril 14, 2023 at 9:29 AM

      I keep a binder of recipes I download and print too. But I usually only print them out if we loved the recipe. Your Lutheran Ladies cookbook sounds amazing on so many levels!

      Delete
  2. Michelle GogginsApril 12, 2023 at 1:03 PM

    Laura, your photos seriously made me hungry! Pizza, asparagus and cinnamon rolls - yes please! I'm not much of a cook, but when I do cook, I have a book of recipes from my mother-in-law, all tried and true. And I have a Betty Crocker cookbook which was a wedding gift.

    ReplyDelete
  3. SarahApril 13, 2023 at 8:24 AM

    I love cookbooks, which is a little ironic since I hardly ever cook. I love the pictures and creative layouts, and will buy them based on this. My favorite is What Katie Ate, it's gorgeous, and I have never made anything in it. The two that get used the most are The King Arthur Baking Companion and America's Test Kitchen. They are both great for basic recipes and have almost everything you need.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Laura BrayApril 14, 2023 at 9:31 AM

      I love the King Arthur Recipes. I'll have to get the book.

      Delete
  4. Anne ButeraApril 14, 2023 at 4:03 PM

    I adore cookbooks. I have a small library of them and I usually have at least a couple checked out from the public library. Perhaps part of it is the tactile nature of a book, the aesthetics. And the chance to pore over the book without distraction and without hurry. I especially love a cookbook filled with stories and good photos (or other art -- The New Laurel's Kitchen has lovely woodcuts). I saw Ruth Reichl's My Kitchen Year on your shelf -- I loved that one (and her memoirs, too). Another one that I enjoyed reading was The Splendid Table's How to Eat Supper.

    My favorite reference cookbook is The New Best Recipe.

    If I do find a recipe online that I want to try (and I agree with you 100% about most cooking blogs. It's so irritating!), I usually print it out (I love the printable option on cooking blogs).

    I guess the funny thing about all of this is that although I like to try new recipes, most of the time that I cook, I just make things up (not when baking, then I like to use a recipe).

    What a fun post, Laura. Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Laura BrayApril 17, 2023 at 1:13 PM

      I loved My Kitchen Year! And the recipes in it are great too. Thanks for the other recommendations. I'll check them out.

      Delete
  5. JoanneApril 14, 2023 at 4:49 PM

    I, too, collected many cookbooks but moving from a house to apartment meant downsizing. I have kept all my M.F.K. Fisher books, Marion Cinningham's The Breakfast Book, continues to be my go-to for quick breads, and any thing breakfast, The Best of Bridge (early books, especially the first) with the Chicken or Crab Crepes as my go to party dish, all of the Whitewater Cook books, and of course, Betty Crockers' International Cookbook.


    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Laura BrayApril 17, 2023 at 1:14 PM

      I love MFK Fisher and The Breakfast Book. I'll have to check-out the others you mentioned.

      Delete
  6. charla47April 14, 2023 at 5:04 PM

    When my grown daughters come to me for a recipe from our past there is only one or two cookbooks, I have to look at to get it for them. I gave each of my girls a Betty Crocker cook book when they set out for their own kitchen. That book has gotten me through some tough times.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Laura BrayApril 17, 2023 at 1:15 PM

      The Betty Crocker cookbook seems to be favorite of everyone here and I don't own one! I'm going to need to get it. Maybe I can steal my mom's copy!

      Delete
  7. Dana BarbieriApril 14, 2023 at 5:41 PM

    Betty Crocker has been in my kitchen since my MIL gave it to me about 25 years ago. I also love that Barefoot Contessa book. I have a ton of printed recipes and I agree with you about recipe sites. It can all be too much.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Laura BrayApril 17, 2023 at 1:15 PM

      It looks like I HAVE to get the Betty Crocker cookbook! And the Barefoot Contessa is the best.

      Delete
  8. AlondraApril 16, 2023 at 10:13 PM

    This is my sign!! I've been meaning to get into baking more things other than fudgy brownies, lol. I was debating whether to just look online or find a cookbook I can scribble on; but your struggle with the introductions to meet the SEO "requirements" is something I 100% relate to. So, thanks! I'm taking a trip to my local bookstore this week, lol!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Laura BrayApril 17, 2023 at 1:16 PM

      Enjoy spending a few hours in the cookbook section of the bookstore. Glad this post inspired you to bake more. It's a good hobby!

      Delete
  9. Little Dorrit does...April 18, 2023 at 6:30 AM

    I have around a dozen cookery books which I literally haven't opened in years - the last time was probably when we emptied the book-shelf in order to move it out of the way of the carpet-fitters! They're the book equivalent of the too-small favourite jeans one keeps because one hopes to fit back into them one day. Aspirational but completely unrealistic. I've never been a keen cook, and probably never will be, but at least if I've got the books there's still an outside chance!
    My one scribbled on, wrinkly paged, flour smeared classic is 'Delia Smith's Complete Cookery Course'. She was tremendously popular on UK TV in the 80's - to the extent that supermarkets would regularly sell out of certain ingredients (like cranberries) after she had featured them in a recipe on one of her cookery shows. The Complete Cookery Course famously featured instructions on 'how to boil an egg', and it came to University with me for that very reason!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Laura BrayApril 18, 2023 at 3:00 PM

      I recommend revisiting the cookbooks! I use my cookbooks for inspiration other than cooking. I've found color palettes and styling ideas for photographs in cookbooks.

      Delete
  10. SueApril 20, 2023 at 1:47 PM

    Due to limited space, I only have one cookbook and it's a collection of family recipes that my mother gathered and put together several years ago. I've never had a lot of fancy cookbooks, but when I did have them around, my favorites were always church cookbooks because the recipes were usually pretty easy and also tasty. My favorite is one that my mom bought for me 40 or more years ago that was put out by the Columbus Ohio Junior League. It had wonderful recipes but fell apart during a move years ago. I salvaged what pages I could.

    I agree about the popups and long details on food blogs, but I also like reading the comments from people who have actually made the recipe and what adjustments they've made.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Laura BrayApril 24, 2023 at 3:27 PM

      The comments can be helpful but I also find them to crazy. I like the ones where they tell you the recipe is awful then proceed to write about the adjustments they made..."I didn't have any steak so I used tuna instead and this recipe tasted like fish!" Ha!

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Aging Inner Critic

  A funny thing happened over the past decade. My inner critic got old. The last time I really looked at my inner critic, about fifteen years ago, she looked like the identical twin of my high school art teacher. The one who told me that I didn’t have any artistic talent, thus crushing my dreams of becoming a fashion designer. But I looked my inner critic up the other day and discovered that witch got old! She no longer appears as my high school art teacher but is a completely new character running around in my head messing with me. She tells me her name is Maude and she’s an old woman of the most crotchety type. Her skin is creped and full of wrinkles, her hair is gray, she is short (like me) and thin (not like me, which, She points out, is because I over-indulge and She doesn’t). She smells of camphor liniment and the peppermint candies she clicks against her teeth whenever someone (me) says or does something that She doesn’t think is “appropriate”. Tsk. She wears sag...
14 comments
Read more

Tuesdays are for Writing

I was thinking about how much I enjoy reading about other people’s days. Do you? I hope so, because I’m going to share some of my days with you over the next few weeks. We’ll start with Tuesdays since they are my favorite day of the week. I set Tuesdays aside to write most of the day. No loads of laundry. No errands. Morning The day starts like all my days lately. I wake up at 7:00am. My husband brings me a coffee in bed while a journal for 30 minutes. I recently started setting a timer for my morning journaling because I could spend hours going round and round on the page, ruminating. By setting a timer, I get what I need to release out, but don’t circle down the drain. After that, I get up and immediately go and exercise for 20 minutes. Right now, I’m loving Pahla B’s workouts. They are quick and meant to be for 50+ women. After the workout, I do a 10-minute mediation and am ready to start to my day. I dress and shower and then head to breakfast. Breakfast is the only meal I...
18 comments
Read more

Ghosts of Christmas Past

One of the best Christmas gifts I ever received was a Sindy doll’s dining set from my father’s sister, my Aunt Kathy. Aunt Kathy always bought my sisters and I the best presents. She had three boys and I think she relished the chance to hit the girl’s section of the toy store. Many of my most beloved gifts were from Aunt Kathy. I mean, she’s the one who bought me The Barbie Beauty Center Styling Head too. Oh, I can still smell it-the plastic, sweet smell. I remember the way the powdery, blue eye shadow glided onto Barbie’s perfect eyelids, smooth as silk. And how her hair, always satin blonde, immediately became tangled, never to be like new again. But back to Sindy’s dining room set. A creamy, French provincial style. It was made for Sindy dolls but at my house, Barbie took it over. Barbie was kind of priviledged and tended to think the world revolved around her so she often furnished her life from the spoils she stole from other dolls. She took my Jody doll’s dog and, worse,...
15 comments
Read more

What Lies Beneath

  Since I last wrote about my garden , a lot has happened. And a lot hasn’t happened. We went from a wet spring to a few sparse weeks of beautiful summer weather, and then roared into blistering heat. My garden, unable to contend with Mother Nature’s mood swings, had suffered. Between heat waves, I would wander into my garden and, instead of looking to see what was growing, I looked for destruction. Which crop failed this week? The beds, usually lush and beautiful, have big bare spots where the vegetables failed to grow. Our potato plants, which seemed to be the only crop that survived the wet spring, had dried and brown foliage, leaving me to wonder if my Irish blood somehow invited blight. While the garden withered so did we. Heat, illness, and general malaise made us wither almost as much as our garden. In the midst of this ennui, my husband and I trudged out to face our wilting, seemingly dead garden, ready to pull the dead plants, and to grieve over the failed plot. ...
12 comments
Read more

Famous First Lines

     W hen I was in college, I collected the first lines of books. I had a journal to hold my collection and, whenever I came across a particularly good first line, I wrote it down. My two favorites were the openings lines of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s book, Love in the Time of Cholera: “It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love.” and Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier : “Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderley again.”      I had these lines memorized and would trot them out during late night literary discussions with my fellow literature major friends. I cringe when I think of my younger self doing that, but you know she was on to something because now that I’m trying my hand at writing, I’m realizing that opening lines are my superpower. At least I know how to start story.      Recently, I read an article about Shirley Jackson’s opening paragraph to We Have Always Lived in the Cast...
12 comments
Read more

A Seattle Travel Guide for Writers, Readers, and Artists

Now that the world is opening up a little again, are you making vacation plans? I am so ready to start really traveling again! I get a lot of inspiration when I travel and always come home refreshed and filled with new creative ideas.  Last month, we traveled to Seattle. It's one of our favorite local vacation spots. It's only a three hour drive from our house so we've made the trip up a few times since we moved here. It holds a special place in my heart because it was my first introduction to my (new) home state. The first time I visited I never imagined I would one day live in this evergreen paradise. Seattle is different than it was when I first visited. It's grown (maybe too much) but it still has it's charms. If you are looking for a place to vacation this summer, where you can escape the heat, Seattle is a great choice. Here are my recommendations for a visit. Inspiring Things to See The Space Needle It's a tourist cliche, but you have to do it. We went u...
14 comments
Read more

What I haven't told you

  I told you how I started making art, when a surprise pregnancy, at the height of my business career, propelled me into an identity crisis and I went in search of who I really was. I worked through The Artists Way , discovered a love of art in my past and built a new identity around that. I hung that idea high and called it my North Star. The stories I told around that idea supported it. I talked of my love of art and how my wicked art teacher took that dream, stomped on it, and sent me fleeing into the business world. But that is not the whole story. I didn’t leave out parts of my story to lie, I just brushed past them to connect with my creativity. I didn’t tell you about the literature classes I was taking in high school. Beloved teachers taught my literature classes and they opened the world of literary criticism for me. They most decidedly were not like my wicked art teacher, they supported and encouraged me. I didn’t tell you there were always stacks of books piled up ...
12 comments
Read more

Melting Reading Watching

Want to know the best way to bring on a heat wave? Blog about the lovely summer weather you are experiencing... Melting A week of heat is just breaking here and I've fallen back out of love with summer. I think I may need to move Iceland if I have any hope of truly embracing the season.  The good thing about being locked up in one's house for a week, fans carefully organized around oneself, air conditioning blasting, is that you get a lot of reading done. Since this is the year that I'm working on becoming a better writer, I've been reading more. I credit the fact that I can write to my insatiable reading habit. If you read any book about the art of writing, reading is usually touted as one of the ways to become a better writer. I patiently explain this concept to my husband and daughter whenever they find me in the middle of the day, draped over a couch, iced tea in hand, reading (instead of doing laundry or making their lunch). I'm working I announce. And I'...
15 comments
Read more

Using Photos as Writing Prompts

I was going to throw this photo away. I've been on a mission to cull my personal photo collection and this one was a candidate for the trash bin. One of the criteria for keeping a photograph is whether it will have any meaning to future generations and the cropped head of my mother in this photo would make it impossible for anyone else to identify the subject. But as I looked at the photo, mulling over it's fate, I began to notice that it contained multitudes of information about my childhood and sparked memories that I would one day want to write about. The trick was to sit with the photo long enough and focus not only on the person in the photo, but also the location. Once I began this process, I found I couldn't wait to get to my writing prompt notebook and start writing. Of course, this my childhood photo and, as a writer who is focusing on the memoir genre, it is loaded with topics for future essays but even a fiction writer could find inspiration through this process ...
8 comments
Read more