Cookbooks: How do you treat them?

[Alix]

I love this thread. I find it fascinating how different yet the same we all are.

One thing I have noticed is that our American brethren have so few cookbooks that are not American. My favorite cookbooks are the Best of Bridge series and the Cooking for the Rushed series. They are invaluable as far as I'm concerned. They have so many variations for the things I need to prepare everyday, and I have YET to try a recipe from them that my family doesn't like. I have a Joy of Cooking that I seldom use except to check timing for some things. My other favorites are the compilations of "family" recipes that my niece did a few years ago and a couple of my Gram's handwritten books. I have LOTS of cookbooks, but those are the ones I actually use regularly.

 

[Barbarainnc]

I treat them with love and care.

I don't take them in the kitchen, they stay on the dining room table and I go back and forth to cook. All of my books are in excellent condition, many first edition. I don't loan them out!!!! I have 15 bookcases full of cookbooks.

 

[expatgirl]

Hints for protecting the bindings of your books--especially paperbacks. I worked in a library for several years and one of my jobs was to "break in new books" to preserve the life of the bindings. First you divide the book in half and press back each half. Then press back 1/4 of the way in the front and then 1/4 of the way in the back. Thus you have effectively divided the book into 4 sections. Lastly you take all the pages in your hands and rapidly fan through all of the pages several times. This will loosen the binding for normal wear and tear with an even distribution of pressure without overstressing one part of the binding which will eventually lead to a book falling apart. I have been doing this for years and have yet had a book fail on me. Just wished that I had had this job 30 years ago!!!! I have several books from way back then that need to be in hospital.

 

[amber]

I used to have mine in an area of the house that I dont use, and since have moved them to the kitchen, where I think they will get good use! I also have splatters on my books from cooking!

 

[Reanie525i]

My cookbooks have more food stains then you could imagine - sometimes can not exactly tell what is written and have to guess -

 

[RPCookin]

As a machinist, I used quality tools my whole working life, and the ones I bought during my apprenticeship were still as good when I retired this month as they were when I bought them more than 30 years ago. That said, they mostly don't look unused, but all are still in perfect working order. I used them with respect and took good care of them, but I didn't baby them.

I feel the same way about my cookbooks. They aren't works of art, they are tools to be used. As such, they are stored in the kitchen because that's where they are used. And they ARE used (not abused), but that means that they show the amount of wear and tear commensurate with the amount of use that each one receives. If one looks brand new, it probably means that I received it as a gift and haven't yet found anything that I wanted to make from it... or didn't really care enough for the recipes that I read in it to bother with trying to make any of them. But I still can't convince myself to get rid of those that I don't use... there is always someday.......