When I was about 8 or 9, I decided to start a library. Considering how much I love books, it was a natural thing for me. I had more books than any kid I knew, thanks to my book store excursions with my grandmother. Whatever I spent of my own money on books, she'd also kick in. So, I got a bunch of envelopes from my mom, stuck them shut, cut them in half and glued(!) them into the back of my books. This was a huge thing for me since I was always adamant about never writing in books, folding over corners or in anyway discomforting a book. Even back then, I cringed at the people who would lick their fingers to turn pages! I started a card file for library cards and tried to get all the kids in the neighborhood to take out books. Not many did, but the project still kept me busy for a while that summer.
Fast forward to now. Things have changed a little.
When I get a new cookbook, I grab a piece of paper and make a list of the recipes that look good. My friend, Liz, over at Cooking the Vegan Books , does something similar but in a smarter way. She actually notes which recipes would be good for a weeknight or would be better over the weekend. It makes it easy to grab a book and get a quick overview of possible recipes. Besides, we all love to flip through our new cookbooks page-by-page anyway, so this makes that fun time more useful.
Now I am committed to writing in my cookbooks. Any change I make to a recipe while cooking, or wish I'd made gets scrawled on the recipe page. Every recipe I try from a cookbook gets listed inside the front cover. It makes an easy reference for when I want to make something I've already made, but don't feel like flipping through lots of books. I can just check one page.
Little things like this help encourage me to use my cookbooks more. They don't do much good just sitting on the shelf and I'm not one for "coffee table books". These days I'm a lot happier visiting libraries than I would be in starting my own. I don't think I'd be very happy loaning out my cookbooks.
Do you have tips to motivate you to use your cookbooks more? If so, I'd love to hear them.
Do you have tips to motivate you to use your cookbooks more? If so, I'd love to hear them.
By the way, those corn muffins up top are just a gratuitous photo. I couldn't leave you without a food picture, could I?
Coming soon: Another book contest, and hopefully a wonderful weekend for you!
6 comments:
I've been a book lover since birth and a library devotee for as long as I can remember. I also don't turn down corners, can't stand the licking-the-fingers page-turning trick, and I always remove the dust jacket when reading a hard cover. I seem to recall attempting a library of my own as a child, too. There's no way I'd ever write in my cookbooks, but I have absolutely been known to pull out a sheet of paper to list the recipes I want to try. I'm sure that'll happen when I get a copy of your new book!
yes. i have a shelf of lovely cookbooks and i tend to only use a few of them, especially veganomicon. what i really like about all of isa's cookbooks is that the table of contents actually lists every recipe, so i check them off when i make them. that encourages me to make something new the next time i consult the book. i think it would be fun to do a project like only using one cookbook for a week, but that would require me to make meal plans and shopping lists, which i do not do. over the years, i know i'll get to them all!
I often refer to my cookbooks when I have an ingredient that needs to be used up. I'll just scan through the index of each book until I run across a recipe that uses my ingredient, sounds good, and also uses other ingredients I already have on hand. I'd love to try working my way through a cookbook from start to finish sometime, but in practicality, I'm not sure I will ever manage to do it!
Ha Ha! I also put library envelopes in my book as a kid! so funny. I also started a book club when I was in elementary school.
Life without my cookbooks would be a sad life indeed. But I often forget my tried and true recipes, so I created a list of my favorites, and keep them on the side of my fridge along with the page in the cookbook for quick reference.
in an effort to use up all of my leftover school supplies from college, i started to use post-its to mark pages. it's not the prettiest, but it gives me a spot to write notes about the recipe (i'm not totally comfortable writing in books) or to write the name of the recipe on the edge of the post-it that sticks out of the book. i like the idea of weekend-vs-weeknight meals... you could get a stack of multi-colored post-its and use them to mark easy meals for weeknights, meals for weekends, favorites, ones that work well for having people over, etc.
i also got a little booklet of multi-colored note cards that i use to write down recipes from online. blue is "fake meat", brown is "baking", green is "veg", pink is "dessert".
Post a Comment