On Keeping All The Cookbooks

I don’t store my cookbooks in the kitchen. 

We don’t have the counter or cabinet space to store them together. And, I like to keep like with like. So, the cookbooks have long been housed in a sideboard. This all worked well when the shelf was in the dining room. But, to make room for the piano, years ago, we moved the sideboard to the only other place in the house it would fit, beside the couch. While the music is fab, and while the books look great behind the glass, accessing the cookbooks has been difficult.

You basically have to move the couch and a whole whack of other junk to open the cabinet doors! Whatever. We make do.

Except, our twenty year old, 5’7″ couch recently developed an unsightly tear in her pleather. Not to mention, her springs no longer spring back. To replace the retiree with something that will work for more than one and a half of us [we’re a leggy brood], we’re going to have to lose the sideboard, too.

In preparation for the change, I had to relocate the cookbooks.

I moved across the country every couple of years when I was a kid. The requisite purging helped me develop a taste for a good, spiritual off-loading of unnecessary objects. I suppose you can say, I’ve been KonMari-ing before KonMari-ing was cool.

I was absolutely sure I was going to get rid of at least half of the 50+ titles on my shelf:

1. Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook [In a plastic folder because I burnt the folder on the stove]
2.  660 Curries, Iyer
3. Farm Journal’s Best Ever Pies, Ward
4. The Joy of Cooking, Rombauer 
5. Breaking the Vicious Cycle, Gottshall (special diet)
6. How to Cook Everything, Bittman
7. Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, Hazan
8. Dorie’s Cookies, Greenspan
9. Jacques Pepin’s Kitchen: Cooking with Claudine, Pepin
10. The Food of Morocco, Wolfert
11. In Season, Raven
12. Classic Home Cooking, Berry and Spieler
13. Around My French Table, Greenspan
14. Baking, From my Home to Yours, Greenspan
15. Madeleines, Morse
16. 101 Blender Drinks, Hausarud 
17. Peaches, Alexander
18. Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 1, Child, Beck, Bertholle
19. Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 2, Child, Beck, Bertholle
20. Baking Illustrated, Cooks Illustrated Editors
21. Ready or Not,  Tam, Fong
22. Nom Nom Paleo, Tam, Fong
23. French Provincial Cooking, David
24. The New Best Recipe, Cook’s Illustrated Editors
25. Recipes for the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, Prasad
26. Grain-free Gourmet, Bager
27. Sage Garden: Herb Garden Cookbook, Norris
28. Best Recipes in the World, Bittman
29. Food that Really Schmecks, Staebler
30. Every Grain of Rice, Dunlap
31. Paella, Heriaz
32. Mexican Everyday, Bayless
33. Everyday BBQ, Mixon, Alexander
34. We Sure Can, Hood
35. Star Wars Wookie Cookies, Davis
36. The Geometry of Pasta, Hildebrand, Kennedy
37. The Hakka Cookbook, Anusasananan
38. Marmalade, Field
39. The Vegetarian Bible, Paragon
40. Great Tastes Vegetarian, Bay
41. Veganomicon, Moscovitz, Romero
42. Famous Chefs and Fabulous Recipes, Abraham
43. The Perfect Scoop, Lebovitz
44. Korean Cooking for Everyone, Choe, Moriyama
45. Real Food Heals, Mullen
46. Lost Desserts, Monoghan
47. Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day, Hertzberg, François
48. Passionate Vegetarian, Dragonwagon
49. Tartine, Pruettt, Robertson
50. The Essential Appetizers Cookbook, Whitecap
51. An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace, Adler [Upstairs Beside the Bathtub]
52. Forever Summer, Lawson [Oops! Also Upstairs Beside the Tub!]

There were certainly titles which got the boot.

The “food sensitivity”cookbooks left the building because I found out, some time ago, caffeine messes with my stomach, not food. Two books went to the resale shop because they were full of errors (a pastry-specific title whose ingredients didn’t always line up with the recipe and a vegetarian book whose soups called for chicken stock!) And, is it just me, or do most of the best vegetable-centred / alternative-protein recipes you like come from books which don’t have Vegetarian or Vegan in the main title?

Still, for the most part, as I went through my pile of cookbooks, I kept and kept on keeping. 

I suppose some people might feel overwhelmed by the notion that they’ll never try every recipe, or that they’ll never get around to fixing all 660 Curries. [Though, let me tell you, if I was going to cook through a book from start to finish, Iyer’s book would be a contender!] But, for me, being surrounded by hundreds of “Bests” and “Everythings” I might never get to try or taste or set on fire just didn’t feel daunting. If anything, I felt relieved. There’s no one right decision, here. So why not choose what speaks to me at the moment? Besides, what’s the worst-case scenario once you’ve attempted a recipe? You burn the roast and have to dip it in copious amounts of mustard? You have a fabulous new cake-fail story? Yeah, that really sucks.

I suppose, too, I was in the middle of a reunion.

With the cupboard blocked off by the couch, I said that we “made do.” But, only the go-tos and favourites were easy to reach. While I’m happy with the Joy of Cooking pancake recipe, I sooo want to learn how to make the five-million step Bostock recipe from Tartine. I want to get into that Hakka book. And, I want to read about, if not yet cook, all of the Lost Recipes I can get my hands on.

Now, the cookbooks are in full view and easy to access.

The 36 [of 52] cookbooks I saved went into a shelf beside the fireplace where we used to keep our cable box, dvd player, and dvds. [The electronics got hidden behind the television, and the DVDs on a lower shelf.] Now, you can see the cookbooks from almost any spot on the main floor. I can read the spines from the spot at the table where I most often write.* And, if we can actually manage to replace the couch, I’ll be able to sit down and plan a feast.

*One note on that account: It might not be a good idea to put your author photo on the spine of your book. I mean, I love you, cookbook writers, but I don’t think I want to stare at your face while I’m doing my taxes. Let’s just say, in our house, a little wrapping paper goes a long way….

I’m so happy the couch broke I could sing with it.