I love cookbooks. I love looking through them at bookstore. I like buying them and bringing them home to read peacefully. But true confession time: I like reading them much more than I like actually using them to cook. In fact, when I want a specific recipe these days I am much more likely to print one off the internet. Most of what I cook requires no recipe since I basically cook the same things year after year. By the time a cook is 74, that is not unusual.
But still I love cookbooks. So in the great restructuring I added a comfortable chair, a tea stand, a lap blanket, a foot stool and a lamp to the converted sun porch on our first floor that serves as a travel library, toy chest, art supply room, puzzle storage and shelves for our books not needed for writing or genealogy. To the right of this photo you can see my thorough cookbook collection. It includes many about baking, both sweet and savory. My earliest Fannie Farmer cookbook for kids rests there. Laurel’s Kitchen, essentially the Bible in my back to the country days occupies a space as does the Berkeley Coop Low Income Cookbook I wrote about some years back which I used in my totally without funds days.
They no longer chastise me as I walk by asking why they are ignored in favor of the internet. Instead they welcome me to sit with a cup of tea and do what I love best. READ cookbooks.
Saved By Words 
That tea stand is exactly what I’m looking for!……and the chair looks lovely. I could quite happily nod off in that.
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I think it was my great grandmother’s English tea stand. I inherited it from my grandmother.
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ha! i used my Nigella “Kitchen” for the first time in a year or so last night, purely because I couldn’t remember the proportion of beer to stock in the casserole…
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So was there more beer or more stock?LOL
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It was supposed to be equal. Whoops.
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HA!
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A neighbor in my hometown went to bed early every night and read cookbooks until time to sleep. She was a most excellent cook. You must be, too.
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I love the idea of falling asleep reading cookbooks.
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It must be a lovely prelude to sleep.
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Oh my… Elizabeth I do exactly the same with cookbooks! Lol!
Your reorganized spaces have a comforting feel, not only inviting but relaxing too.
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Thanks. I was after inviting, even though the invitation is for me alone.
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I don’t have the space for cookbooks, although I still keep a few old favourites. If I’ve forgotten the timing for a recipe or want to try something new, I look it up on the internet
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Me too.
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I like your tea stand next to the chair. I have one similar, an Art Deco one that folds flat, and opens out to stand the teapot and cakes on it. Sadly, it was damaged during a move, and I have yet to get it repaired.
Best wishes, Pete.
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This one has had to have its feet repaired twice. The first time a neighbor made a new one from walnut, matching the original. The second time Charlie glued and clamped a broken one. I can see how it would easily break in a move.
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I love this area you’ve created, Elizabeth! I would have my collection of books connected to Cornwall on those shelves, although like you I prefer to read cookbooks than cook from them these days.
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Do put the Cornwall books together for the future time I actually make it there. Covid keeps interfering.
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A lovely nook for reading those cookbooks.
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Brilliant idea! I absolutely love this, Elizabeth. Now your cook books are books, to be read and enjoyed.
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Exactly. Now I can even buy new ones that catch my eye!
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Yes!
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Hi Elizabeth, I also love to cook and I have many cookbooks. I do use them often and I amend them as I see fit. I am quite an experimental cook. I also use the internet to compare new recipes to the older versions I have in my cookbooks.
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I admire your ability to improvise. I never gained that skill.
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Such a beautiful and comfortable room. My cookbooks are inside😊, I use the internet whenever I want to try something new.
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Me too, but I just love the read the big hardbound ones for fun.
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A lovely post. I finally gifted two shelves of cookbooks to friends who would use them. I kept about 7 or 8 well-loved ones. I, like you will go to the internet if I really need to find a recipe I don’t know by heart. For the last few years I have searched and found copycat recipes for dishes I once ate out in restaurants.
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I enjoy giving them to Goodwill and imagining someone’s joy at finding the perfect one they had been looking for.
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A great thought as you part with them.
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Thanks.
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I find reading cookbooks very relaxing, and keep a small collection of historic books, favourite books or diet specific books. Periodically I will haul them out if I want to cook an unusual ingredient, or try something different. I’m not such a user of internet recipes, but do quite enjoy YouTube short demos that I find on FB.
Thanks for an enjoyable post, and your reading nook is lovely.
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The videos give me the same pleasure as my illustrated step-by-step books.
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