I not only don't collect cookbooks but I don't cook. Living alone has me fixing the simplest of meals including frozen food and prepackaged that requires little or no real cooking.

I have a few cookbooks. When I was younger I used them a lot.
After 50 years of cooking I do as little of it as possible.

Hey Shirley -- I hear you. I was raised cooking with my mom. She catered when I was little, did all of our cooking, and we all grew up cooking with her, LOL. She didn't use too many cookbooks, she had her stash of recipes, usually handed down from somewhere (I still have many of them) but she did like clipping recipes from magazines and newspapers.

I have a small collection of cookbooks I have used over years and love. Among them several Moosewood, including the original, A Fanny Farmer Cookbook, which is incredibly useful, and some specialty books, including a Thai cookbook, Greek, Irish, and one 1950's Fleishmann's Yeast publication with fantastic bread recipes. There are a few more in there, but they fit on one end of my kitchen counter. Like mom, a good deal of things we eat I know how to cook just from doing it so often, and I like to improvise.

I haven't bought one in a long while, and I don't actually watch the food channel -- my favorite source for recipes and cooking information is Cooks Illustrated. I received the print magazine for several years -- really pretty, the covers are so nice I clipped the backs of several and framed them for the kitchen wall, and now I use their online magazine and recipe database. Have never gotten a bad recipe from them, and they have pretty much everything I need. My dream editing job would be working for the magazine over in Boston, LOL.

Food is about stories, and love, and connection to the people we cook with and for. It's creativity and art and nurturing, even just for yourself, though like Ellen, when I am on my own, I tend to be much more efficient in cooking for myself. I will order take out, etc., when Mike is out of town, but also find I will enjoy making myself a meal.

I have several of my mother's cooking tools as well -- some very old sponge ware and yellow ware bowls that are used on a regular basis, and a little manual potato slicer that I love, though it gives my husband nightmares. I have never cut myself on it. I also have some of her pans and dishes.

Tonight, a simple middle eastern dinner, some marinated chicken on rice, falafel, and cucumbers and tomatoes in Tzatziki Sauce. :)

Sam

Well, actually a few more than that, but a few that we use the most. :) I'm not much of a cook, but my husband's pretty good, and he'll find new cool stuff to make from cookbooks. I tend to make a few things over and over; the cookbooks I use the most are the Joy of Cooking (one of the newer versions--can't remember exactly which one!) and Cook's Illustrated Best Recipe. We have a couple Asian cooking ones from Nina Simonds, a bread one, and quite a few back issues of Cook's Illustrated. I also love reading the America's Test Kitchen ones... mmmm... Anyway, I hope you're keeping a binder or something with your own favorite recipes because that's the cookbook your kids will be wanting a copy of later on! :D

I pared down my stock recently and now I want to kick myself. I'm more of a grocery store pick up at the checkout aisle magazine type girl. I love to look at the beautiful pictures, but I rarely make anything from those books.

My staple is good old Betty Crocker. Most of the time I make up my own recipes.

I love The Barefoot Contessa books. I started following her when she did that column in Martha Stewart magazine years and years (and years...) ago. Ah, those lovely glossy pics...as one reviewer said about Hungry for More (yep, my 3rd book was a restaurant book--get it? HUNGRY for More...?): "...and then there's the food porn."

Indeed.

And yet, strangely, I'm not that into cooking. Just books.

I once met a cookbook writer. I always thought she had the ideal job.

Shirley, you and i would get along great. I love cookbooks, have alot and absolutley love to cook, try new receipes and bake.
I love Rachael Ray's, i have three of hers, by the way her chicken cacciatore stoup is incredible. love it!

I also have the family binder with mainly all of our baking recipes for holiday cookies, and desserts. I have a recipe of my husbands late grandmother's in my file, carrot cake. it's the best most moist carrot cake ever, and i'm the only one in the family who makes it. In my family my sister and i battle to see who can make better desserts. she does wedding cakes so she wins, but my brownie cheesecake is killer!
oh yeah i have two cookbooks that are nothing but cheesecakes, yup i'm addicted to cheesecake. even a bad cheesecake is better than none. But a good new york style baked cheesecake is my favorite!
lord now im hungry. Yup ill agree with the food porn!
happy baking!
jody lynn

I'm a terrible cook--I get distracted or try to skip steps or forget ingredients. I truly can't muster the interest. Luckily for him, my husband likes to cook.

I do have a cookbook, though. (Just one.) The Joy of Cooking. My brother gave it to me as a college graduation present because my mom had it when we were growing up. It's a paperback copy and lost the back cover several moves ago. The index has been gradually falling out page by page but since I only use it to make pie crust, I'm still okay. The P's are still in there.

I really should just rip the pie section out and toss the rest of the book, but I kind of like that my brother gave it to me. Plus the diagram of how to skin and slice up a squirrel might come in handy if the economy doesn't improve.

When my husband is out of town and I'm forced to cook, there is a lot of breakfast for dinner. One time my older son was smacking his lips over his bagel and fruit salad meal and he said, "I love it when you cook." Hee. Nothing like a little boy to treat his mama right. ;-)

I have to agree with the review for Diana's book. Food porn--it was all delicious! And I'm not even that fond of food. ;-)