Hi I'm Pam and I am a Cookbookaholic.   Seriously...  I can not pass up a nice inexpensive cookbook.  The way I figure it is this way - if I get one or two, maybe more recipes out of a $1 cookbook, it's paid for itself. If a cookbook is at a yardsale and is a quarter, so much the better!

Does anyone share this affliction?  I keep saying I'm going to pare down my collection, but they are hard to part with.

I'm right there with you. I have given away about 50 and still have about 200. I especially love any church or league cookbooks. Picked up the Star Trek cookbook a couple of days ago at the thrift store..have no idea why!

I have close to 300 cookbooks and counting.  Cannot pass up a good one. 

Carol, hang on to those church and league cookbooks, they are a snapshot of history. There is a great article on spiral bound cookbooks particularly in the south, in Southern Living Magazine issue July 2013. 

Does the Star Trek cookbook have recipes from the stars on the show, or from the fans with cute names for the food?

Carole I'll have to find that Southern Living and check that out..and that Star Trek cookbook had recipes by sections according to characters/series...they alll have cute names. I have some really old small ones also from as far back at the early teens. I love them!

I have two of those spiral-bound cookbooks put out by churchwomen's 'groups----in this case, Swedish Lutheran women.  

They were given to me by my mother-in-law, around the time of my marriage, in 1955.   One of the recipes called for an ingredient

called "red sago".   So, when I visited Sweden, many years later, out of curiosity, I asked in a grocery there for "red sago".   The male

storeclerk couldn't understand what I wanted.  But another shopper, a "kvinna" (woman) who obviously knew some English, said that

red sago was no longer available.  It had been banned by some branch of the Swedish government.   So I figured it must have been

the Svensk version of  "Red Dye No. 2" as it used to be known in the USA.  At any rate, lacking "red sago" I just made the fruktsoppa for

hubby using dried fruits, stick cinnamon, sugar, tapioca, and some red raspberry something---Jell-O powder,  a spoonful of red raspberry jelly

or jam, some raspberry Kool-Aid, a splash of raspberry sauce, or even some fresh or frozen red raspberries.

 I never did use red food color, though.

Bonnie that info is good to know..if I come across that in one of my books now I will know what to do

My collection is probably somewhere in the 300 range.  It's a true addiction.  Does anyone belong to The Good Cook?  I finally had to cancel my memberships, because their great sales got me all the time.  (Nevermind the fact that I had already signed up my mom to get their 'new' member deal AGAIN!)  LOL

In my lifetime, I'd never be able to cook from all of them, but I just *love* looking through them. 

Now, if only I could stop grabbing a quick dinner out somewhere..  <sigh>  ;)

Quite a while back, things got to the point where I was using a recipe from one book, a couple from another, a few hand-written ones from friends and relatives, and a bunch clipped out of newspapers and magazines.  The lovely bookshelf my brother-in-law built for me wouldn't hold all the cookbooks I actually consulted!   I bought a sturdy three-ring notebook binder and some plastic page protectors.  And I have been typing the "cream of the cream" on the computer for a long time, now.  Even that BIG noebook in getting fat, too!  But at least I only have to haul out ONE book when I find I am a little uncertain about the quantity of this or that ingredient, or a cooking time, or something.  And I can print out copies for my two daughters, too.

I don't have that many cookbooks, I probably have 20 or so.  The one I use most often is a binder of family recipes.  Several years ago I asked everyone in the family to send me their 10 favorite "tried and true" recipes.  I put them in sheet protectors and made everybody a copy complete with table of contents.  I keep adding recipes to the binder as I find new favorites. 

I have a separate binder of "interesting recipes" that I clip from different sources.  It doesn't make it into the main cookbook until it has been made at least twice and asked for by someone I know. 

I also have all of my grandmother's recipes typed up and in a three ring binder...much handier than all of her recipe cards. 

Most of my cookbooks are for baking, because I tend not to cook with recipes.  I bake with recipes, but making supper...nope, no recipes, I just wing it.  Last night I made a rice pilaf that was good enough to be the main course, but I don't remember what I put in or in what quantities. 

I never heard of  The Good Cook but took a look at it and I know I can't join that..lol...too tempting to buy!  I like the idea of making a book of your own. I have a tiny one my grandmother wrote down but there are only maybe 10 recipes in it. Wish I would have thought of that years ago. My mom never used recipes either. My husbands aunt that passed away a few years ago had many great recipes I may be able to get from her daughter..our reunion is Sunday..I'll have to ask the family members if they would like to send some of their favorites to me....

I "only" have close to 200, but I know what you mean! Exactly. If a cookbook in a thrift store or yard sale has one good thing, I figure it's worth a buck or less....At some point, you start realizing how alikle so many are. But you can still find good ideas in the most surprising places.

Haven't done the Good Cook, thank heaven.  It is bad enough that I order almost every time I get a Hamiltons catalog of cookbooks.  When I was first married I used to cut out recipes from magazines and mount them on art paper in notebooks.  I have three filled up, but the glue didn't last.  I got the idea to use the three-ring photo albums with the sticky paper covered with clear acetate.  That worked great, and I have filled up two of those with recipes from Bon Appetit magazine and others.  I added in some sheet protectors in the front of both so I could save whole pages.  I cut the picture of the dish out too, so my homemade cookbooks have the pretty pictures.

I have 600+ cookbooks and am adding all the time.  I rarely buy a new one -- I frequent library booksales and find lots of really great cookbooks for $1 - $2 a piece -- from old classics to recent releases.  I've been known to come home with 30 at a time!!  I recently had to invest in several more book cases just to house them all.  There's a great website to help you make better use of your cookbooks and to keep track of what you own.  It's basically an index search service for a $25 annual fee.  Check it out -- it's called EatYourBooks and it also has a lot of good articles about cooking and food.  I love it and I'm using my cookbooks a lot more now that I'm a member.  

It looks like I'm in good company!   I'll have to check out the indexing site as I have tried to sort thru and whittle down my cookbooks and I always find a reason to hang on to most and acquire more.

Went to the library book sale today and came home with five more cookbooks.  I just cannot let a good one pass by!!