I have loved to cook since junior high 50 years ago! I always use cook books and have assembled my own with favorite recipes from my 4 favorite cooking magazines. I have arranged them in three ring binders with dividers. I love having no fail recipes that have been tested in test kitchens and can access them in seconds. They are easy to read, with personal notations in the margins. I also love the recipes written in my grandmother's and mother's handwriting.

Ok so I have Cookbooks downloaded on Kindle that I access on my iPad. Not sure what button to select.

I use my Mom's cookbook and I am 76. Some things in cooking never change and always taste good. OK. So I'm just a meat and potatoes type. :-)

I'm sure I am not the only one on here who uses Pinterest. I love the site as I can always find new recipes and other information to add to my personal collection. On each recipe is an area for comments so I can record what I did differently. If I try a recipe and don't like it, I just delete it. Houzz and Pinterest are two of my favorites online.

I have my favorites in a kitchen cabinet and consult them for specific dishes; other than that, I am a pretty inventive home cook and use the inspiration of TV shows or restaurants we've been to in recreating dishes. I also use the internet on my kindle for some recipes.

I love love love my cookbooks, I especially love ones with pictures because I eat with my eyes.

I love the look and feel of books along with the information, wonderful photos and inspiration they hold. I also love the internet for the most of the same reasons and keep favourites on Food.com (previously RecipeZaar). I also write in my books with thoughts, changes, ratings on the recipes I've tried and encourage those that borrow any of them to do the same. The go to book is an ongoing scrapbooking project where favourite recipes from all genres (books, magazines, online and originals) are saved along side foodographs and favourite family photos. No one gets to write in that one though! One day I will have it printed so all family members will have a copy.

I recently culled my cookbook collection down to those that I consider classics. I then stuck them far back in the pantry, as I use online sources exclusively these days. I have boxes of family recipes that I still peruse, but even then I usually find an improved version online. I will keep my classics, though.

Of course I use cookbooks! I buy them, too! I learned to cook from a James Beard paperback that is now tied up with kitchen string. I love consulting my cook books - some are very old, some are group efforts to raise funds for long ago causes, some are excellent with no pictures, some are not so hot with beautiful photos, with some the recipes are too labor intensive. I have my favorite go-to books. The most interesting books are wire-wound.

Wow, I thought I was one of few people on the planet that collect and keep lots of cookbooks/recipes!!! (just counted 65 cookbooks on my shelves in our office). I've thought of purging some but just can't do it!!! and now I'm inspired after reading above comments to be ok with keeping them. I also keep separate 3-ring binders, one for Breads, one for Holiday cooking, and one for General recipes; I use plastic 3-ring sheets that I simply slip the recipes thru. In my General binder I have categorized lists of my favorites collected recipes and those from all my cookbooks (name of book and page #), makes it easy when not sure what to prepare. My first cookbook - Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book from 1971. My favorites - BHGNCB, Williams-Sonoma Cooking at Home, all the Silver Palate Cookbooks, Joy of Cooking, all Cooking Lights, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Too many others to list!!

I love my cookbooks and use them often!

I love to cook! Baking? I use lots of tried and true recipes from friends, cookbooks, print publications AND not as much from the web. Cooking? I have my fav standards, but I also love the challenge of a new recipe or a new method I've never tried. My cooking has evolved and so are the offerings from grocers and markets. It is fresher, more organic, healthier. For me, the varied recipe resources keeps cooking from getting boring. I can't imagine not exploring new recipes in a cookbook like Ellie Krieger or Nigella. At the same time I treasure family heirlooms Where i am often looking for ways to make those healthier. All of these resources make my cooking more inspired and varied.

I had literally hundreds of cookbooks. Got rid of most of them. With so much online information available, why add up to the clutter?

No. I don't follow recipes anymore. I cook seasonally, using locally grown produce.

I read a lot about food and food preparation, so I wing a lot from there. I own some books about food culture, and some have recipes in them, but I don't have a shelf of cookbooks.

I am purging 35 years of Bon Appetite, Gourmet, Food & Wine, Cooks, etc. magazines. I'm keeping all my Chocolatiers though. I donated them to a cooking high school. I've scanned the recipes I want if I can't find and bookmark online. My rule for cookbooks is I have to use 50% of the recipes OR they are travel related. I love French cookbooks. If there's a cookbook I'd like to use but don't really want it for keeps--well I just order from our local LIBRARY! I used to use Epicurious depending on reviews. I now tend to use online SERIOUS EATS.COM They are amazing for techniques and as I tend to wing recipes(except baking) the site & their staff are awesome--especially with techniques and WHY of cooking! As for pastry/baking Stella Parks is incredible. I now use the Stella Standards (my term) for all my baking projects!!

I use my cookbooks mainly as a guide but usually cook the way my mother did, with intuition, rather than recipes. When I do use recipes, there are a very few from my cookbooks. Most of them have been in the family for a couple of generations, or three or four. Many of those are for baking, which demands a bit more precision than other kinds of cooking.

nitemateontaftpl, I hear you on all those magazines!

Yes, I have about 12 feet of cookbooks above my kitchen desk. My husband and I thumb through them for research, inspiration and how-to when we are sitting at the counter. I also have more than 12 feet of cooking magazines in my home office going back to about 1991 starting with Food and Wine. I then moved on to Bon Appetite, Gourmet (for a short period) and currently get Fine Cooking, which we both read regularly. If I'm looking for something specific, I go online to epicurious.com or finecooking.com. For everyday cooking, we rely on a database we keep using Mastercook software. If we make something once and like it, it goes into the database, with date, comments and notes. Easy to look up recipes, easy to print them. I use the printed recipe at the cooktop as a spoon rest. Any changes or comments get noted on the printout and then added to the database. Since we both cook, either one of us can pull up a recipe we haven't made and know exactly what changes the other made to the recipe. We will be renovating our kitchen this year and will be adding power-bar outlets under the cabinets with a docking station for a tablet so that we can have Mastercook right there, without having to print the recipes.

We use a serious cookbook collection, online recipes, family recipes, notebooks full of taped on collected recipes, and a folder in my email program. What I have purged over the years is any recipe that calls for canned soup, cool whip, boxed mixes... What I will never get rid of are the kind of books that explain how to cure your own bacon (surprisingly easy and fun to experiment with) and make fermented cider! I'm a big fan of the cook's illustrated and America's test kitchen books.

I find it much easier to turn pages and enjoy using my treasured books

Yes, definitely still use my cookbooks. I've collected them for 40 years and especially love the ones from 1880 to the early 1950's. Awesome stuff in those.

This issue is largely dependent on whether one actually knows what he/she wants to cook and those who are brainstorming for ideas. Everyone knows that on-line recipes require one to be focused. The one thing often overlooked in using a cookbook is the psychic pleasure in looking at recipes in the comfort of sitting relaxed in one's home. You are not looking at a screen. Some folks find an intimacy between the author of a recipe found in a compilation of recipes not unlike the intimacy found in reading a book vs. kindle edition of the same work. There is no scrolling up and down and no ads in the margins nor any pop-ups. The book can conveniently be transported from the kitchen table where one started to read a recipe over a cup of coffee to another part of home, perhaps setting it down with a bookmark temporarily while answering the telephone and then picking it up again. One can refer to it later without having to log back in and search for the appropriate cite in "history" or having to retype headings to try to resurrect it again. The recipe can be conveniently shared with others in any setting, and one can reenforce items just by pointing them out with a finger. Also, one can more easily compare recipes from several books without having to continually go back and forth out of a screen to make those comparisons.

I mostly use the internet for new recipes and my cookbooks for all the old favorites, especially Christmas cookies.

Cooking for one doesn't really require much of a cookbook collection, but I have about 25 that I use occasionally - mainly for company or holidays. The cookbook I use the most is the one my mother made - a collection of family favorite recipes from my childhood. Other favorites are a Silver Palate book and a regional cookbook (really a pamphlet) of New Mexico recipes. I also have a folder of things I've clipped from magazines or printed from online sources. Martha Stewart Living always has great recipes, so does Cooks Illustrated. I like finding recipes online - the ratings and tips are helpful in sorting out the sublime from the just ok.

another thing i am learning here is we do not all view cookbooks and cooking the same. I feel those who switch to computer so easily, were not raised in the book only time,or were the kind who abhored reading? I love reading, i feel our young are missing education by looking things up on the computer and not books. the feel of the turning page, the surprises, the little surprises along the way, no? i feel the same about libraries since they changed their numbering.

I do use cookbooks , frequently in fact. I bake. Baking is more precise than cooking in many ways. Therefore you have to know the measurements and ingredients precisely. I have a few very old tried and true books I wouldn't give up for the world. One of them my Great Aunt compiled of my Grandfather's baking recipes. As far as I know it's the last of it's kind. It's precious to me.

I have several cookbooks, but don't really use them for the recipes. I use them to get menu ideas for entertaining. I was never one to follow a recipe precisely, but I'll scan them and do my own thing.

There are many people who really enjoy cooking and acquire recipes from various sources, including the internet. Cooking for them is not something that they have to do--it is a hobby and their life in many instances. They relish (no pun intended) checking out the latest frying pans and gadgets in kitchen stores that may be useful to help them prepare meals. Having cookbooks (like wearing a badge) is a tangible demonstration of their interest in that hobby beyond just having others consume the fruits of their labors. Of course, there are others for whom cooking is a means to an end--eating something to satiate their hunger or maybe trying something different because they are bored with the same way of cooking meat, fish, or vegetables. Many of those folks want a fast answer to satisfy that particular need and then go on with whatever they enjoy doing. For some of them, cookbooks may, in fact, be clutter because they may not try new recipes again unless they become bored again. They may go to restaurants and enjoy what they order, but they rarely try to replicate the dish for themselves simply because cooking as an art form is not what motivates them in the first place. So I think that cookbook collecting is not simply a utilitarian function--if it were, people could do quite well by using the internet as a source instead. Cookbooks serve as a celebration of the pleasure of creating and enjoying food. We may never visit all the places in the world that we read about just like we may may never prepare all the dishes found in cookbooks. But for those who enjoy the vicarious experience of seeing the different ways of creating things in the kitchen, those cookbooks can provide some interesting reading beyond just inspiring the creative process.

I tend to use my sad little copy of the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook just for the base recipe and of course for cooking times and temps, after that all bets are off and I go a bit bananas adjusting for my family's tastes.

I LOVE cookbooks! I also love Pinterest and blogs, etc, but the recipes disappear sometimes. I have local church, etc books, books I've found at second hand stores I actually always check out the cookbooks in my fav store. I love to make notes and read notes in books I've found. It's nice to curl up and thumb through a book as opposed to scrolling on the iPad...

When we renovated our kitchen about a year ago, we did not plan cookbook storage. I ruthlessly decided to donate the ones not really used or relevant and still have a few dozen.
I store these on a walk-in closet shelf close to our den. I pour through them while watching TV if I am planning a dinner party. I decide on a menu but most of the time refer to the Internet to get the best version of the dish.
Because I use the internet so much, I was having trouble remembering which site it was on when I wanted to make it again so I created an entertainment journal.
I record the date, who was there, the menu, where the recipe was sourced, and comments on the recipe. After about 5 years, it has been invaluable, not just for finding a successful recipe, but remembering what was served last time someone was invited for dinner, etc.
I do keep a couple of binder type favorite recipe books in my kitchen, but this works perfectly for me.

I like using my tablet when cooking, but I still HAVE cookbooks. As time goes on, I'm sure they'll all (or most) find a home somewhere else.

karincy, kindred spirit! I always keep track of what I serve when we have company over. This is invaluable for recurring guests and those annual events (parties, holiday menus, etc.); I don't want to repeat myself, so to say.

Not too many repeats anyway. There are a few things I know I have to repeat. Especially with family they are requested beloved old family recipes. Then again there have been things they request I never repeat so it goes both ways.

me too, i have a print out after our yearly party, who was invited, who came, (who didnt rsvp, yup, i'm like that. two strikes, you're off the guest list) how much of what i cooked, what was left over, what was great, what didnt get eaten.

sometimes a recipe like a spread may be delicious, but if it looks vaguely grey, people wont eat it.

I have a small collection of cookbooks and mostly use Betty Crocker and the Better Homes and Gardens cookbooks. They have most of the recipes my mother used when I was a child. I also use a large card file which my late daughter-in-law gave me which has many of the recipes I've clipped from magazines or pulled from the internet.

Wow cymbalman what a well written thought on what inspires us to cook and collect cookbooks! Marvelous. I must also interject that not everybody has high speed internet; people in large urban areas forget that a lot of us live in the boonies and therefore connections can be burdensome and not worth the wait. I must also confess that I use the internet if I can't find what I am looking for in my cookbooks which I go to first. I have a Women's Day Encyclopedia of Cookery - 23 volumes which is a real good source of what ingredients are if you have never seen it mentioned before. Just to throw that in as I saw someone say they threw out their books because the ingredients weren't available. I hope everybody is donating their books or recycling unless they are beyond repair. Nancy

@karincy we just finished our kitchen as well. I wanted to beat my head on the wall when I looked around and realized there wasn't a place for my cookbooks. We thought of all manner of things , But that. To remedy that I'm going to put up a small shelf above my floating spice racks. It just made me shake my head to realize with all the months of careful planning that slipped by entirely. :)

karincy and rollinggirl.... when we renovated our kitchen last year, I moved the desk and my computer from the middle of the kitchen (thank you 80s) to a corner where I can keep an eye on the kitchen, see the TV and see outside to the front and backyard! I love my desk! I incorporated a large 2 door wall cabinet for my cookbooks. It is one of the things I love about my kitchen.

I agree with cymbalman. My recipes are my treasures. I have several cookbooks from which I cook....Joy of Cooking (40th printing, 1985) before it was "updated", 2 preschool cookbooks from a fund raiser, Southern LIving Illustrated cookbook, Giada, etc. I also have 5 - 3 ring binders separated into food types and I have a recipe section on my computer. On all of my books and binders, I have made hand written notations as to adjustments and changes I have made. On my computer, I have notations at the end of the recipe.

When my son was married and they moved from our house to their own, his wife asked if we could do Sunday Dinner as a way of staying connected. Now that we have a grand daughter, it is even more important. My cookbooks are a labor of love. I love pouring over them each week, deciding what to fix!!

When we went to move to a new city, I stacked all the cookbooks & went through them all and saved the ones that I have favorite recipes. I let my grown daughter pick out the cookbooks that were left that she wanted, which was most of them. The cookbooks that were left I donated. Like most people, I find recipes on-line now but still have my cookbooks for my favorite old tried and true recipes.

Yes, mostly now for reference when I forget how to do something that I haven't done in a long time, like poaching pears etc. I generally buy them not to cook with per se, but to read and learn from them. They can be very entertaining cookbooks, funny, serious and extremely valuable! I love mine, but I have given many away to the Food Bank when they ask for donations. Any help that I can by donating makes me feel good, and give the cooks there some other things to cook and bake for the homeless and hungry.

Yes, we do.

chinwoo, i really do not think they use them? they want large serving recipes and cheap feeding, have not seen that they want to do anything that they even change the way they view food.

havingfun, I suppose it is for large cheap feeding. So many people, so little time. Thanks for the feedback.

I do think that cookbooks also take you to places that you haven't been. I find the photography amazing and the stories that accompany them interesting and sometimes alluring. From Tallahassee to Timbuktu, from the Easter Islands to Eastern Europe, from the Ukraine to the United Kingdom and all points in between, there is always something to see, taste, learn, and try from cookbooks. It gives you a chance to try something new, something old, something old made new. You get a sense of what foods can smell like and maybe taste like. It will motivate you to keep experimenting with new ways to cook and bake. Happy travels!

Oops! I agree with almost everyone else about using the computer to quickly search for recipes and several weekday/night meals. I still receive food magazines, they are my fast and easy cookbooks!

I use on-line for new recipes. Old favorite recipes are in the books.

However, I hate taking up space with books, so, I prefer getting rid of the books and am pondering Kindle versions of the old books.

I love to brew a pot of jasmine tea and sit on the couch with a stack of cookbooks to browse through. I am inspired by the photographs and the feel of the books in my hands. I put bookmarks on several pages and dream up a dinner party. It's a lovely relationship with time, dreams and the tactile experience of leafing through the pages, writing down ideas and eventually, cooking with my hands.

actually i would probably do all books, they are so much more tactile, they have always been my chicken soup for the soul. but many of my books are older. in those days, i mean just 20years ago, many things very popular now did not exist. even avocado was hard to find. so the mix is needed.

Sometimes. The family has favorites and I don't need recipes for those meals. But if I'm looking for something for a party, or just to try something different, I'll look through my favorite cookbooks and then check the Internet.