The Westering Hills

Just the other day, I was thinking to myself that I hadn’t been tagged for a meme in quite some time and then bam! Kristi tags me with a cookbook meme! So here goes.

1. Total number of cookbooks I’ve owned:

I’m relatively new at collecting cookbooks, to be frank. Hell, I’m relatively new at this whole cooking food thing! So only for the past five years, with the exception of a couple of cookbooks my mom bought me years ago to help me try to save money on eating out, have I been buying cookbooks. I just counted them and I have a surprising 28! It looks to me like most of these have been gifts, too.

2. Last cookbook I bought:

Hmmm. I honestly don’t recall the last one that I bought. Barrett went out and bought three Japanese cookbooks after we returned from Japan–does that count? The last one was a gift from Anne, Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison (Sher’s blog inspired her to buy this!).

3. The last cookbook I read:

This is an easy one. My fabulous Culinaria: The United States: A Culinary History cookbook! This is practically a novel of the history of food in America and I highly suggest everyone get this if they can. Correction–according to the Amazon link, it’s out of print, but there are a few used copies for sale, so order it quick! I was lucky in that I bought this in 1999 at Half Price books for about $25. I still find myself engrossed in this book from time to time.

4. Three cookbooks that mean a lot to me:

My Visual Food Encyclopedia cookbook. This was another Half Price Books find and it turned out to be a godsend for me as I began to learn the art of cooking. I still consult it heavily. I have learned so much about different “weird” vegetables, fruits, types of cheeses, cuts of meat, and spices from this book. Even me, the Queen of Google, will consult this book about food before I turn to the laptop.

The Book of Soups by Lorna Rhodes. My boyfriend at the time bought this cookbook for me when he noticed that I gravitated towards soup-making. I didn’t cook anything else at that time in my life. It is a gorgeous little cookbook and opened up for me the possibility that I could expand my horizons! I am ever grateful to him for that.

Okay, this isn’t so much a cookbook but something that means a lot to me–my blob of recipes that I have printed out over the years, via the internet.

One of these days, I plan to organize these into a scrapbook of recipes. By type of food? I have no idea.

I also want to give props to some of the “cookbooks” that mean the most to me these days, my beloved folder of food blog bookmarks! Food blogs really are my cookbooks; there’s so much out there, I don’t feel the need to buy new physical cookbooks. Just to name a few–What Did You Eat?, Orangette, Lex Culinaria, Skat & the Food, Anne’s Food, The Hungry Tiger, Belly Timber, Something in Season, Kalyn’s Kitchen, Chocolate & Zucchini, Farmgirl Fare, Kayaksoup, Slashfood, Cooking for Engineers, phew! Sorry for the lack of linkage but it’s just too much! Thank you all for forwarding my interest in cooking and making me salivate over gorgeous food photos!

I tag:

Binulatti, Anne, Bite Your Tongue, Blue Yon Belly (to be honest, Jeci, I don’t know if you like to cook so if you don’t you can skip it), and Schnozz (if she has the time free from flying all over the world).