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... many... they fill 2 shelves in the kitchen... they've spilled out into the living room bookcases... they've spilled into my bedroom bookcase. They share space with travel books with which they share an alliance. When we cook we travel to other lands... to Spain and Lucques as you do Dana.

I use my cookbooks to travel and cook the food of that "place"... often I have no idea where that will be until I'm "there". The recipes I find on the internet are used when I have a know of what I want to eat. If they make the cut... they go into the cookbook of "me".

Thank you Dana for your meditations. They are ours also.

a lot. and when you count subscriptions to cooking light, fine cooking, and the occasional saveur and gourmet: a ton. It a little ridiuclous, but whatever. I love them. I use them. I read them more often than "real' books. (and yes, I read them in the bathtub).

Okay, I know better, but I always thought I was the only person who reads cookbooks like literature. I have been known to check them out of the library...

I once heard cooking described as a prayer the body hears. I like that, and if that is true then cookbooks can be considered prayer books.

Hrmmm I might need to learn some more prayers soon

a ton...i can't even count how many i own.

and they're everywhere.

they've taken over my kitchen cupboards, my pantry, my dining room buffet, the coffee table, the bedroom dresser tops, even the bedroom floor after flipping through them in bed (no wonder i always wake up hungry, i always go to bed with food on the brain).

but i can't seem to keep myself from buying them.

As a percentage of total books, not that many. I have two shelves of cookbooks. Fortunately or unfortunately, my budget and shelf space don't permit cookbook buying right now. Lately, I've found myself using Epicurious more than cookbooks - I'm enamored of being able to read people's comments and suggestions. Also, recipes from blogs get me through photography and narrative description.

I do enjoy reading cookbooks just for fun too. I don't know if it counts, but I have a copy of McGee on my coffee table that I dip into every few days. I'm reading about meat right now.

I have roughly 50 books on two shelves, plus an extensive list of bookmarks in my browser that lead to places like Orangette, Tastespotting, and Smitten Kitchen. I love cookbooks.

Many, many cookbooks.

You can never have too many.

And yes, I have actually started reading cookbooks in the bathtub.

I got rid of a mess of them when we moved almost two years ago - gave them away or they went to the ongoing sale at the library. I kept my absolute favorites: the best Mexican, the best Italian, etc. Now I have about twenty or so. And then I banned myself from buying any new ones. That was a promise I kept until last week, when Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day jumped into my Amazon cart without me knowing it...

I'm done now, I swear.

My mother, on the other hand, has hundreds. HUNDREDS.

I honestly can't count how many I have. It is one of my many addictions. The funny thing is though, that with the internet, the recipes I have rarely come from the cookbooks I own.

I have found great pleasure in buying old cookbooks that I find at consignment shops or goodwill. It is very, very interesting to see how the trends in cookbooks have changed.

I will definitely have to count one of these days!

Josh

I actually know a guy who has over 2000 cook books.

So no, I'm not worried about my c 100 cook books, not even the one I got today. Perhaps a little bit worried of those I have in a cart in one web book store, but that is because I should also eat with my money, not only shop books about food..

I believe there are way worse shopping addictions..

I have 16 or so cookbooks and that is my limit - if I want to buy one I have to give one away.
I occasionally take them out of the library, and sometimes they do come to bed (but not the tub). I have a few recipes bookmarked in del.icio.us.
I made the 16 limit last year when I realized I am never going to try all these recipes, even those I have marked with yellow stickies.

I probably have about 20 now but the number slowly edges up and up. I just love them and I also read them as literature. Often in bed, more often curled up on the couch. Never taken them to the tub but there is a first time for everything.

I love cooking and cookbooks so as long as they don't take over too much I'm happy to keep buying the occasional one that catches my eye. My problem however is the proportion of my cookbooks (most of the 20) are all about asian food but since I adore it, I suppose it's ok.

I stopped counting about 5 years ago. I was up to about 75 at that point. I'm pretty sure I've crossed the 100 line since then.

A lot of them were gifts - my family knows I love to cook, so I usually get at least one new cookbook a year, often more than that.

I do think I'll be going through them soon, and pulling out the ones I will just never use (Bridges of Madison County Cookbook, anyone?). I need some shelf space.

Of the many I do own, I'd say I use about 20 regularly. Those are the ones I actually keep IN the kitchen.

I seem to have nine cookbooks, most of them left over from before I figured out this system:

I get cookbooks from the library (as well as recipes from the internet), and I have a virtual recipe box, an application called "connoisseur". There are many others. It also helps that I have a laptop, so I can use my computer as an open cookbook.

By using my city library's request system, I can get almost any cookbook, as long as I'm more or less patient.

Oh no. I saw that copy of the Everyday Food cookbook in the photo above and "ran" to Amazon to get it.

Not enough.

I have many parked in my shopping cart -- dreaming about cook books is an addiction of mine...

Of course there is no way you could ever cook your way through all of them, but that is not the point. Just reading the recipes, you can taste them...

There are some that I have which I have never cooked from (Patricia Wells' Bistro Cooking for example), and some are the source of only one or two favourite recipes (I bought Recipes from HOME because we go to the restaurant sometimes, but the purchase is worth the pancake recipe alone -- the closest to Mitchell London's pancakes I have ever come; Ditto Spoonbread and Strawberry Wine, for the spoonbread).

I *am* however cooking my way through Tamasin's Kitchen Bible, having started with toad-in-the-hole. I am still dreaming about Sunday Suppers at Lucques...

A lovely meditation! Coincidentally, I'm taking a break from combing through stacks of cooking magazines, ripping out recipes so I can get rid of the magazines.

I have two shelves (54 inches) of cookbooks, though there are a few strays around that don't quite fit, that I've been reading. I also go through every page, reading notes, making notes. One of my most prized is the one cookbook my mom always used even though we kids would buy her stacks of them for gifts.

I have maybe 50, but most of them are with my 27-yo daughter. Unfortunately, a lot of them were water-damaged in storage, so she's sifting through them now.

I've outgrown a lot of them. For instance, I had a complete set of 70s-90s Southern Living annual cookbooks. But they're very dependent on processed ingredients, and I'm moving away from that.

Right now I have two soup cookbooks, Damon Lee Fowler's veggie/fruit cookbook, and Richard Sax's Classic Home Desserts. I do have several on my Amazon wishlist and also check out a lot from the library.

My problem is old cooking pamplets that I pick up at estate and garage sales.

My favorites are appliance manuals that have recipes in the back. And pure heaven is boxes of recipes that were clipped out of the newpapers years before I was born! I LOVE to go thru these! My favorite box she had at least 10 recipes for Rum balls and orginal tollhouse chocolate chip bags! Sigh...

My husband and I joke about the "kindling" in our closet! They are all wothless but I love them!

There are a gazillion recipes here on the internet... why should I need cookbooks? Oh but I do! They are so much fun to read. A good cookbook is like having a friend in the kitchen. I'm not giving up my paper cookbooks any time soon.

It is nice seeing comments and ratings from websites, but sometimes a bad rating can scare you away from trying something good. The decision is all yours when using a cook book.

I have 80 cookbooks and this was after purging them during our last move. Do I read them in bed? Yes. The bathtub? Yes.

I check them out from the library as well and if I really love it I buy a copy. Is it possible to have too many? Maybe, but I doubt I'm anywhere near that number.

I have many favorites that I use frequently and others that get occasionally used. Then there are those that sit on the shelf for year only to be rediscovered. Cookbooks may be my one addiction.

I use the internet for recipes as well, although it can be difficult to find gems on the internet. There are just too many to sift through sometimes. I do find great ones on occasion and these get printed out and placed in a binder.

I am also a cookbook junkie. I often check cookbooks out from the library for reading pleasure. But I use the internet more often to find family pleasing recipes. The internet method works great for me because I can bookmark a recipe and find it easily (in the real world I'm not that organized).

I just whittled my cookbook collection, giving a stack to a friend. I'm trying not to think about it too much or I will march over to her house and demand them back.

Near about 200 at last count---enough to warrent the building of floor-to-ceiling bookcase in my livingroom; I have a stack in the kitchen; about 75 in my home office; a 'special books' shelf in my bedroom (including MFK Fisher 1st edition of How to Cook a Wolf, and James and Kay Salter's daily food diary from 2 years ago, and a Penguin UK edition of Elizabeth David's Italian Food). I will not stop collecting or reading or cooking, no matter how insane things get.

I have 50 or so now. A few years ago I donated a couple dozen that used a lot of processed food as ingredients or other books that just didn't work for me.

My newest collection is actually old--I collect and cook from old cookbooks and post about it on my blog (www.classiccookery.blogspot.com). The books are absolutely fascinating. (By the way, if you do check the blog, I apologize for not posting much recently...school is almost over and I'll post regularly again soon!)

by the time i was 30 I had at least 30. It started with a paperback frugal gourmet in college (may be the perfect cook book for a high school boy, of the straight persuasion; some of the first recepies I tried were from Thrasher skateboarding magazine, so go figure)

then I purged

For years I searched for an american (Harper) version of Elizabth David's Italian Food. Its a beautiful book, not only because its got beautiful art in it but because its big and lays open flat!

so the shelf is more of a merry go round. The constants are the E.D. mentioned, a James beard book, Marcella's Classi, some editions of Joy.

I think a core of 8 is probably appropriate, but with the interwebs its hard to really be excited about books and magazines, especially with Rachel and Paula glaring at you from everywhere.

oh and "On Food and Cooking" by McGee, very necessary

I have over 200 cookbooks and counting. I started my cookbook fetish back in the late 90's when I worked for Williams-Sonoma and of course it continued once I decided to go to Culinary school. Now I review cookbooks from time to time so they just never go away. I have managed to part with a few of the ones that were sent to me for review but the ones I purchased with my hard earned cash aren't going anywhere (much to my husband's dismay).

I have plenty that I've never cooked from and I definitely sit and read through them like they are novels. Don't most great cookbooks have a great story behind them.
The ones that I review I have to try at least one recipe from them because that's just part of the review process.

Well until this weekend and the Borders Bargain Cookbooks I didn't have very many I'm much more of a print from the internet, tear out of magazines copy from the library book the one recipe that was fantastic and save in my recipe binder type person. I've been trying to limit myself to cookbooks I know I'll use for multiple recipes. I have that Everyday Food cookbook pictured which I bought because I buy the magazine frequently and when I make things from it they usually turn out great. I'm more likely to buy giant thick comprehensive tomes when it comes to cookbooks than a bunch of smaller books because not only do they have a lot more recipes, but I think they offer a better chance for getting the gist of certain dishes and styles so that you can experiment and just make up your own once you've got the basic technique and proportions down.

I'm a horrible book hoarder though, so once I start buying cookbooks it's all over for me I fear. Then it's only a matter of time until I'm found dead in my apartment, crushed by a well-meaning, but unbalanced tower of world cuisine.

Last count I have over 300, not counting my antique cookbook collection. They fill floor to ceiling shelves of a wall in one of our spare bedrooms. I read cookbooks in the bath, the kitchen, the living room, in bed. They are always a few strewn around the house. Ocasionally I weed a few out, but the spaces are quickly filled. I have a wish list on half.com of at least 20 cookbooks. I subscribe to 3 cooking magazines. They bring me a lot of pleasure. I try to comfort myself with the fact that I rarely ever pay full price. I've gotten some incredible deals on half.com. It just pays to be patient.

If it helps at all, my experience with Tamasin Day-Lewis is that her recipes never taste as good as they look.

I've been downsizing, trying to get rid of books that I really just don't use (not for recipes, not for reference, and not for inspiration). And trying to buy books that are really focused. I have more than enough general reference info.

The hardest area is baking books. You really only need 1 or 2, but it's hard not to buy the new shiny ones as they come out. I've been torn over puchasing Dorie Greenspan's book for ages, and finally convinced myself that I simply cannot justify another baking book right now.

I am slowly inheriting my mom's cookbooks as she slowly downsizes her huge collection that she started when she was 14 (50 years ago!)

Since I love books, I also love cookbooks... though I only tend to use them for baking recipes because I do most of my cooking freestyle. But, they're always good for ideas and the old ones are especially interesting to look at.
Thanks to my 1967 edition of The Joy of Cooking, I now know how to skin a muskrat!

My current problem is that I have no storage space in my kitchen for my books so they're stuck off in the 'office" where the rest of our book collection is. Kind of a hassle if I need to quickly look something up. I'll have to work on a tidy solution...

My favorite for reading is my old set of Womans Day Encyclopedia of Cooking, which my father gave me when I was about 14, which features a number of pieces by James Beard. He was so inspired by his mother's cooking and he evokes lovely scenes of picnics and dinners in days gone by. I didn't know at the time that he was a famous cook, but I loved his stories.

I have a kitchen cabinet full of cookbooks. I, too, read them like books. I don't know how many would be too many.
A friend of mine put a moratorium on new cookbooks, which I understand, but wouldn't do it myself.

I just loved what Daigan wrote about cooking being like a prayer your body hears. That is the best thing I have heard or read in a long time. Thank you for sharing it.

I have read the reviews of this book and I am sorry that I did not know about this book before I purchased "The Santa Monica's Farmers Market Cookbook", but thanks to you its on my wish list, along with Tom Cocclichio's Think like a chef.

Ooops!! I forgot to answer the question. I have a few cook books and also cooking magazines. I try to cook something from the magazines so that I do not have to give them away.

Ooh, I have lots.

And you *need* that River Cottage Cookbook. All of them actually, especially the meat one. Great great stuff.