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Collecting cookbooks doesn't take any special knowledge, you don't have to spend a lot of money and you can start slow and add on as you find your favorite author or type. Maybe you like baking cookbooks, there certainly are plenty to choose from. You might want to start with The Smart Baking Cookbook: Muffins, Cookies, Biscuits, and Breads by Jane Kinderlehrer or A Passion for Baking by Marcy Goodman. The sky is the limit. If you want older books you can search second hand book stores or antique stores. For new books Amazon has an amazing variety as do Barnes and Noble and Borders. No two people will ever have duplicate collections.

I never consciously decided to collect cookbooks. It just happened. I began my married life with a copy of the Good Housekeeping Cookbook and a Betty Crocker Cookbook. For many years these two languished alone in my kitchen and were my two cooking bibles. At some point, at my advanced age of 57 the exact year escapes me, I joined a Cookbook book club and suddenly I had four new cook books, which soon multiplied to 8 and twelve since I was terrible at returning the cards on time. What I realized somewhere along the line was that I enjoy reading cookbooks. This began my next faze of collecting.

I enjoyed reading about Southern cooking, Shaker cooking, The White House Cookbook, celebrity recipe favorites soon joined my collection. Everywhere I went I was looking for a new book to add to my collection. In 1995 we had a catastrophic house fire and I lost most of my cookbooks, I was devastated, years of collection went down the tubes. At some point I realized that by haunting antique stores and flea markets I could replace many if not most of my cookbooks. One that I have never replaced is my 1890's White House Cookbook.

In the past twelve years I have gone on to a whole new phase of cookbook collecting as we changed our eating habits. During the Atkins years it was all about meat and Barbara Kafka's Roasting Cookbook offered me many ways to make my meat taste really good. All my baking cookbooks became strictly reading material and I added several slow cooker books to my hoard.

The Atkins years are over and I revel in my collection of cookie, cake and bread books. I love reading Jim Fobels Old Fashioned Baking Book and Just like Grandma used to Make by Lois Wyse. Natalie Dupre sold me on Southern Cooking long before Paula Dean made it a household word. Every vacation was an opportunity to pick up a new cookbook. A trip to Vienna gave me Imperial Austrian Cuisine by Renata Wagner Wittula. Our cruise to Bermuda added The Royal Caribbean International Cookbook.

My all time favorite cookbooks for cooking from are 50 Ways to Cook Anything and Good Housekeeping's paperback Cooking with Susan. I still love to read Cooking for Madam by Marta Sgubin about her years cooking for Jackie O.

As we get closer to retirement I am trying to downsize. I can't stop collecting cookbooks but I have made a deal with myself. If one comes in, one must go out. It makes me think really hard about adding a new book, which old book will I part with. Luckily I have several by authors who will remain unnamed that I am happy to see go. I have fallen victim to impulse buying and realized after the fact that these books add nothing to my collection. How many cookbooks do I have? Several hundred I am sure and while I don't expect the collection to grow I know it will evolve. The wonderful thing about cookbook collecting is that it is a reflection of our own personality. It is also very affordable, you don't have to be wealthy to have a fantastic cookbook collection as a matter of fact if you buy second hand or from discount shelves it can be very inexpensive.

Learn more about this author, Belle Starr.
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