by Isabelle Esteves

Created on: January 29, 2008   Last Updated: July 15, 2011

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,  the exact year escapes me, I joined a cookbook  club and suddenly I had four new cookbooks, which soon multiplied to 8 and twelve since I was terrible at returning the cards on time. What I realized somewhere along the way was hat I enjoy reading cookbooks. This began my next faze of collecting.

I enjoyed reading about Southern cooking, Shaker cooking and cooking at The White House. Celebrity recipe favorites soon joined my collection. Everywhere I went I looked 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 collecting  went down the tubes. At some point I realized that by haunting antique stores and flea markets,  I could replace many if not all 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 actually cooking 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

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