Recently I went attended a cooking school led by a chef from a local Mediterranean restaurant. It was a double mother-daughter night out with my daughter, a friend and her daughter. One of the dishes included pomegranate molasses as an ingredient. I had never heard of it. When my friend’s daughter piped up that she had been reading a lot about pomegranate molasses lately, I had to wonder what cookbooks she was looking at. It wasn’t too many days later that we had lunch at her house and I got to see her cookbook collection and it got me to thinking…do people still buy cookbooks?
When I did a search for cookbooks on Amazon.com, over 98,000 titles came up! They ranged from recipes from truck stops to truly gourmet titles. I probably have thirty cookbooks myself…not all in current use, mind you.
If it isn’t a cookbook then what? Not too many of us have computers in the kitchen…too big a chance for orange juice to get spilled on them. E-readers are another option but to me nothing beats cracking open a cookbook where I can write notes in the margins.
All my really successful recipes are kept on my home computer and hard copies are kept in a custom cookbook that I have put together over the years. So even if you’re a digital recipe collector, there are always a few special cookbooks and it begs the question, where do you store them? They can be stored in a pantry or even a drawer but most of us want them within easy reach so that means open shelving. In the photo above an open shelf was placed at the end of the wall cabinets. It was a great place to put them…slightly off to the side but within reach. And you’ll notice the cookbook on the counter. I guess people do still use cookbooks!
