My memoir in cookbooks

One of my favorite podcasts is Foodstuff. Recently they were talking about the kinds of recipes that they would want to make sure to include in their memoir.  While I do have some specific recipes I would want to include (a chip dip, swiss green bean salad and fried rice to name a few) I found myself thinking more about cookbooks than specific recipes because I often like the variety that comes with that. I know that I have discussed the need for critical reasoning when exploring diets  in my blog about Diet Cults. I also briefly discussed different cookbooks and food books in my post on Home Economics 101 but really could not resist visiting this topic again from the more explicit perspective of cookbooks that have been important for me. Food is a topic that my husband and both really enjoy that we explore in further depth through books and podcasts so there will likely be more food themed topics in the future.

Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook

My grandmother gave this cookbook to me with the instruction to start a hope chest when I was in college. When I finally was living with a roommate when I was done with college it was awesome for learning some basic things and is an excellent reference book.

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Holden Village Cookbook

Holden Village is not just where I had my first romance when I was a teenager, I also remember the FOOD as being quite amazing. I think of like church basement cookbook…only the recipes are delicious and sustainable. It was just impossible to track down a copy of it. My husband and I looked on the Holden website, amazon, e-bay and google and never found it. Since its pretty short my mom scnned me a copy of the whole book.

Slow and Easy

When I lived in Fargo I was often strapped for time and cash. But I wanted hot meals when I came home. This cookbook was a god send for me. I ate the cabbage soup in this cookbook quite often

South Beach Diet

A fad diet that I was obsessed with! I managed to live by this diet for about two and half years and I was very successful with weight loss when  was on it. But then I moved to Fargo, ND after living in Berkeley, CA and when winter hit I craved bread.

Thug Kitchen

Found this book on Kindle Unlimited. Unfortunately it is not available on Unlimited anymore. But fortunately I created a document with all my favorite recipes from there! My brother got this vegan cookbook for Christmas and it peaked my interest. I could not give up meat and dairy entirely at all.  However in my time when I had left the bank and wanted to find healthy budget friendly recipes I found that minimizing the meat and dairy that I eat really helped me minimize my grocery bill and think about being healthy.  Also not cooking with meat makes the process of cooking faster.

The Spread

This is the family Heirloom of cookbooks. My dad compiled all of our traditional family recipes into this as a family gift one year. I often refer to it when I think of the kinds of foods I remember enjoying eating in my childhood.

I am keeping my eyes open for another fun, healthy cookbook. I actually am a fan of finding recipes online and have developed the habit of putting the ones that I want to refer to in a Google documents folder. This way all I have to do if I think of a particular recipe while I am out and about is to pull up the document on Google.

I think that electronic methods of saving recipes really are my generations version of the recipe box. However cookbooks are awesome for inspiration and for when I want to jog my mind for ideas.  Trying new recipes stops me from getting into a rut with the kinds of meal that I make.