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My stock of recipe books….

This post was inspired recently by Shannon of Just As Delish who went around asking fellow friends in FB to share their stock of recipe books. Although I am not a recipe book junkie but I do have quite a stash collected at home. And I feel I have to break them down because they’re kinda everywhere in the house. Currently, my collection of recipe books occupies two shelves in the bookcase upstairs (below) but I got like recipe books here and there in the kitchen, in the living room and guest room sometimes. Sometimes even the washroom if I ever need some light reading (we all do that sometimes….reading in the loo)

recipe books 3

I don’t really spend a lot on recipe books, nor do I really buy those celebrity chefs’ cookbooks….don’t get me wrong, I would love to own a whole collection of Nigella Lawson or Rick Stein or Jamie Oliver but most of the time it’s way off my budget so I usually go to those bargain bookstores or warehouse sales and get really cheap ones. To me recipes are forever whether or not the book is old or new. I used to work in Damansara Jaya where they have this huge warehouse bookstore selling books for much cheaper than commercial prices. So every month or every other month I would treat myself to a few copies from there. I also used to work for a publishing house so when they had to get rid of old copies or stocks of books, I gladly took home the cooking ones. Of course they’re like vintage 1970’s to 1990’s but like I said, recipes never die…they just evolve.

recipe book 1 First column, up-down; Recipe cards that came with magazines, I have those dating back to 2006;Some recipe books that were on the dining table….
First row, left and right; My collection of those cheap Family Circle ‘pocket’ size recipe books…bought during uni days
Second row, left and right; Some vintage books…..
Third row, left and right; These are not recipe books, they’re a comic collection of
Chinese cooking, the series is called Cooking Master Boy, I put this as
part of my recipe book collection because the comic explains how certain
Chinese dishes originates albeit all the drama and story plot thingy….
I think there’s a thing or two to be learnt….

recipe books 2

Now these collection of recipe books (above) are more precious to me than anything I’ve ever bought. It’s just empty A4 log books that I cut and paste all the bits and pieces of recipes I found in magazines or newspapers or any other print sources. So far I have accumulated about 6 books over the course of 10 years. What first inspired me to cooking was two books when I was very young. One was my mother’s recipe book which was really old. The pictures were black and white and there’s not much pretty text going on, just pictures and recipes in both English and Mandarin. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to salvage that book. It probably became dinner a long time ago to those silverfishes. The second one was my mother’s recipe notebook….she jotted down some notes here and there and even did some illustrations which I thought were very nice. If these two books were enough to inspire a kid of 6, I just picture how it would be for my kids next time. I guess you can call these collection somewhat of an heirloom itself because this is something I would definitely pass down to my children. As you can see from the photos above, the first book (red and white cheques) was so old, the cover literally came off. I recently just started a book on just baking and desserts…prior to that it was all mixed up in the previous books. If some magazines give you like a free booklet recipes, I also just paste them into the book.

I love it when friends give me old magazines on cooking (below). I do not mind to take it off their hands. This one below is one of my favorites. It’s dated 2008.

mag 1

This is also a good magazine to refer to on food styling, photography and writing.

mag 2

Besides all these, I also have notebooks or recipe journals that I keep at hand at all times when I get ideas for a dish or had to copy something fast, I still go old school with pen and paper. These notebooks are quite precious too and I don’t think I’ll ever throw them away.

recipe journals

So what recipe books do you have at home, I would love to hear some feedback from you!!


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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Swee San @ The Sweet Spot says

    November 22, 2012 at 9:46 am

    wow u have the entire cooking master boy comic!!
    i don’t read chinese so i usually watch cooking anime. u should check out yumeiro patisserie too! it’s reallyyyyy cute!
    let’s see if i’m able to pull off this post some time soon … there are 3 places i DREAD organizing, 1 my wardrobe, 2 my kitchen cake deco section and 3 bookshelves.. T__T

    • Swee San @ The Sweet Spot says

      November 22, 2012 at 9:48 am

      oooppss, incase anyone misunderstood, it’s not because i have LOTS of clothes, cake deco stuffs or books. But i just don’t find it necessary to organize it all the time when i gets messed up every couple of days.. hahah

      • Sharon says

        November 22, 2012 at 10:06 am

        Haha, each to their own ways of storing lah. My recipe books also here and there….never sit nicely in the shelves anyway and i just chuck all my baking equipments into a large Toyogo box.

    • Sharon says

      November 22, 2012 at 10:04 am

      I got it from pasar malam last time, Swee San. I oso don’t read chinese but just like looking at the graphics. I know about yumeiro patisserie too! But dun think will buy the whole series again. Would love to see a post on your whole recipe book collection!

  2. Kelly says

    November 22, 2012 at 2:10 pm

    Great collection! I remember having a small notebook with some recipes too but have no idea where it went…. My mom and grandma never wrote anything down either and just taught me verbally… Maybe I ought to write them down before I forget everything!

    • Sharon says

      November 22, 2012 at 3:15 pm

      Kelly, I need to write it down if not I will do just dat….forget everything! 🙂

  3. Shenny fong says

    November 22, 2012 at 10:28 pm

    My mum has the book like your mum, but not cooking tips. You know what she cut and paste? 谢贤,林子祥,任贤齐。。。
    She can cook well …
    She gave me her agak agak recipe of her signature ginger rice wine chicken, I cook 10 times can achieve her taste.my husband ask why your chicken doesn’t taste like your mum cook?
    So i decided to see how she cook for once,then found out that so many things she didn’t tell me!
    I ask her why she didn’t tell me so many steps…
    She answer me…such common steps also got to tell meh? I don’t know how to teach you cook edi.
    Vomit blood…

    • Sharon says

      November 23, 2012 at 7:32 am

      Hi Shenny, my mom never officially taught me anything either (except frying egg and make instant noodles), she said if want to learn just stay in the kitchen and observe, most of the time i ended up peeling garlic, dicing onions or washing dishes. Gave up half way. haha.

  4. Baby Sumo says

    November 22, 2012 at 11:58 pm

    Nice collection… I think I only have a 1/4 of what you own.. cos usually I just look for recipes online ;P

    • Sharon says

      November 23, 2012 at 7:30 am

      Yen, even if i found some nice recipes online, i still print them out to hard copy cause i tend to not go back to them or comp might crash and i’ll lose everything. But most of these books were around before internet was so accessible. 🙂

  5. Quay Po Cooks says

    November 24, 2012 at 2:55 pm

    Sharon, you have quite a nice collectionof cookbooks. I have a very small collection because I was not interested in cooking or baking before I started my blog. After that I seldom buy cookbooks because can easily get from fellow bloggers or the world wide web:D

    • Sharon says

      November 26, 2012 at 4:10 pm

      hi veron, i accumulated most of my cookbooks before the internet was more accessible like during my uni days. But now i oso hardly buy them because can just search from the net. 🙂

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