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Thursday 12 July 2012

Cooking the Books .................



Dom at Belleau Kitchen has something a little different for us this month in his Random Recipe Challenge - he wants photographs of our recipe books. 

What was meant to be a simple exercise of taking a few photographs turned into a mammoth tidy up and cull of some old books that have outlived their usefulness.  Not the cookery books you understand, no these were of the "Toddler Taming" and  "Beyond Toddlerdom" variety - as my daughters are now 18 and 13 - these books are now obsolete along with a few (why do I have three) Trinny & Susannah books.  This gave me some much needed space on the bookshelf upstairs to move some books which had formed an orderly pile on the floor downstairs and a few others from the bookshelf in the passage downstairs, this gave me some extra shelf space to tidy my recipe books, although they are still in no order, except that those I use most often are easy to reach.


These are the books on two shelves which are in the passage just outside the kitchen door - easy to reach.


View of the same books from the opposite angle.

The untidy pile on the lower shelf, right hand side are a mixture of magazines and books.  Some of these magazines date back to 1988 - when I was living in Australia!

Almost the whole bookshelf in the kitchen

Top shelf of the books in the kitchen


Bottom shelf of the bookshelf in the kitchen




I think that's all of them.  I had almost forgotten some of them, so it's been a really useful exercise in housekeeping (lots of dust) and nostalgia.

I'm so looking forward to Dom's round-up - can't wait to have a look at everyone else's books.





So, this is it, my entry into this month's random recipes.

12 comments:

  1. What a lovely lot of books you have!! Its surprising when you start this exercise at the amount that we actually do have and how we can pick out some of our favourites on other blogger's shelves. I see you have the whole set of Delia, and Jamie and Nigella - even an Aussie Stephanie Alexander!
    Well done - great line up.

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    1. Thank you - it is surprising just how many books we manage to accumulate, yet never feel as if we have enough, my "wish list" on Amazon is quite long!

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  2. What a great collection of books, I need to photograph mine and as you say take the opportunity to dust as well. LOL!

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    1. Thanks Jude - it really is a good opportunity to re-discover some old favourites too - the bonus being the dusting!!

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  3. You see... people should be thankful to me for getting them to have a good old tidy up! You have a LOT of cookbooks! So many that I recognise from my collection and so many that are new to me. It makes want to go out and buy more!! Thanks so much for joining in this month it's going to be a fun round up!! Much love from sunny Spain x

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    1. Thanks Dom - I really am grateful - it's quite a trip down memory lane looking at books that were used often during different times of my life and then are overtaken by new books. I'm really glad I joined in - have fun in sunny Spain.

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  4. Personally I think Dom's been a little cruel forcing us all to tidy up. Lovely collection of books you have there.

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    1. Thank you Phil - I think you're right about Dom's cruelty, but what a great opportunity he has given all of us for a good nose around other people's books!

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  5. Oooh....lots of lovely books, this trawl around Blogland looking at books is brilliant!!

    Sue xx

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    1. Thank you Sue - I'm loving having a look at everyone's books!

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  6. Wow! That's quite a collection. Mine have migrated to the utility room on top of the cupboards, but not as many as yours. You've got some favourites Nigel Slater Vols 1 and 2 and of course Elizabeth david. fabulous collection. GG

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    1. It's surprising just how easily a collection of cookery books can grow and grow.

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