Culinary Bibliomania.

Ivonne and I were talking about how much we love our cookbooks and how we read them as if they are novels.  My friend Julie says she can't think of anything more excruciating than reading a cookbook. I can't think of anything more exquisite.  Cookbooks (a really nice one anyway) incite three of my five senses:  sight (those pictures), touch (the feel of the paper) and taste (my imagination and experience filling in  the blanks on how a recipe might taste).  Can you think of better entertainment?

The cookbooks have got a new home.  It was necessary.  For a long time, they co-mingled happily with their fiction and non-fiction brethren on various bookshelves throughout the house.  There was a lovely symmetry to finding the seafood cookbook marching alongside the Aubrey-Maturin collection, and a French cookbook or two nestled amidst De Beauvoir's Letters to Sartre and Flaubert's Madame Bovary...

When bibliophiles marry, our libraries, do too (and of course, said one of my divorced friends, the converse is true in that the tearing asunder of libraries is almost as painful as the dissolution of the relationship).  Hubby and I live in a home overflowing with the Dewey Decimal System.  We do not live with books, we live among them.  But whilst Hubby is a democratic sort of booklover -- he will lend his books out willy nilly and not expect their return, I belong to a much more selfish and tyrannical school:  my books stay with me and if they leave the house at all, they do so in the possession of those whom I trust to return them.  Theoretically, as fast as Hubby will loan out his books you would think that their numbers might dwindle in our house? But no. What makes up for those disappearing books is the constant inflow of cookbooks.  I accumulate cookbooks -- gifts, review copies, hand me downs (I cannot visit a used bookstore without scoping out the cookbook section in hopes of scoring something unique).  And yes, I purchase too.  Amazon has been so good to me that I am on a first name basis with my UPS delivery man.

When it became clear that our system of finding a cookbook when we needed it was hope and luck, we arrived at the realization that perhaps it was time for the cookbooks to have their own home.  Yes, it was fun finding my book on risottos behind the piano (I have no idea, so don't ask), but not when I was searching for it.  And now, some months after that decision, all the cookbooks have been rounded up and share space together, directly around the corner from the kitchen.

But I think they miss their old mates because The French Laundry cookbook has found its way next to Vineyard Tales and Christine Mansfield Desserts is side by side with In A Sunburned Country...

Comments

[Tanna]

Hooray for the cookbooks...lovely new home!

[barbara]

I think most bloggers can relate to this feeling Cath. Soon Puggle will need his own bookshelf.

[cath]

Hi Tanna -- oh yes --VERY lovely new home. I'm happy every time I walk past it!

Barbara -- well, as it happens, Pug's got a library already -- some new and some second hand; his mummy is also an avid reader of children's books (magical) as are several aunts so he's got the complete Paddington Bear series, the complete Black Stallion series, some Shel Silverstein, some Robert Sabuda, some wonderful books from our friend Stephanie at Dispensing Happiness and a host of other things I can't wait to read him every night....

[Stephanie]

A new home for the books; wonderful!

Since you've been here, we've built-in a rather large-ish shelf in the dining room.

It's entirely filled now...

[Deborah Dowd]

Lucky you to have such a great home for your cookbooks. Mine are in several different places where I have shelving, but I wish I could have them altogether. On a rainy or cold day, I love pulling out several of my older cookbooks and looking for inspiration.

[Sara Payne]

So, I just recently found your blog, and I quite enjoy it. I too have an insane book collection (both culinary and non) and can totally relate to your post. And it's so nice to know that I'm not the only one who reads cookbooks like novels...

[Betty C.]

This looks beautiful. I am in the process of organizing my cookbooks too -- weeding out a few, but not very many! And planning on buying more...