RRC Show us your Cookbooks

Each month Dom at Belleau Kitchen has his Random Recipe Challenge where he challenges bloggers to make a recipe by opening up a cookbook at random.  I haven't yet had the courage to join in but I couldn't resist taking him up on his July challenge to tell him about our cookbooks.  I felt it was only fair, given that I have been enjoying peeking at other people's cookbook collections.

To start with, at the top, is my main cookbook shelves.  I have three shelves - in our open plan living space - dedicated to foodie books.  They are mainly organised by size, with the oversized stacked horizontally.  My dad once categorised his books according to the Bliss System and I would love to organise these books with such attention to detail.  In reality, they are often in use and are returned wherever there is a space.

Many of the books in this section are cookbooks, mostly vegetarian or vegan, with a smattering of baking and chocolate books.  You can check out my list of cookbooks, which needs updating to include purchases and presents over the last few months. 

One section that I try and keep separate from the others is the above group of historic cookbooks - mostly older 20th century Australian ones - and some books reflecting on food and food history.  Every now and again I get all excited about food history and buy what I can.  I also use them for posts like my recent post about orange history.

In my dreams I would buy heaps of rare historic books - yellowing, dog eared, well thumbed - and keep them in an antique wooden cabinet with glass doors and a key to lock them away.  Maybe one day!

The three dedicated shelves are just not enough!  When we had our kitchen renovation last year, I had some shelves put up above the stove.  I keep a few of my smaller books here.  They will probably end up sticky from cooking vapours but it is just a little extra space for my cookbooks.

If you saw some of my piles of cookbooks and food magazines, you might understand why a little shelf space above the oven is valued.  Cookbooks pile up everywhere.  On the benches, on the kitchen table, on the desk, under the lamp and on our coffee table.  Above is one of the piles on the shelf under our coffee table.  It is buckling under the weight of my magazines and books.  Most of the magazines are Vegetarian Times.  I tell myself when I have time to sort through my backcopies I will subscribe again.  One day!

We also have piles of books on top of the coffee table.  These are ones that have found no room in our ever more cluttered home and have migrated here.  They are literally part of the furniture now, if you ask our cat, Zinc.  She thinks that Stephanie Alexander's Cook's Companion is a perfect place to sit and survey the loungeroom.

Lastly I will take you into my bedroom to see some of my recent reading.  I have been meaning to write about some of these books but where does the time go!  So I will briefly tell you about a few of the ones you can glimpse here.

• Nigel Slater's Tender doesn't get the time in the kitchen it deserves because it keeps getting buried in my bedroom under good intentions to read it.  
• I love the little yellow vegetarian cookbook from the 1940s that my sister Chris bought for me.    
• Battenberg Britain, Nigel Slater's Eating for England and Cold Meat and How to Disguise It by Hunter Davies all make entertaining reading about British food history.  
• You might glimpse Quick Fix Vegetarian by Robin Robertson that Susan of the Well Seasoned Cook kindly sent as a MLLA prize.  I have many plans but not yet cooked anything from it.
• In addition, the bedroom piles also include a few novels I have been reading.   

I am very choosy about new cookbooks and yet more than I can use still make their way into my collection.  When I have time I intend to write a list of some of the recipes I want to try from my cookbooks, in a similar post to the one I did for the Cookbook Challenge last year.  I have also considered online systems to help using my cookbooks such as Eat Your Books.  Meanwhile I have many more good intentions than recipes that arise from the my cookbook collection.  But I can assure you they are used and loved!