I love to cook. When my husband and I redid our kitchen, I had a small bookcase built in for all my cookbooks.
My go-to cookbooks are:
- Curries Without Worries by Sudha Koul (because I love Indian food)
- Master Recipes by Stephen Schmidt (I took a cooking class from him once - the book emphasizes the idea that you can take a "master recipe" like chicken with white wine sauce, and vary it by deglazing with lemon juice instead)
- The New Basics Cookbook by Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins
I have a bunch of recipes that my mother has written out for me. I also have a subscription to Cook's Illustrated (thanks Mom - I got my love of cooking from her), and I get the Penzey's Spices catalog. I go through each magazine and catalog and cut out the recipes that interest me. I also come across recipes on web sites like epicurious.com, and I print them out. I started out with one small binder and a few sheet protectors that I pinched from my office's supply room
- I'm up to three large binders and I buy my own sheet protectors. The sheet protectors help me avoid the problem BraveMaroon mentioned, where the paper gets water or oil on it and the recipe becomes illegible - I just wipe off the plastic.