I have a few speciality cookbooks, but the thing I refer to most often is a book my sister handmade for me for Xmas several years ago.

She handwrote and collated all of my grandma's most cooked recipes, and gave one to me and one to my mom. I love it.

She had a time of it, because when she was asking Grandma for measurements, grandma would be all "I think a teaspoon?" She cooked from memory, and I find that with many of her recipes, I do as well. THIS is enough cinnamon, salt, butter, etc.

Of course, nowadays, I have lots of recipes just bookmarked or printed off from the Internet. Epicurious and the Food Channel are favorites, as well as Cooks.com.

RuPaul > Ron Paul any day of the week.

I'm just going to keep substituting RuPaul for all Ron Paul hereinafter. It's better that way.

Sort of like substituting Joey Ramone for all the things named after Ronald Reagan.

Of course, nowadays, I have lots of recipes just bookmarked or printed off from the Internet. Epicurious and the Food Channel are favorites, as well as Cooks.com.

Yeah, I have a two-inch thick file of recipes printed out, hundreds of bookmarks, and just find cookbooks exhausting.

I have two versions of Betty Crocker, too, and the early Betty Crocker is what my mother cooked out of most (and still does). It's excellent for cakes and cookies. One of the cookie categories is "Beau-Catchers (and Husband-Keepers)." The later editions are more enthusiastic about processed foods.

just find cookbooks exhausting

But the narrative! Seriously. Recipes are to cook from, cookbooks are to read. It's like my Cake Bible. I learn so much more about baking from the cookbook than I would from individual cake recipes from different people.

I wish I cooked more, so I could justify my CI paper subscription, because I love the articles and the talking about cookery. But instead I just flip to their website and rarely click on the collateral links, and later feel like I missed out.

I'm just exhausted by them right now. I'm cooking thanksgiving this year, and I don't feel like looking at all the books to see what's the best/easiest/whatever of all the recipes. I know, I know, I'll end up using CI for most of it. But what if Good Food has something cheaper/faster? Or my entertaining book has a timeline for prep?

Recipes are to cook from, cookbooks are to read.

This! My cookbooks aren't even in the kitchen any more, I moved most of them to the bedroom bookshelf.

For turkey, which is not my job this year as I have NO KITCHEN, I like Alton Brown with a side of Cooking for Engineers.

I like a lot of the Real Simple recipes, especially holiday stuff.

I started collecting my favorite cookie recipes a long time ago, and then started a recipe binder. I like my baking books -- Nigella's and the Magnolia Cafe one Perkins got me -- for browsing and reading, but everything else I'd rather have written up or printed off.

I don't web-source many recipes, because I don't trust them. And I don't have the energy to experiment--that's exhausting. Going to one source (like Bittman or the Cake Bible) I find much easier.

When I last had my fit of "proper" cooking, it was all CI all the time, and it was delish. But the "dragging" of the laptop into the kitchen got a bit tedious. Still, I do have a tablet now. I do refuse to do much more printing. I have a binder, and it is mostly clippings.