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.

I don't web-source many recipes, because I don't trust them.

I rely pretty heavily on the epicurious reviews. If I'm not sure how something will turn out, and there's no reviews, I don't make it. I just made a squash chili [link] that I was skeptical of, but it had enough reviews, and even with tons of substitutions, turned out great.

I do a lot of cooking from the Epicurious app on my iPad - if I stick with the Gourmet sourced recipes, they're very trustworthy.

And for baking, I trust Smitten Kitchen absolutely. She has never steered me wrong.

Well, the bank thing?

Turns out that in advance of putting in the new system the bank sent me a new debit/visa card which I should have but somehow managed to not see. I'm sure it's at home.

I hope it is and that I can find it in the chaos.

I dont recall my mom ever having any cookbooks when I was growing up. She was an awful cook which is probably not a coincidence.

She's probably the only mother who ever tried to learn her DiL's recipes.