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.

ita, our family has never had a port-a-cath, but both kids had central lines placed. Grace's trach brings up similar issues around infection, but since it isn't directly into blood stream it's also different. In clinical settings people do the double glove thing (glove from box plus the sterile glove from the suction catheter kit), but we don't and when RTs come in to deal with Grace they do both double gowning + double gloves + mask and often glasses. But she's listed as MRSA colonized.

I wear gloves when suctioning, though K rarely does. Our previous nurse rarely did but our new nurse does. The whole outfitting is probably better, especially clinically, but we are lazy.

I grew up with the 60s-era Joy of Cooking. Like Jessica, I can't fathom a kitchen without it.

When I was in law school, and for a few years afterwards, I did a lot of cooking out of the Moosewood Cookbook (the revised edition with less butter).

Now I'm a Mark Bittman gal, with forays into The Best Recipe by CI. I go to CI for baking and Bittman for entrees. Although the devil's food cake I just put into the oven is from The New Basics.

And of course I have a recipe box full of stuff cut out from the newspaper (like that apple cake a bunch of Buffistas have eaten), or written down from websites or friends. I still have the handwritten paper with the recipe for Mrs. Smith's Congo Bars I got from my best friend's mother when I was 8...

I like a lot of the Real Simple recipes

Oh, yes! My newish go-to "looks fancy, tastes great" party dessert is their Chocolate Stout Bundt Cake. It's FANTASTIC.

Cookbooks are for reading or for reference. For actual cooking my two primary sources are old Eating Well magazines - I've never had a recipe from them not turn out great - or web searches. I usually google and take a look at three or four similar things and then wing it from there.

If buffistas here need assistance, I am happy to share some thanksgiving recipes I uncovered when I did my first thanksgiving. It was only for 2, but the recipes serve more!

I don't have turkey recipes, and apparently cooking dinner rolls is not in my skill set, but I do have a good recipe for stuffing (with meat), and collard greens (has meat, but could be done without).

I am happy to share my recipe for wasabi mashed potatoes too!

I got the recipe for the Earl Grey Chocolate Cake from Real Simple, Erin. It's SO good.

S. does the bulk of the cooking. And when I used to do it, it was really workmanlike stuff, most of it from my mom. Lasagna or a roast chicken or chili, stuff like that.

I'd like to get back to cooking, and I should. By the time S. gets home, it's late to start a meal.

My mom had an eternal subscription to Better Homes and Gardens. When it was in the large format, she'd clip the recipe pages (two recipes per page), cut them in half, hole-punch them and clip them together with clip rings. She never had the BH cookbook, but she gave me one as a shower present, along with all her clipped magazine recipes, which filed neatly into the looseleaf binder format.

A complete novice in the kitchen, I used the heck out of that cookbook for all the basic dishes. Once I had those down I started playing with ingredients and combinations, modifications. And then started collecting cookbooks. Encyclopedia of Cooking was an absolute hoot--pre WWII, I believe, it listed the sets of linens, flatware, dishware, cooking pots, pans, and utensils every kitchen pantry and dining room breakfront needed to be complete, plus the "standard" weekly grocery order for a well-run household of five, with or without servants.

My favorite non-ethnic cookbook, though, has always been The Bread and Soup Cookbook. Nummy stuff.