Vintage cookbooks can fetch big prices

March 8, 2023 by
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Do you have a pristine first edition Joy of Cooking or Mastering the Art of French Cooking in your collection? Or perhaps some older or more rare volumes? If so, you could be sitting on a gold mine, according to a recent article about vintage cookbooks. Says Nicole Sawyer, the co-founder of Chattic.com, an online community and marketplace for collectibles,… read more

The enduring appeal of cookbooks

February 3, 2023 by
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This will come as no surprise to our Members, but the popularity of cookbooks shows no signs of slowing down. It's one bright spot in the struggling print publishing industry, with consistent sales of several million volumes annually (about 20 million cookbooks are sold in the US each year). Why do cookbooks buck the trend to digital? Because they are… read more

What would be in your cookbook “go bag”?

December 10, 2022 by
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Last week, a friend and I were talking when the subject of "go bags" came up. Go bags contain those carefully chosen items that one would need in an emergency during an evacuation/disaster such as medications, ID cards, insurance cards, and an extra change of clothing. While, of course, there would be far more important things to worry about than… read more

Jenny’s Best Books of 2022 and Cookbook Gift Guide with Giveaway

December 3, 2022 by
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This was yet another fantastic year for cookbooks and I will try to keep my list fairly reasonable in length but I assure you this year has outshone those before and may outshine years in the future. Once you take a look at this list, be sure to enter our worldwide giveaway for a set of cookbooks provided to us… read more

IACP Cookbook Awards 2022 winners

November 18, 2022 by
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On Friday November 18, 2022, the International Association of Culinary Professionals announced the winners of the prestigious IACP awards from the Middleby Showroom in Dallas and New York. The announcement was made via video and can be viewed online on Vimeo. It was a good 'day' for Member favorite baking books: Cheryl Day's Treasury of Southern Baking topped the American… read more

Revisiting an online vintage cookbook archive

October 18, 2022 by
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Over six years ago, I wrote about the Cookbook and Home Economics Collection at the Internet Archive and its impressive section of cookery books. Previously the catalog drew from works housed by the Young Research Library Department of Special Collections at UCLA, the Bancroft Library at The University of California, Berkeley, and the Prelinger Library. Today the archive has additional sources including libraries around… read more

An ode to baking books

October 12, 2022 by
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Cookbook covers for Gateau by Aleksandra Crapanzano and The Italian Baker by Carol Field
Ever since I was a young girl, baking has been an important part of my life - I inherited the baking gene from my mother, who abhors cooking but will gladly whip up a batch of cookies, cream puffs, or bars at the drop of a hat. So it's no surprise that in my modest (compared to many of our… read more

Andrea Nguyen discusses the cookbook business

August 24, 2022 by
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Adam Roberts, one of the first breakout food bloggers, launched a new podcast earlier this year called The Amateur Gourmet Podcast (named after his blog and taking a bit of a turn from his previous podcast called Lunch Therapy). Several episodes feature the topic Eat Your Books Members love best: cookbooks, including the most recent episode, in which Roberts interviews… read more

What’s the best cookbook holder?

July 29, 2022 by
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An open cookbook rests in a bamboo holder on a butcher block countertop. A red KitchenAid stand mixer is in the background.
For those of us who use our cookbooks day in and day out, protecting them from ruin while still being able to easily reference them is an ongoing challenge. While a splatter or two can add character to a beloved book, a major spill can be disastrous, so many cooks turn to cookbook holders and protectors instead of just plopping… read more

Dive into vintage Neighbor Lady cookbooks

June 2, 2022 by
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If you love regional cookbooks from the post-war era, it's your lucky day. I recently stumbled across a trove of vintage pamphlet-style cookbooks that a dedicated fan has recently scanned for free viewing and downloading. The cookbooks are part of a series published by WNAX Radio, based in the small town of Yankton, South Dakota. The AM-radio station broadcast over… read more

Ronni Lundy opens Plott Hound Books

May 2, 2022 by
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Journalist and James Beard award winning cookbook author Ronni Lundy opened Plott Hound Books in Burnsville, North Carolina on April 30th (which happened to be national Independent Bookstore Day). The store carries hundreds of new titles from the latest best sellers to classic reads, cookbooks, mysteries, historicals and a full section devoted to Appalachia. Located at 102 W. Main Street… read more

Tips on cleaning, storing, and organizing your cookbook collection

April 21, 2022 by
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Many of our members have outsized cookbook collections. Mine is modest compared to some but I do have hundreds of books which means I have a lot of storage needs. While I aspire to an impeccably organized, highly logical, and beautiful system for housing my cookbooks, instead I have a mismatched bookshelves lining the walls of a spare bedroom, stacks… read more

Mother’s and Father’s Day Gift Guide for the Cookbook Lover and Giveaway

April 19, 2022 by
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The two special days to celebrate mom and dad are right around the corner. I've prepared a guide to a few gifts that are sure to please the cook, baker and cookbook lover in your family. In addition to this guide, we are offering a worldwide giveaway for a chance to win a set of cookbooks: Lioroooosh: Baking from my… read more

Philadelphia bookstore features a growing culinary section

December 13, 2021 by
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We love hearing about cookbook stores, and today we learned about a bookstore, Molly's Books & Records, that features a large and growing selection of used cookbooks, making it the best source for cookbooks in the Philadelphia area according to Abigail Weil of Eater. Third-generation bookseller Molly Russakoff, inspired by the store's location in the Italian Market, decided to expand… read more

IACP Cookbook Awards 2021 winners

October 24, 2021 by
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We are foregoing our usual antipasto post to bring you cookbook awards! In a ceremony last evening, the IACP announced the winners of its 2021 Cookbook Awards. America's Test Kitchen had a very good evening, with three of their books claiming top honors: Meat Illustrated: A Foolproof Guide to Understanding and Cooking with Cuts of All Kinds in the General category,… read more

Jialin Tian – Ph.D. Pastry Chef – Cookbook Giveaway

October 6, 2021 by
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Back in July (how is it already October?), I wrote about a diamond of a recommendation from Amazon. Lightning does strike twice and thanks to another recommendation I discovered Jialin Tian a few weeks ago. The cover below tempted me to take a deep dive into Jialin's work. I reached out and requested review copies of her books, ordered an… read more

You don’t want to miss these showdowns

September 20, 2021 by
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Most of us love a good competition - which is why we'll be glued to our screens as soon as the Great British Bake Off returns tomorrow (we have to wait longer here in the US so no spoilers, please). There is another friendly competition that ticks the boxes for us cookbook lovers can be found at Book Riot, which… read more

Another ode to cookbook stores

August 9, 2021 by
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Today is National Book Lovers Day, and to celebrate we are bringing you a lovely article from Thrillist that features several fabulous cookbook stores such as Bonnie Slotnick Cookbooks, Bold Fork Books, Kitchen Arts & Letters, Omnivore Books, Book Larder, and others. Titled "Why Cookbook Stores are the Antidote We Need Right Now," the piece explores the reasons why we… read more

Cookbook preview for the second half of 2021

July 27, 2021 by
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We're approaching August at warp speed. August begins the soft opening of Cookbooktober, those magical months through November where cookbooks are released in a frenzy. In February, I shared my preview for January through July and now that seems like years ago! (Full listings of this year's titles can be found on the Cookbook Preview). Please note that I have… read more

The “Cookbook Queen” of Mar Vista is selling her collection

July 22, 2021 by
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When you have a large collection of cookbooks, determining what to do with them once you are no longer around can be a difficult decision. Some people opt to pare down to the bare minimum when downsizing a house, others make arrangements with libraries or schools to donate their books. Ellin Palmer of Mar Vista, California, is taking a different… read more

2021 has been great for cookbooks

July 9, 2021 by
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Each year I wonder how cookbook authors could top the fantastic books they have already written, yet I keep being pleasantly surprised at the quality of cookbooks that are released. Not every volume is a home run, but it is amazing that authors continue to innovate and find fresh takes on a variety of subjects. I own dozens of baking… read more

Dorie Greenspan wants to send love letters to you

June 30, 2021 by
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"Come on in, pull up a chair, grab a cookie." Dorie Greenspan, beloved cookbook author and all around wonderful person, is launching a newsletter and wants to share it with you. From Dorie: I'm so glad that you're here and I'd love for you to be here every week, twice a week. If you want to sit around my table… read more

Cooking with Marilyn Monroe (or at least her cookbooks)

June 5, 2021 by
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If you have a spare $50,000 to $75,000 lying around, you can own a piece of history. Two cookbooks owned by Marilyn Monroe are going up for auction on June 22nd. The cookbooks are: The New Fannie Farmer Boston Cooking School Cook Book and The New Joy of Cooking were both published in the early 1950s and said to be… read more

Learn about the world of art cookbooks

May 15, 2021 by
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When people see my bookshelves during Zoom meetings only a few notice that they are filled with cookbooks. Most of the books are ones that I use or consult with some regularity, although I keep several books for sentimental reasons or because they are just so gorgeous I can't part with them. I view the latter as works of art,… read more

It might be time to listen to your cookbooks

May 5, 2021 by
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Audiobooks make wonderful road trip companions and are also a wonderful way to wind down at the end of the day. Fiction and autobiographies are the top sellers in this category, and you might not think that a cookbook would do well an audiobook. However, some of them translate exceptionally well to the genre as The New York Times' Jennifer… read more
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