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Hello everyone!

My partner and I live in Philadelphia, PA with our two children.  Before the kids arrived I would spend whole weekends planning out meals, shopping in markets for that one ingredient and do countless dryruns on dinner parties...  Since kids, I have scrapped all of the time spent prepping for meals and cook mostly on the weekends; and rarely during the week.  When I do cook, I enjoy borrowing from the globe; we love all cuisine - and travel frequently ex-US.  I perfer two distinct types of cookbooks, travelogue and reference.  Boring cookbooks are anything with a diet plan (UGH!) or cooking light (double UGH!).  I'm a sucker for a cookbook with some story attachment (i.e. The Muffin Lady) or a chance to experience a far away world (i.e. Far Afield).

Thank you, EYB for solving the cookbook indexing problem.  I love my cookbook collection (100+) and get such enjoyment reading them as armchair travel. Yet, I lazily, find myself just Google-ing common recipes instead of pawing through my wonderful books.  I rarely cook directly from the books unless it's an "event" type of meal.  

I'm so hopeful that this site delivers on the promise. :) 

And I am eager to participate in the community. 

---DragonWell 

(named after a type of green tea; a second passion)

Welcome, DragonWell!  Looking forward to browsing your Bookshelf as you get your thousand cookbooks entered -- one of the many vicarious pleasures of this site.  [Clicking on any member's name will show your their books, magazines, and Notes.] The EYB database engine must be humming at this time of year, as many members enter their holiday gifts, and new members their collections.

Eat Your Books has transformed my relationship with the cookbooks that were here when I joined -- about fifty, scattered around the house and most rarely opened.  Just getting them all in one place for entry encouraged me to organize them a bit more, and to open some I hadn't looked at for a decade.  Then, once my Bookshelf reflected the holdings here, it was like getting a new book for free each time one was indexed. (When you open to your Bookshelf or the Library, the most recently indexed will appear at the top of the list -- there's usually at least one new addition each day to the indexed books in the EYB Library, and often several.) 

Early on, I mostly used the site to collect ideas for seasonally available foods and pairings, and grouping them with ingredient-focused Bookmarks made those instantly available the next time I was faced with the same ingredients.  But Bookmarks are also handy for recording recipes cooked, menus served, and menu possibilities.  One of my favorite ways to use Bookmarks is to note recipes of particular interest from a newly acquired cookbook -- with the results a lot more manageable and long-lasting than the zillion sticky notes I used to use. 

Making Notes, public or private, on books or on recipes you've cooked or considering cooking, is hugely useful. Public notes are one of the most valuable and enjoyable aspects of the site, and many members visit often just to check in on the ever-growing stream (for the whole site, the Notes/Reviews under Library; tailored just to your own holdings, Notes/Reviews under My Bookshelf).  With as many books as your Bookshelf will soon have, you'll find plenty of interest sticking to those Notes. Reading Notes in the EYB Library can cause cookbook buying -- you're forewarned!

Have fun poking around, don't hesitate to ask questions or share discoveries in the Forum, and may 2017 be a wonderful one for your family and your cookbooks!

If these people go out of business, I'll head for the next bridge and jump right off. The site has totally changed how I manage cooking and made it enjoyable again, instead of a chore. You'll LOVE it. (Non-compensated subscriber.)

Welcome DragonWell, thanks ellabee for your great explanation of how you use EYB and apattin - hope you don't have to do any bridge jumping (we plan to be around for ever!).