Get an organised start to the year with a fabulous tool that helps you to use all of your precious cookbooks – win one of three annual subscriptions to Eat Your Books.
Far from the hopes for a less difficult new year that I expressed in my last post for 2017, my new year started in the wee small hours, not with a bang, but with the soft, solid, thud of my reckless 24 year old son hitting the ground after falling 12 metres from a tree.
He’s always been lucky and that continues as he’s survived to tell the tale, despite the fact that every doctor who’s seen him (and let me tell you, that’s quite a few) has expressed the generally held wisdom that a fall from that height is usually not considered survivable. He’s a broken mess at the moment, but miraculously all of his injuries are repairable and, on the up-side, I get to spend some one-on-one time with him again.
After two days in ICU and another six in a cardio-thoracic ward, he is now house-bound with me for some time. I’ll be taking the enforced home detention time as an opportunity for some domestic re-organisation and I’m very pleased to give you, my readers, the chance to join in.
Many of you will have received cookbooks for Christmas and, while there is no such thing as too many cookbooks, they can get a little hard to wrangle and use efficiently as their numbers increase.
Eat Your Books is the answer to every cookbook junkie’s dream and the concept behind it is simple. The website has a library of well over 156,000 cookbooks and different magazine titles, millions of online recipes and a selection of food blogs, all of which are indexed in their online data base. Subscribers build a virtual bookcase of titles that they own, which are then searchable online.
Rather than rummaging through all your books to find a recipe, the user searches their personal bookcase using simple ingredients or the name of the cookbook author to find a full list of relevant recipes and their list of ingredients. The site does not reproduce the recipes, but shows a list of ingredients for each recipe and the name of the book that you already own where it can be found.
Brilliant.
For those of us who have significant cookbook collections this is a godsend and I find that I get much more use out of my books by having this simple way to search them at hand. I can add recipes to a printable shopping list, tag books and recipes with bookmarks for recipes that I want to make in the future and join in on various forums on the site. I’ve also recently begun using the handy-dandy bookmarklet which lets me add a recipe from any web page to my Eat Your Books virtual library too.
I’ve used this fabulous tool almost since it started and wouldn’t be without it. Membership is incredibly affordable – US$3 monthly or US$30 for an annual subscription – but I’m offering three FREE annual subscriptions to my readers this month.
Simply tell us all, in the comments section below, what your favourite cookbook is and why.
The competition is open to everyone, wherever you happen to be in the world, and closes on Sunday 28 January at 10.00am (Australian CST). I’ll announce the three lucky winners on Monday 29 January and they will have 48 hours to contact me, or the prizes will be redrawn.
I can’t wait to see what everyone loves and why – I suspect I’ll be building a shopping list from your replies. 😉
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My favourite cookbook of all time is the classic Stephanie Alexander Cooks Companion, because it is Australian, the recipes work without fail every time and is organized by ingredient so I can always find a recipe to use up whatever I have a glut of.
And I was terribly sorry to hear of your son’s accident. Wishing him a speedy recovery!
I also love A Cook’s Companion because it’s reliably good. Replaces the old Australian Women’s Weekly books. But right now it’s Simplicious by Sarah Wilson
I’m so pleased that your son is recovering and wish him and the rest of the family all the best. I also love Eat Your Books.
How to Eat by Nigella Lawson is the quintessential cookbook. Her voice is so true in it, the recipes are flawless (bar a slightly farty brassica-heavy, minestrone), the menu suggestions are super, it’s aged well (much like the author actually), and it’s practical and without pretension. It’s the book that kicked off my cookbook addiction and I love it as much today as I did in the 90’s!
You know I live by my cookbooks, but the one I go back to again and again is Madhur Jaffery’s Ultimate Curry Guide. It never disappoints. I’m not alone. It was named Cookery Book of the Year (not sure which year) by The Guild of Food Writers.
And yes, so sorry to hear about Patrick’s aerial acrobatics. Very good to know he is home and on the mend. What a worrying time you’ve had.
That is so cool! My favourite cookbook is “Once Upon A Tart” by Carolynn Carreño, Frank Mentesana, and Jerome Audureau. I’ve made so many things from it, and they’re always delicious, beautiful, and nourishing. 🙂
Charmaine Solomon’s The Complete Asian Cookbook. Recipes that work perfectly every time and great intro to cuisines from all over Asia. We call it ‘The Bible’ in my family. She is Australian and so all receipts include readily available ingredients in Australia.
P.S. Charmaine’s vegetarian cookbook is great too.
Damn children! Do they never stop testing you. I was hoping it settled down once you got them to adulthood. Glad to hear your son is on the mend.
Asking to pick a favourite is like asking to choose a favourite child. I love them all for different things. But the best one is my Nana’s handwritten recipe book, which is crammed with little gems. Does that count?
Fabulous competition, Amanda. I love Eat Your Books! Best wishes to your boy for a full recovery xx
I already have a subscription that I couldn’t do without, so mostly just being in furious agreement about what a fabulous resource this is! And so glad to hear your son will be ok, what a terrifying time 🙁
Oh my Amanda! Sorry to hear about your son’s accident. I don’t use cookbooks but I’m sure this is a great gift idea for those that do 🙂
I hope your son is feeling better soon and am impressed by your calm and optimistic take on his situation. Hard to choose a favourite cookbook (as Tania said above, like choosing a favourite child), but Annabelle Langbein’s ‘with fork and spoon’ is an old and trusted favourite.
I’ve been using Jamie Oliver’s Ministry of Food fur years. It’s great for teaching a method of cooking and then variations of the recipe. Great for beginners.
Wishing your little poppet a speedy recovery.
My favourite is a paperback I have had for years with no photos. It’s the Curry Club’s Balti cookbook by Pat Chapman. I love Indian food, but because I’m allergic to chilli, lemon, orange and lime I really can never go out to have it. It’s not hard to make a curry (I tend to use Ajwan seeds for heat) but what I love about this book is the naan, roti, chapatti, rice dishes, desserts (best gulab jamun recipe ever, and an almond halwa I’ve been taking credit for, for at least a decade), chutneys etc: You can make the best curry ever but it really doesn’t work for me unless there are five or six perfect, authentic accompaniments. (My other favourite is a similar book on Persian food with the author’s memories of her childhood, but the name escapes me.)
BTW that site sounds brilliant. Off to check it out now.
My favourite book at the moment is Annabel Crabb’s Special Delivery. Have used lots of her recipes and ideas which thankfully have been enjoyed by the whole family.
Glad to hear your son will be ok! Must have been a horrible experience for all of you!
I had a real struggle thinking of my “favourite” cookbook – they all have their uses and are favourites in their own ways! But if there’s one that never fails to elicit joy and excitement from all who peruse its pages, and infinite nostalgia from those of us who’ve done it 1,000 times or more, it has to be the AWW Children’s Birthday Cake book. I love the delight all children get from it as their imaginations go into overdrive while they pick their cake for this year’s birthday. ????