Four Bites Show: Cookbook problems and solutions
Watch S1E4 for strategies and tools to cope with cookbook collections that need to change
What’s the best way to tackle a cookbook collection that needs to change?
On Four Bites Show S1E4 (<= clink link to watch), three experts and a journalist discuss approaches to the question, with perspective, specific advice, and recommended tools to help people manage.
Real estate agent Michael Olear shared insights from years of experience talking to folks going through deaccessioning discussions. Librarian John Burke brought an archivist’s view to sorting for the good stuff. Cookbook collector and book dealer Scotty Harris offered tips on how to check if books are worth selling, and recipe management software he’s used that he recommends checking out.
Here’s a sketch of how to take your recipe collection digital, from Burke the librarian:
Plan what you want to scan.
Think about how you want to use what you scan - share recipes, cook, etc.
Photograph or scan recipes, including information like recipe name and book in file name for searchability.
Organize in a phone or computer file folder, or Google Photos Album.
Note: If you use Adobe Scan, recipes become PDF files and can be searched by the words in the recipe.
More cookbook tools suggested by cookbook collector and seller Scotty Harris:
Copy Me That is a browser-based recipe manager that syncs across platforms, usable on computer, tablet, and phone app, which I recommend. It’s easy to use and the free version is fine, but the added features are worth the $25 lifetime subscription, in my opinion.
Eat Your Books has indexed over 13,000 cookbooks. Sign up and add a cookbook to your list, and you can keyword search the contents. Want to make tofu? It will show you every tofu recipe in the books on your list.
It tells you which cookbook, which ingredients, and which page number, but does not contain the recipe, because this is an index. The free version has a five cookbook limit, a subscription is $40 annually.
Via Libri describes itself as “The world’s largest search engine for old, rare & second-hand books,” and that might even be true. It returns results from the major players in the used and rare books world. Buying, selling, or just estimating value, it’s the best place to start.
Who are these people?
Michael Olear is a real estate sales veteran who specializes in helping older people negotiate transitions, and a licensed associate broker leading The Olear Team real estate services company.
John Burke is library director and principal librarian on the Middletown campus of Miami University Regionals. He is the author of the Neal-Schuman Library Technology Companion (ALA Neal-Schuman) and Makerspaces: a Practical Guide for Librarians (Rowman & Littlefield).
Scotty Harris is a cook, teacher, writer, recovering attorney, and cookbook collector who knows his way around the buying-and-selling cookbook world.
#30#
Very Helpful! Also, Birthday gifts allowed me to have the Full Sous Vide Kitchen! Cant wait to start looking up recipes for that!
That’s it Andrew. I had none before, watched my bro in law out in Denver use his almost daily. Intrigued, I have him as an outlet for all my questions, along with the net and two new cookbooks!