More cookbooks go digital, but popularity of paper persists

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by Blossom

I am the same way. I make the recipe my own. I will follow it the first time and then I will modified it more to my liking.

I occasionally follow it the first time, but usually find something I want different anyway. It normally works out fine.

[Apache]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

And then if it doesn't turn out right you still have the vodka anyway!

Apache

[sadievan]

Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks

I do use grams a lot, especially since I make lotion and soap. Grams gives me more room for slop than ounces and my kitchen scale isn't all that precise. I do use a jeweler's scale for the very small preservative measurements for the lotion.

As for my cooking and measuring, this post pretty much sums it up:
(There is an affiliate link to a book in this post because it is where I got the recipe, so if that offends, you won't want to read the post.)

http://www.bearmountainbooks.com/hob...n-improvision/

Saw in your link that you take Flax seed for Dry Eye. Never heard of doing that. Does it help?

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by sadievan

Saw in your link that you take Flax seed for Dry Eye. Never heard of doing that. Does it help?

To be honest, what seems to help me the most is walnut oil. That could be because I like walnuts and walnut oil better than the flax so I was/am much better about eating it. The flax gave me some digestive issues (it's pure fiber) too so I am pretty much relying on walnut oil, walnuts, fish, avocados and the like. Walnut oil is easy to fit into my diet -- I just make my own salad dressings with it and my own mayo (sometimes). I use walnut oil in place of butter in some things (like my morning oatmeal). I add it to EVERYTHING that requires mayo (you can thin your mayo with it ahead of time or add it in place of some mayo in recipes): potato salad, cold pasta salad, cesaer dressing, and deviled eggs too. It takes about 2 months to really notice a difference, but it has helped A LOT. I've been eating walnuts and walnut oil in my diet for 3 years and I never have the really awful gritty-can barely stand my eyeball problems. I used to have to stop reading a book right in the middle because I just could not deal with the painful dry eye. I'd sit there with drops trying to relieve the dryness and it could sometimes take two hours or more.

Now I mainly have some dry eye right when I first wake up and no issues reading or other activities, but I eat walnut oil almost daily and sometimes quite a bit of it (usually salad days).

Some other people I know do prefer sprinkling Flax on everything from burritos to salads to muffins. I just didn't care for the stuff and I'm pretty into foods of all kinds. My doc said for dry eye you need a minimum of two tablespoons of flax a day in addition to other omega 3s.

I did not find fish supplements helped. A specialist I saw said that you'd have to take about 15 fish pills per day to start to see a difference. Frankly, I'd rather eat fish, but I like fish and we eat it at least once a week, usually more.

:>)

I know, off topic. Feel free to PM if you have questions. I've tried all kinds of things and I'm pretty happy with my current diet, but as I said, working walnut oil into my lifestyle is very easy for me.

[AnotherCat]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I regard it as a chemical engineering project which must be followed precisely, lest disaster ensure .

Ahh, that may be the problem, for me cooking should be performed like a chemistry experiment, not like measuring predetermined exact amounts of stuff into a reactor at all . Wear safety glasses, be prepared for the occasional explosion and one is fine.

When I was at university, now many moons ago, one of the chemistry professors ran a series of freebee voluntary lectures on the chemistry of cooking. Was very interesting and changed my approach completely, recipes did not come into it at all; unfortunately I now only recall the basics. Soon after that I had a holiday job with a company that made, among other things, bread baking tins for commercial bakers. They gave me a few and so was then into my first real experiments .

John

[crich70]

Originally Posted by rxmom03

Cookbooks and reference books are two things that I think I will always want in paper form. I do use an app (Pepperplate) to store recipes from the internet on my iPad, but I do love my cookbooks!

Mary

And some classic books will always be welcome in paper I think. Like "A Christmas Carol" for example. And I imagine if a person practices a given religion that they might want to have the text of their belief in paper (even if it is available in ebook format).

[crich70]

Originally Posted by Blossom

I am the same way. I make the recipe my own. I will follow it the first time and then I will modified it more to my liking.

My paternal grandma didn't follow cookbooks. She'd made things over and over so many times she just knew how much of what to add when and how long to cook/bake whatever she was making for it to come out just right. A natural magic that grandma's just seem to have I guess. Alas she died back in 1982.

[Tarana]

I no longer buy either craft or cookbooks, but that is because I have tons of both. Today, I only acquire digital ones, mostly magazines. One REQUIREMENT of a digital copy is the ability to print the recipe/project. It's too hard for complicated stuff to be shuffling from one page to another on my Nook HD while cooking or working the project IMHO. Once I've made the recipe and made notes, it goes into my keeper cookbook (it's like a scrapbook of recipes), so I don't have to remember what darn book I got that fabulous dessert from. Of course, if I can't download the magazine to my printer, I can't print that recipe/project. That is why I don't buy them from B&N any longer. For awhile, Amazon wasn't letting you download magazines to printers, but after lots of complaints, they fixed that and once again, I can print from my magazines.

Anyway, if I was starting again, I'd still buy paper cookbooks for my main cookbooks. But I refuse to buy glamorized cookbooks. What a waste of space. My experience with these types of cookbooks is yeah, sure, they look pretty, but the the recipes tend to have more errors. In addition, ebook cookbooks are easy to pass by when you are looking for something interesting to cook - you forget that you have it unless you have it always loaded (which isn't practical for me - it slowed my Kindle WAY WAY down to have so many ebooks on there.

[rxmom03]

Originally Posted by crich70

And some classic books will always be welcome in paper I think. Like "A Christmas Carol" for example. And I imagine if a person practices a given religion that they might want to have the text of their belief in paper (even if it is available in ebook format).

That would actually be most of my reference books--bibles and commentaries. Also books that I really, really like--Unbroken is the most recent one in this category that I bought.

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Can anyone recommend a recipe app that works in metric measurements, rather than US units? I find measurements like "cups" of flour and "sticks" of butter to be completely incomprehensible .

My measuring cups are mostly dual, show both metric and non metric, a stick of butter is still 1/4 lb.

But I understand your confusion having been there myself.
Recipes are often by measured volume, weight or just a pinch.

I spent $15 CAD on a digital kitchen scale which converts lbs. to kg. and back again with the push of a button. Saves me from looking it up or thinking.

Helen