at what point do you all purge your cooking magazines? I have waaay too

R

randi

Well-known member
many on my shelves and, as much as I love them, the reality is, I can't possibly use all of them.

annnd, those glass jars and bottles that we can't seem to throw away... I can't walk in my walk in pantry and reality check is a good place to start... smileys/smile.gif

 
What I do with my magazines...

is cut out the recipes of interest and file away in my filing cabinet by category. Then when I want to make a new recipe say, for chicken, I pull the poultry file and cull through it. This method helped me reduce the magazine piles a great deal. Of course I had to acquire a second filing cabinet recently to accommodate the growing pile of to-be-trieds. ;o) But for now, this method works for me.

As for the glass jars and bottles, I have such a fascination for them. Recently sent a bunch to recycle and kept just a few on hand. It was a reality check indeed when I realized how little I was using them all. Felt good to reduce their numbers.

 
I thought about just cutting out the recipes that interest me and figured I would..

just get a different kind of pile... '-)))

it sounds like a good idea Pat, I'll give it a whirl. recycle sounds like a good idea too. I may have to hand them to girlfriends and let them take them away so I don't change my mind, yet again!

 
You're much stronger than I if

you can give your magazines away. Tried to do that once or twice but got skeered I might be missing some fantabulous recipe.

I know, I know, I've got it baaaad. Hubby says I need a twelve step program for all the recipes and cookbooks in our house. Of course when dinner-time rolls around he changes his tune a little. ;o)

Good luck, Randi.

 
I had shelves and shelves filled with old Gourmet and other

magazines. Never read or looked at them for anything. After fretting about them, moving them, coveting the shelf space, I finally bit the bullet and pitched all of them in a big purge. It felt great to have the burden lifted. I don't regret it at all. We have the internet now. ; )

 
Before I knew to find recipes on the internet, I used to go through the magazines and type out

the recipes that interested me, then force myself to throw them out. Since I'm a terrible typist, I had to reeeeaalllly like the recipe to bother, so it narrowed it down. Now you could find the ones that most interest you online and copy them, then toss the magazine.

I keep all the May Bon Appetits, and an issue here and there of the others.

 
How about donating them to libraries, senior centers/homes, used bookstores, etc? (Don't forget

to remove the address label first).

 
and those are the ones I was thinking of dumping. I'll just keep the special gourmet issues

and donate the rest to a worthy cause. there are few others I never cooked from either, like Eating Well. I may be able to succeed after all... smileys/smile.gif

 
it's the Bon Appetits that I'm loaded with. they've had some great recipes over the years. right

now, when I think about cleaning out the pantry and getting organized, I wish I had a wife!

 
I do the same thing Pat does. I do it when the mood strikes me about twice a year

I look through them and cut out recipes I want then I recycle the magazines. If I chose to give them away I would just photocopy the recipes I wanted and get rid of the magazines the same day so I didn't have second thoughts. I, too, have file cabinets with organized files of different categories. A few weeks ago I actually started going through those files to rid myself of duplicate recipes and recipes collected years ago that I will never make. I found I culled out about 1/3 of them. I won't tell you how many 1/3 was because it is too embarrassing. Lots.

I used to keep bottles and jars too but I got over that bad habit and now fill them with something fun and give them away to friends. Usually homemade raspberry vinegar in the bottles because friends seem to really like it and pickled stuff or jams in the jars.

 
Randi, I kept the Nov. and Dec. issues...

because those are the really nice big issues with lots of holiday dinner, entertaining, dessert ideas.

Also, about those jars...I too, packrat that I am, had this problem. I finally found a solution: find one shelf that will house the jars and bottles. Fill it up with the ones you like. Pitch the rest.

Now, anytime you want to keep a jar or bottle, it has to fit on this shelf. If there's no room and you really want to keep it, pitch another one to make room.

I am now at peace with my jars and bottles.

 
They're the "Special Collector's Issue" ones that concentrate on one theme each year. I tend to buy

them at the newsstand even if I'm not subscribing at the time.

 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top