I cook a lot. Lots of people to feed, lots of meals a day. Six of us still live here, we homeschool and work from home. Getting rid of cookbooks was not something that ever occurred to me. But as a goal of decluttering, I started taking any delivery box that came into our house and filling it with donation items. With an empty box in hand, I thought I would look though the kitchen quickly. I opened the cabinet with the cookbooks.
Questions: Do I use this item? Is there something you already own that can do this same thing?
I knew right away there were cookbooks I did not regularly use. When I am in the kitchen and need a recipe that is not already tried and true, I reach for my phone and find one on the web! This helped me pare it down to this:
Then, on my next pass through the kitchen, I was using a different “trick” or rule:
Let the container be the boss. (Tip from The Minimal Mom)I had stocked up at the grocery to have three months worth of pasta and sauce. But storing this meant it went up way high and I had to climb on a chair to reach it. I wanted to move it down into a cabinet, but really did not have the space. Then I opened the cookbook cabinet again and further reduced books using this method:
If the last time you thought about this item was the last time you were decluttering, you probably don’t need it. (Thanks, Dawn at The Minimal Mom for that one). More cookbooks left.
That is where it stands today. I do plan to pare it down even further, but sometimes decision fatigue gets to me and it is ok to have some progress without being too worried about perfection.
For the recipes that I have found on the web that our family loves, I keep them in my phone calendar app. It has a great place for family recipes, and all you need to do is insert the URL from the website, and it adds the details and photos.