So, it turns out I’m not very organized at home.

I am so organized at work, but all of those skills get used up there and the home life gets the dregs at the bottom of the organizational barrel. At least, that is what I’m telling myself.

Recently, I paid a friend of mine to come do some cleaning for me because we were reaching critical mass and I couldn’t find three hours in my schedule to scrub floors and toilets before a party. Her takeaway from my mess? “You have too much crap on your countertops.” What the wha??? BUT THAT IS ALL MY STUFF. I NEED ALL THAT STUFF.

She suggested I clear an area on a bookshelf near the kitchen and put baskets on it for each person in the house instead of cluttering my kitchen counter with piles of mail, baskets of random things like pieces of thread (I MIGHT NEED THAT TO SEW ON A BUTTON! Oh wait, I’ve never sewn on a button), broken Dollar Store sunglasses (I CAN FIX THOSE!) and expired coupons.

With the new system, whenever mail comes, it goes in the appropriate person’s basket. He or she is to put sunglasses, keys, wallet and random whatnot in his or her basket that lives on the bookshelf. DO NOT PUT YOUR STUFFY STUFF ON THE KITCHEN COUNTER.

But, I argued, the bookshelf is full! If I need to take a shelf for organizational baskets, where will I put all of the cookbooks that live on that shelf? And my friend rolled her eyes. When, she asked, was the last time you cracked open a cookbook?

She had a point. I haven’t used a cookbook in over 10 years. BUT I STILL LOVE THEM. So I ask you, dear readers, what is the role of the cookbook in the digital age? Do you still use them? Do you have a box full of index cards with recipes copied neatly in your own script?

I decided to cut my cookbook stock down dramatically. I knew if I was going to part with some I’d have to have a set of rules, or I’d find a reason to keep each one. Reasons like, “But someone gave me this for my 32nd birthday! I don’t remember who, but SOMEONE did!” Or, “Once I thought about making sausage crepes out of this cookbook. There might be more things in there that I will never make but that I like to think about!”

The rules were simple: 1) Have you made more than one successful thing out of this book? 2) Is it beautiful? 3) Does it teach techniques as much or more than just recipes?

A book had to meet at least one of the three criteria to make the cut. Below is a partial list of what I ended up with. I only let myself keep one small shelf, so the list isn’t particularly long.

• “Better Homes and Gardens” (If you don’t have this, you need it. Even if you are already a great cook, you need this.)

http://www.lawrence.com/users/photos/2014/jun/26/275675/

• “Barefoot Contessa” (beautiful)

• “Pioneer Woman” (annoying, but beautiful. Also, autographed. Wha?)

• Alton Brown’s “I’m Just Here For The Food” (technique!)

• A Junior League cookbook from 1995 called “Women of Great Taste” (beautiful, and I have cooked many things out of it over the years. Cleverly organized as well.)

• A few church basement cookbooks (you’ll never find a better chocolate sheet cake recipe than in a book made by a bunch of Lutheran grandmas)

• Two Williams-Sonoma books (beautiful and usually quite practical)

• Alice Waters’ “In the Green Kitchen” (beautiful and laden with technical genius)

In a world of Pinterest, Google and Food Network shows, the cookbook has taken a back seat. I rarely cook from a recipe anymore, and when I do, my iPhone is usually my guide. But there is still something satisfying about cracking open a cookbook and flipping to the well-used page with the perfect pancake recipe and having to scrape a little dried up batter off in order to read it.

An organized kitchen is a thing of beauty. But so is a cherished cookbook. No iPhone or Pinterest board will ever remind me of my mother the way my Better Homes and Gardens binder does. In the world of Kindle, I have relinquished a lot of my paper books, but just as I’ve kept the classic novels on my shelves, I am also keeping the basics in my kitchen.