I have a digital cookbook from Amazon. I can't say I've ever used it. I do use a recipe app that I load recipes into, but that's just like having a printout, but it's on the iPad (and so, sometimes, is flour). I actually have gotten to like using the iPad better than paper, but that could change with the wind.

I have a couple of PDF cookbooks (legit ones) that I have browsed through on the computer, but also not cooked out of. I think I'd copy a recipe over into the recipe app for that.

eBay does not sound legit, unless you're buying directly from the author, and direct from the author would be more likely on the website--a Paypal button is dead easy to install.

Experientially, like any other book, a digital cookbook on a tablet is a different experience. I have some cooking coffeetable books which are beautiful and worth keeping out of the kitchen. I scribble out the actual recipes if I want to use them. I also have a number of little paperbacks with impossibly small print, which don't stay open and need to be held closer to read anyway. I scribble out the recipes. The tablet can be easily wiped off, and has adjustable print. You can browse normally if it's an e-book. Some PDF's also have indices, internal links, etc., to make navigation during browsing easier. Some don't.

On eBay, you might be getting an image of the printed book, rather than a digital release. That could be hard to read, especially where the page curves, and definitely is a copyright infringement.

Have you tried alibris, cookbook sites, etc.? Usually, turning up a good used copy of just about anything isn't that hard if you're determined.

Good luck!

I haven’t tried any other site to buy the book but I’ll look at the ones you suggested. It isn’t a cuisine that I would ordinarily cook.

I use the Pepperplate app, but I might have to find another one. Pepperplate was free, but has recently started charging $3/mo. Certainly affordable, but I don’t know if I want to pay that for the rest of my life. I love being able to scale recipes but I suspect there is an app I could own that would do the same thing.

I really like Mealboard (free) for my purposes, but the computer UI has developed a couple of flaws. I still like it best, but I'm looking forward to when the author gets the web portal fixed. :)

What's the book? Maybe I can help you find it?

It is Vietnamese Food Any Day by Andrea Nguyen. Simply Recipes is doing a Cookbook Club using it this summer. I thought it might be fun to , if not participate, at least watch. My exposure to Vietnamese food is limited to banh mi and to arguing with my daughter about the correct pronunciation of “pho.” HA!

FWIW, because I have too many real books to ever buy another, I like to use the digital apps for our local library. They have Overdrive/ Libby and hoopla. Both carry cookbooks. Hoopla lets you have them a bit longer than Overdrive does, and unless someone else has a hold, you can re-check out if a book expires before you're done.

It's a good way to try before you buy, I think...

A dozen years ago it seemed the future and 'get used to it'.

Hard copy book sales are up the past few years. Especially cook books. I have a few on my tablet and grr when I can't easily find the page I need.

I used an app for recipe saving and they went, as expected, full of ads after sucking us in. No idea where that collection is.

We are back to old school now. We have so few recipes we use over and over, I print out hard copies and file them. A nice stainless file full of plastic sleeves we add as we go.

I really like re-visiting my cookbook shelf now and then. Some post-it pages with saved recipes. Lots of memories. stains.

I had pepperplate for a while but let that go. None of those sites were ever naive. They all had an eventual plan to add pop-ups and ads. Just look at food52. Good for them and their success, but do not care for it anymore.

NYtimes food is by far the best and should not have a pay-wall. They have just enough ads to pay for it.

^^^What @3katz4me said.^^^

I have several cookbooks on my Kindle. I have hardcovers of some of the same ones. My iPad is more compact so that's my preference for cooking. I also like to read cookbooks. For that I prefer hardcovers.

Sorry. I have to do some work, and the below are just the obvious, more expensive ones. More later.

Barnes and Noble has it digital for $10 but I don't know if it's a compatible format.

Penguin Random House has the ebook for $15

Target.com has hardcover for $19 + $6 shipping

https://www.target.com/p/vietnamese-food-any-day-simple-recipes-for-true-fresh-flavors-by-andrea-nguyen-hardcover/-/A-54225733

Walmart.com has it for the same price/shipping as Target, but if you spend $35 they have free shipping

I don't know The Book Depository, but they have it for $20 plus free delivery.

https://www.bookdepository.com/Vietnamese-Food-Any-Day-Andrea-Nguyen/9780399580352

I use some kindle cookbooks. I have one that I use a lot where I bought the kindle version when the hard copy's binding started to fail. Sometimes it is nice to browse through the hard copy but i like how easy it is to use search to find a specific thing in the digital copy.

One Kindle cookbook I bought had some information in tables and they didn't do a good job of making the tables work on the digital version (e.g. a table summarizing how to cook vegetables) so it can make a difference how well they handle preparing the digital book.

I'm a great fan of NYT recipes, but only some are accessible without buying a subscription to NYT cooking. I finally decided to subscribe because I use their recipes so often.

Did you notice that Amazon has it digital for $7? My Amazon screen shows it hardcover for $19, too. Where did you see $30?

@carolb_w_fl_coastal_9b, Brilliant! I checked my local library and they have the book. I’ve put myself on the waitlist. I check out a lot of books for my Kindle. I’d totally forgotten, but I think I checked out a cookbook once before. I looked at it on my Kindle for iPad app. On my Kindle, I would have had the same problem as @Cloud Swift, but IIRC, using it on my iPad, I got clear text and good pictures.

Thanks, plllog, for all the sleuthing. I’m hesitant to buy the book unless I can get it for a song because (1) I doubt that I will ever use it much; (2) I’m trying to get rid of stuff instead of getting more stuff; (3) with the cookbook club I’m in here, I get at least one new cookbook a year.

Re #2: In the last 2 weeks, I’ve tried to give my behemoth of a microwave to my daughter and my step-son. It is only 6 years old and works fine, but I want to re-work the cabinet that it is in and put my Breville Toaster oven in there. Neither offspring wants it. DD has a built-in and only one MW in the entire world will fit. SS is an excellent cook but refuses to use a microwave. I have no idea why.

@plllog I did not. I think I’ll get it from the library and see what I think. If I like it, I’ll buy it from Amazon. Thanks bunches! btw, $30 was hypothetical. Seems like the last few cookbooks that I’ve bought for our local cookbook club have been in the $30 range.

Yes I have bought a digital cookbook, no, I never used it because yes, It was annoying.

Yes, I've bought a couple for the Kindle. As Kswl2 says, I don't use them because they are annoying.

I have shelves of cookbooks and I still use them. I can prop them up on the counter on my cookbook stand and they will stay there, unlike the screen on various devices which will just go away and require a touch to the screen to come back. And always when my hands are sticky/greasy/flour-y/whatever.

I don't get cell phone reception out here, so I don't have a cell phone that will do anything except make a call, I don't pay for "data". It lives in my purse in case I get a flat tire or something. I did try to use the Kindle to play Christmas music last year but gave up in disgust far before I figured out how to make a play list or find any music I liked. I promptly cancelled the Spotify charges and reconciled myself to a kitchen without any Christmas music. All electronic devices impact me the same way. I get annoyed, then I get frustrated, then I decide I hate them and don't need them. So, you see, digital cookbooks aren't a good idea for me, LOL.

Annie

yes. Usually find a recipe I like on line, and save it as a pdf file to my computer. One of these days I have to sort the recipes and print it out as an organized thing. I will make copies for the three kids. One of those 'retired' things I have been itching/scratching to do.

@annie1992, you can play music on your Kindle? I didn’t know that. I have a Kindle Paperwhite so I can read at night without disturbing DH. I don’t think mine has a speaker.

When using the app that I have all my recipes loaded onto, Pepperplate, I do not need internet reception. Also, I have the settings adjusted so that my iPad doesn’t turn off while I’m using that app. Plus, it is so convenient when DD wants my recipe for X. She just signs into my account and there it is. My niece does the same.

What I really use my recipe app for is grocery shopping - when I used to grocery shop. If I got to the store and decided I wanted to make something, I could easily look up the recipe and see which ingredients I needed to purchase.

ETA: The Amazon listing for Vietnamese Food Any Day allows one to “look inside.” I’ve read the introductory notes, so far. I’m impressed with how easy it is to read physically, how good the pictures look on my iPad, and I love the author’s style of writing. I just don’t know if I will like Vietnamese food. In our little rural town, we have a couple of Chinese restaurants, a Thai restaurant or two, and the ubiquitous hibachi grill/sushi places, but to my knowledge there are no Vietnamese restaurants.

FWIW, I use my phone for everything and I go into settings and adjust the screen timeout, when I'm using a recipe.

When I find a good recipe on the internet I save it to my NYT cooking account. That is my online cooking portal because the design of the site is easy to read, well thought out and there are no ads because it’s a paid site. I highly recommend it, I skim other blogs and vlogs and sites but they are so laden down with ads the contributors make a VERY long story about nothing in the lead up to the ingredients and directions. Of course that is so you will be exposed to the greatest number of ads possible,

kswl2, I also agree about the blogs, I don't want a whole page of nothing, including 15 pictures of the exact same thing only to find the recipe at the end or a link to another blog where the recipe actually resides. I'm impatient!

And, of course, I don't "do" Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok or any social media. Not because I can't but because I just don't want to. They don't need all my information and I don't need all the aggravation.

bbstx, my Kindle is not a Paperwhite, it's just a Kindle Fire. My Grandson downloaded the Spotify app or whatever, and there is a monthly charge if you don't want to hear commercials. You can also buy music from the Kindle Store. It's convenient, as long as you only want to listen to what they want you to listen to, instead of choosing your own music. You can make a playlist and just play that, but I can't figure out how and don't care enough to really work at it.

There is no purpose for me buying an expensive phone which will only work with my WiFi but not anywhere else, unless I drive into town. So it won't work outside, or in my garden or at the Townhall, just in my living room. So I have Magicjack for $30 a year. The Township Treasurer tried to get me to switch to her provider and PROMISED me that her "hotspot" would work at my house. It didn't, LOL.

Annie

Ah, a Kindle Fire. I understand now. I think those are more akin to iPads than what I was thinking of.

There are some good recipes on those blogs. I don't read the blather. I just grab the elevator and scroll down fast to the actual recipe. :)

Yea, a Fire is a full featured tablet based on the Android OS (though not exactly Android, and not compatible with all apps). Paperwhite is a reading device, optimized for the reading experience.

Spotify is streaming music which combines features of radio and satellite. Creating a playlist isn't hard. I don't listen to music on devices, however, because the speakers aren't very good. Occasionally, if there's a particular thing I want to hear, rather than just music as entertainment, I use YouTube. It's much easier to find particular odd things on YouTube. The streaming services usually focus on the most popular music, and then ask you to pay for it.

Bbstx, you are going to let us know more about the book when you get your turn, right?

There are Vietnamese restaurants here, but that doesn't mean I know any more about the cuisine than you do, other than it's tasty. :) I've really only had pho, from places that specialize in it. BTW, I've always heard "fuh", but there are correct variations. https://www.chowhound.com/food-news/55268/how-do-you-say-pho/

Don’t you have to have a Spotify subscription to create a playlist? A blog I subscribe to had a very upbeat playlist that I really wanted to hear while I did housework. I think DSIL told me I had to have a subscription to listen to it.

Plllog, DD and I argue (all in good fun) about the rise on the end. I’ve heard that it should almost sound like a question. She thinks it sounds affected when done by a Westerner, but I’ve read that it is a more sensitive nod to the Vietnamese culture. This guy is a native speaker and he does the rise on the end.

Andrea Nguyen is on an episode of The Splendid Table that I intend to listen to while I wash down the kitchen cabinets (how many days have I been saying I’m going to wash the cabinets?). It’ll be interesting to hear how she says certain words!

I made it to the top of the reserved list for Andrea Nguyen’s Vietnamese Food Any Day. I downloaded it to the Kindle app on my iPad. I don’t think I would like it on a Kindle reading device.

I believe it will be an easy book to cook from. It is well written. If there is a technique that is difficult to master or long to explain adequately, there are step by step photos, such as this one for making rice paper rolls

She gives substitutions for many of the more specialized ingredients and she gives brand names for some other ingredients.

Because I know nothing about Vietnamese cooking, I cannot gauge whether or not this is a good cook book. It looks good to me and I might try a few recipes.

The things I like least about a digital cookbook are (1) I can’t thumb through it and see what catches my eye, but more than that (2) when I follow a link to a secondary recipe, there is no immediate way to return to where I was.

Are you using the Kindle app? Or the iPad app? In the Kindle app, you can make a bookmark before you go to the link, then follow the bookmark back. You can also just brush the pages along to browse and set bookmarks on pages you want to come back to. I haven't used the iPad app in years, but I'd guess there are ways to do the same things. Try googling. When I think there's something I want to do, I google it and the answer is usually there.

Thanks for the preliminary review. Maybe I'll get the book for something new to read. :)

I missed your post about the pronunciation. What it says on that page I linked is that pho is pronounced differently in different parts of Viet Nam, so there are at least three right ways to say it. I don't attempt tones. I'm always scared I'll get it wrong and say a bad word. :) I could probably get it if I studied the language, but while I can repeat them, I can't pull them out. I'm sure nice people will be glad that you've tried to honor their language by making the attempt. Cranky people will probably be annoyed. Same as any time one attempts to say foreign words correctly. If someone is snippy enough to actually be offended, however, that's their problem, not yours.

Don't you have the ability to bookmark pages? I can do that with both Overdrive and hoopla.

I haven't used the Kindle app, so I'm not familiar with it.

I like to make notes in my cookbooks of what we liked, changes, alterations, observations, serving suggestions, etc. Do digital cookbooks let you do that?

bpath, I’m going to let someone who is more digital-book savvy answer that. I just tried and could not find a place for notes, but then again, I’m using a library copy. Perhaps that feature is turned off.

Make notes and highlights in iBooks,

And how to export highlights in iBooks via iTransfer app.

https://www.leawo.org/tutorial/how-to-export-highlights-and-notes-from-ibooks-1361.html

Highlighting and notes in Kindle for iPad

https://www.imore.com/how-get-more-out-kindle-app-iphone-and-ipad

You can also just use Notes to make notes, even if your library book doesn't allow notes in the app. Use the sidebar to open Notes, and pull it on and off your screen from the side tabs. What iOS do you have?

This is the app I use on my iPad

Thanks for all of the note-making tips! My iOS is 13.5

I suspect I’ll cook along with the Simply Recipes cookbook club, which starts next week, for a few weeks and then buy the hardback if it seems to be a book I would use with any regularity. I am so averse to writing in books (something that was totally unacceptable in my home and my school), that I tend to write notes on Post-Its and stick them in the book.

Excellent. Kindle app, updated iOS.

So, to use Notes with it, if you want to write something down, check the little tray that comes up when you swipe up from the bottom of the screen. If it isn't, find the Notes icon (yellow band on top, with paper lines under--it comes with your iPad and can sync to your iPhone). Press and drag that icon to the tray, then tap done at the top right of the screen.

Now, when you're reading the book, if you want to take notes, swipe up to see the tray, hold and drag the Notes icon to on top of the Kindle app (or any app) and let it go. You should get a narrow page of Notes on top of your main app. There's a little gray bar at the top of that which is a handle. You can tap and drag it to other positions on the screen, and if you tap and drag it to the right hand side off the edge of the screen, it'll hide. Drag your finger from the right hand edge, and it'll come back, or show a tab you can tap and drag to pull it into view.

Notes automatically saves and is yours to keep.

To set a bookmark in the kindle app, which should be in your app, rather than the library book, so should be fine, just tap the upper right hand corner and you should see a little blue flag. Or you can tap the center to see the toolbar and tap the top rightmost flag icon. To see the bookmarks you've set, tap the center to see the toolbar, and tap the third from the top right icon, that looks like a page. That will show your bookmarks with a few words from the page (which may or may not be helpful) and a number which gives the location from the beginning, which you'd have to use a lot to make meaningful, but you can compare the numbers to get a better idea of which bookmark you wanted, like toward the beginning or toward the end. Tap the bookmark and it'll take you there. There will be a little box that will switch you back and forth from where you were to the bookmark, back and forth, if you want to compare, or use a couple of recipes together. You can tap the center to get the full page, and advance or retreat a few pages, and still have the toggle button.

I haven't used the in app notetaking, but the link explains it pretty well. If what I've said here isn't clear, just ask and I'll do better. :)

I have one recipe e-book on my iPad and totally forget about it. Because of that, there are no plans to buy another e-book.

Simply Recipes Cookbook club started today. The book is Vietnamese Food Any Day by Andrea Nguyen. The first recipe is Crispy Lemongrass Salmon. It looks tasty, but out of the 8 ingredients, I have 3 - brown sugar, salt, and neutral oil. My participation is looking iffy.

Just make it with chicken and orange. Then post a review saying how delicious it was and rating the recipe 5 stars, then mentioning you changed a few ingredients.

😂😂

ROTFL!

When I was hosting Moe's Diner, I published a cookbook called Moe's Diner Cookbook in PDF for the cooking forum with contributions from cooking forum members. I still have it on my hard drive here and in L.A. I think I could email it to you, if you want a copy. It is indexed by chapter, and you can also print single pages. We also did a Trattoria cookbook, but I don't have that here, although I think I have it on my other computer. I only have it here as separate chapters - not a compiled cookbook. Chapers include I Primi, I Secondi, Il Dolce, Il Pane e la Pizza, Le Insalate, Le Verdure, & Zuppa.

@Lars, sent my address by PM for Moe’s Diner. Next time your run across the Trattoria cookbook file and think about it, send that one too, please. Thanks!