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* Cookbooks.
* Vintage Cookware
* Picture Disc Albums

Yogurt cups and lids for their potential functionality and refrigerator magnets for sentimental attachment to old times.

grocery plastic bags. my parents collected them, and now i do.

I'm planning on developing a fiestaware fetish. That stuff is radioactive you know.

I collect tourist coffee mugs. My favorite is from Philadelphia, because it has a pretzel, a hockey player, Ben Franklin, Rocky, and the Liberty Bell all on the same mug.

flame le creuset items. it started snowballing because i love orange and i got one from tj maxx. then my parents got me two for christmas. then everyone decided it would be easy to get me flame le creuset for every occasion. i am not above ebay for used ones! :)

Vinegars, mustard and oils. I used to collect tea cups, but having moved from one country to another, and then across the pond, I had to leave it behind (yes, it was painful). My key chain collection has travelled with me though, and some of my favourite ones are food related (they include various beverage bottles, a very cute ice cream cone, a pizza slice and even a burger!)

Ok, so it's not food and drink related...but I could gorge or drink myself silly just thinking about how much money I wasted on that stuff.

Plates, lots of them. I could serve at least a 12-course meals for 8 people (I like matched sets) without doing dishes. Also, martini shakers and Cow Parade Collectible cows.

lots of different things. The only food related thing I collect though, is recipes. Recipe books, recipes from magazines/newspapers... I get real satisfaction out of looking through recipe books. It's actually come in handy, as I'm in the process of making a recipe book for a friend.

Oh lord is this a meeting? I collect a lot. Serving platters, tablecloths, cookware, baking extracts and flavoring oils, cookie cutters (I have thousands), baking pans, stock pots, spices/herbs, condiments, stainless steel bowls, flour (I keep many kinds on hand), dishers, whisks, wooden spoons, silcone spatulas and spoonulas (in many many colors), japanese knives, ramekins, cake stands, peelers, coffee, sugars. Thats just off the top of my head.

Knives (that sounds dangerous!) - especially Shun, hot sauce, and mustard - the latter two of which go in and out of rotation quickly :)

On a non food note - and possibly even worse - purses. sigh...

Oh i collect shot glasses from all around the world. I even have a display case for them. (wow that sounds weird when I put it there in print). All my friends and family know that if they go on vacation, I'd like a shot glass, not a t-shirt ;). I LOVE cookbooks and buy them all the time and I really love stemware....

cookbooks.... vintage cooking tools - I use those to decorate my kitchen, although some of them are put to use every day. I have several sets of vintage canisters I use regularly.
Not food related I collect bird houses and little chairs.

Pepper mills.

Mustard and flower pots.

Fiestaware, old and repro
Vintage table linens (you do not want to see the stacks in my basement)
Vintage kitchen tools - most are quite useful!
About to embark on collecting single, unusual dinner plates. Tired of the old white (repro) Fiesta plates.

lbs...apparently.

Being raised by horrendous clutterbugs/hoarders, I try not to collect things. However, I am on the path to Fiestaware fetish like some of you are. I inherited my grandmother's (now) vintage light blue dishes (nearly a full 4-place setting for saucers, salad plates, dinner plates, and bowls + 4 different pastel-colored small bowls), and I love them. My mother has gifted me more in the gorgeous navy blue (they don't make the light blue any more), and it looks great next to the rest of it.

Nothing, although I did somehow end up with two old Mouli graters and would like to collect a third that is newer and not impossible to clean!!! These are one of the very select few unitaskers in my kitchen because I think the design is genious and I feel fancy when I grate long, elegant, thin shreds of cheese on my food.

I think I have the world's largest collection of grasshopper pins. Last count, over 250 unique pins and brooches. Weird, huh? Like many of you, I collect a LOT of things, and have been trying to de-clutter, so many of my collections are in the shed, awaiting sale on ebay. Other collections: Royal Ruby red depression glass, white ironstone, spheres, spices, cookbooks (have hundreds of these that I treasure), miniatures, baskets.....

Dust.

We have a salt problem in our house . . . kosher salt, sea salt, Morton's salt, smoked salt, truffle salt, pink salt, black salt, rock salt, rosemary salt (homemade), driveway salt . . . the list is endless. If I see salt, I have to have it!

We also have an entire closet of cooking magazines. It was sectioned by the previous owner to hold books, but we find it perfect for storing cooking magazines (Bon Appetit, Gourmet, Food and Wine mostly, but a number of Cooking Lights, Saveurs, and binders of recipes in other forms) sorted by month.

Restaurant ware but pre-1960 if possible. I have way too much but I always cave when I see something that matches one of my designs. It's so pretty!!!

cookbooks...lots and lots...
menus from restaurants and diners around the country/world ..(so many to a point where it's a little scary :o) )
Refrigerator kitchen magnets with food and retro TV show themes..
Metal lunchboxes with retro TVshow themes.....

I have double place settings of every original Fiesta color, plus cream soup, deep plate, both fruits, cereals, and ind. salad bowls, 9 pitchers, 6 two pint jugs, 3 carafes, 2 coffee pots and all but the forest green demitasse. Oh, and about 20 platters. And a stacking set with lid.
And more.
And, 8 other sets of dishes.

Cookbooks, and duck fat.

Cookbooks and shotglasses. Wow I have a lot of both of those and am moving soon so we will have to see what migrates with me... also a small collection of high end knives (mainly Shun) because I refuse to use a dull knife and am all about high end materials.

Demitas (sp?) spoons
Cookbooks (which I actually use)
Cookbooks in foreign languages from places that I have visited (which I generally can't use)
Soda/Beer bottles from places that I have visited

Oh, I forgot to mention coasters. It's a sickness.

Hey @drastic and @kathy - do you know how long duck or goose fat lasts? I've had a jar of goose fat in my fridge for 6 months and I want to use it to fry up some potatoes but don't know if it's still good. Is it?

@chisai...depending on which "expert" web site you read we should be able to keep duck & goose fat frozen for 6-12 months. Oh well, time to roast up a new bird! Frying potatoes is my reason for saving it as well. I also save my rendered fat from holiday rib roasts for Yorkshire puddings, but the duck & goose fat is the most dear. Duck fat fried potatoes are worth the extra year they're probably taking off my life.

in comparision to the piddly amount of actual, edible food i have, i have a disproportionate amount of condiments especially salad dressings, and a bunch of tea. currently i have to have a different kind of tea to match each mood! for awhile i was constantly buying cute little saucers i found at thrift stores... i have a bunch of cute mismatched 60s-70s ones. they arent incredibly useful, mainly when im just having a bagel. but id love to have A TON. plus they are usually like 99c. garage sale season is upon us! its time to collect useless junk!!

I've collected Fiestaware almost 30 years.

Rosenthal Studio Linie....

and sterling....and as I retire in 1 1/2 years, everything will be going on ebay. lol

Cast iron. Pots, pans, wall hangings...you name it. The older the better. Every summer I come back from Maine with a box of it. My wife has limited me to one tomato box per summer.

Thanks for letting me share.

In addition to more cookbooks than I can ever possibly use or have bookshelf space for, I have a huge database of recipes, more than a thousand or two I'm sure I'll never make, that I've collected on the internet over the last 10-15 years.

Antique serving pieces. Also china bird and other animal figures. And I also can't seem to relinquish serving platters from old sets of dishes that I've had to throw away - even though they don't match, they do come in handy at Thanksgiving and other big holidays.

I had a fit when the hubby threw out many years of Martha Stewart Living magazines that were stashed in a closet - he won't try that one again.

@lochaven

Perhaps I may have to bid on your fiestaware collection as I develop my addiction

nothing

are, not is

~ Paula

This is a fun topic. My husband thinks I'm crazy. For me, it's really sharp Japanese knives. I have way more than I need. Hubby says I have more better knives than most chefs. But I use them!

For you cookbook collectors out there, do you specialize or is your collection rather eclectic?

tiny liquors

Colorful and beautiful mixing bowls.

Glass jars with red lids.

Handmade items that interest me, like my hand-painted wooden jumping jack hanging in my kitchen.

Beachy things... Seashells, my carved wooden pelican, framed photo of my grandmother at the beach....

Little things collected while traveling.

@honeybumper - haha ...and I'm a coffeecup whore. I enjoyed your speech!

I'm particularly a "whore" for:

- celeb. chef cookbooks
- anything with kittie kats :) meeow!

@chisai - I love vintage coasters, and on extra-special trips I take home hotel coasters, and forgein beer coasters.

@Traci7822 - haha I wouldn't last

I'm home! I've found my people!! Cookbooks, internet recipes, beautiful glassware/wine glasses and along @ bananamonkey lbs.

Condiments, I have a whole fridge full. In fact they outnumber the "staples" and the food I can even hope to mix with them.

Food related collections: spatulas made of various woods, favorite being olive; vintage cooking tools and pots collected at flea markets (mostly while living in Switzerland during the 70s), but it continues; coffee mugs; small stainless bowls for mise en place; Swiss potato peelers; cookbooks; herbs and spices, including anceint ones even though I know they don't last forever, I enjoy the continuity and knowing I have that ancient bottle of fenugreek on hand; and many more.

I've been collecting new and vintage cookbooks, cookbooks, cookbooks, since I was a teen! Most recent addition (2 days ago) : Picnic by Linda Collister et al.

I have three different editions of Roger Verge's Entertaining in the French Style (what a gorgeous GORGEOUS book[however the New Entertaining... edition is less so]), two different editions of the Larousse, Elizabeth David's French Provincial Cookery in hardcover (!) and my precious Edna Staebler's Food that Really Schmecks. Every Nigella (except Nigella Bites being a commercial rip from her stellar How to Eat). Oh and Blah Blah Blah! Obviously I can get a little too excited about the cookbooks. Yes I read them like fine literature, which many of them in fact are: Tamasin Day Lewis, Ms David, Nigel Slater, Ms. Lawson, to name a few.

Also I collect Spode plates, gorgeous blue transferware in every pattern. Gorgeous cookware (tagines, Le Creuset) and Chinese tea ware! Should I stop? Jamais, jamais, jamais!!!!