Lost Book

Gentle Reader,
If you had to pick the most valuable book in your home, which one would it be? I'm not talking about monetary value or sentimental value, I'm talking about the one whose loss would most disrupt your life, the one that you would go to great pains to replace?

I've been looking for a book for several weeks now. I've not been too worried as I figured it was somewhere. But today I made a conscious effort to seek it out and checked out all the book boxes I could find. I even looked in the garage to see if there were one book box lurking there. Alas and alack, no book. So after having given up, I passed by the bookshelf in the office and saw what might be this book. How funny if it had been right there to the left of my desk all this time.

Sure enough, it was my book. Which one was it? The recipe book that my oldest daughter made for me many years ago. It's really a binder rather than a book and has printouts of all the recipes I typed up years ago plus other recipes I've printed out or clipped. It's disgustingly dirty, covered with chocolate drips and gravy stains, and has little notes written all around the recipes as I've tweaked them over the years. And if I had lost it, it would have been irreplaceable. It was easy to overlook because from the side it looks like all the other white binders in the house.

I'm glad it's back. And I have a new rhubarb pie recipe to add in. I'm curious. What book would you have chosen?