I am sitting here looking at all the beautiful cookbooks I have on my shelves: “The Way to Cook” by Julia Child, “Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics,” “The Silver Palate Cookbook” and “Bon Appetit.”

Plenty to choose from, but I find myself more and more these days surfing the web for a recipe.

Last month I wanted to make a chicken, mushroom and sherry dish for a holiday get-together. I could look through 10 to 20 books on my shelf or go to the Internet and in seconds get 10 recipes for that one dish.

The websites give me pictures to look at and ingredient lists to shop from. Most helpful are the recipe reviews detailing what folks liked about the dish, what they served it with or how they adapted the recipe for themselves.

I have to admit, those recipe books are quickly becoming “old school.”

My magazine recipes are easier to search. I thought I was doing something pretty advanced when I snipped recipes from my cooking magazines and archived the ones I wanted to keep in plastic sleeves in three-ring binders.

It certainly made my search easier but lacked the ingredient lists, calorie counts and user reviews.

Now I do my menu planning with the computer. But little did I know it would be my almost 80-year-old mother who would truly bring me into the world of cooking by social media.

The other day my mom told me over the phone, “Your Aunty Jean sent me a recipe from Pinterest for a vegetable tian. She made it the other night for your Uncle Al, and she said it was delicious. It looks so good; I think I’ll make it for your dad and me tonight.”

“OK,” I said, “But what’s a tian?”

“It’s a casserole baked in a ceramic dish,” she said. “This one has roma tomatoes, zucchini, summer squash and potatoes, all sliced a quarter-inch thick and placed side by side in a big spiral. You bake it and top it off with fresh grated Parmesan for the last 30 minutes. It is so pretty.”

So then I asked the obvious question, at least to me.

“How do you and Aunty Jean know about Pinterest?”

“Your cousin Bethy showed Aunty Jean, and then Aunty Jean showed me.”

I asked my mom to send me the link to the recipe. Here is what my mom sent:

“Go to Pinterest and enter in For the Love of Cooking/Vegetable Tian.”

I giggled as I read her email instructing me to go to a photo sharing social media site to get a recipe.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Last year she missed a few episodes of “The Bachelor” and “Survivor” because she fell asleep and forgot to tape them.

She told me she found them on ABC.com and CBS.com. And she’s now catching my dad up on the first season of “The Blacklist” at NBC. com since my sister told her our dad would love it.

My mom even has her own iPad. We gave it to her last Christmas. Her PC is ancient, and since she only uses it to print from, the iPad was a better choice.

I don’t even have an iPad. I just upgraded from a Blackberry to a Galaxy 4S last year.

Sorry, I’m going to have to cut this column short. Mom’s just shared a new “Pin” for a great appetizer recipe for Super Bowl Sunday.

More ...