Sometimes, OK, most times, getting started is the hardest part of any big project. And, I’ve tried to get THIS thing going now for about a year. It all began with two ideas.
First, I wanted to learn how to take some decent food images to use for my work on dineSarasota.com. Second, I wanted to cook my way through one of the bibles of modern Italian cuisine, The Essentials of Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan. Seemed like it would be fun, delicious and educational.
But, as the summer of 2009 wore on and the adventures of Julie and Julia gained in popularity with the general public, it seemed like a been there, done that thing. I wasn’t exactly brimming with excitement as I had been when I dreamed up my plan. So it sat of the shelf. Like an old cookbook. And, getting older and dustier month by month…
Fast forward
Sitting in my kitchen one Sunday afternoon this winter, running through the usual “what can we have for Sunday dinner” thought process, I spotted an old Wolfgang Puck cookbook (look at how young Chef Puck looks in this early ’80′s photo!) sitting up on shelf wedged in between lots of other cookbooks whose spines hadn’t been cracked in years either. The light bulb went, albeit dimly at first. Why haven’t I made anything out of that book for the past 20 years? As a matter of fact, why haven’t I made a dish out of any of the books on shelf number two in 15 years? As crazy as it may sound, I even went to the time, trouble and expense of moving them across the country eight years ago!
Laziness? Nope, I cook pretty much everyday. Change of tastes? Not really, if anything I’ve learned to appreciate a wider variety of foods over the years. Apathy? No, I like Puck’s dishes and recipes and I find him interesting as a Chef.
So? As I looked around the kitchen the answer became crystal clear. Volume and hassle. Lots and lots of books. Overwhelming choices and no great way to make cooking decisions. Googling your entire print cookbook collection isn’t really practical (I think there are websites out there working on making this a reality). Books that have great recipes just sit there seemingly past their expiration date. Sad.
I stood. I counted. 103.
Now, I know there are a lot of people out there who say. “103, I’ve got that in a corner of my kitchen”. Yeah, I know, but, are you using them. Don’t you walk past a stack, look twice and say, “where/when did I get that?” 103 cookbooks might not be close to any type of cookbook collecting record, but, it is still a great place to start unearthing some long neglected recipes that lay between those sometimes oil stained pages.
Here’s my new, new plan. I still want to learn how to take really great food photos. I think I can do it too! And, I really want to find out what’s in all those books that made me NEED to have them. I’m going to crack a different one open each week and make a recipe (or 2). There’s a pretty wide range of work here. It’s something insane like Fannie Farmer to Thomas Keller!
If you’re a cookbook author and would like me take a try at one of your recipes, take some photos and write about your work, drop me an email and we can make arrangements to do just that. 103 is just a number and it’s just a starting point!
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Tags: cookbooks, French Cooking, Wolfgang Puck