I really didn't intend to have multiple posts today, however I was inspired by my friend's post about her love of cooking and cookbooks. I too enjoy a good cook book, Sunday afternoons in my childhood, or just when I'm bored or hoping for inspiration now I flip through cook books; I also love to watch cooking shows. I thought it was interesting though, my friend said that she liked books without pictures so that she didn't have the pressure of making her creation look just like the picture in the book; I on the other hand really like pictures in a cook book, I like knowing what the thing I'm making should look like, at least in theory, furthermore if I'm just flipping through a cookbook I prefer to have pictures to look at. While I enjoy having pictures in cookbooks, I also have a file of recipes that are on 3X5 note cards; I think I'm okay with these because a good deal of these are things that I've had before, or that I've seen pictures of somewhere.
I don't own any cookbooks, like I said, I have a box of recipes I've copied and many of those come out of recipe books, but up until recently I don't recall any strong desire to own any cookbooks. One of my roommates had a copy of the Joy of Cooking, or some other quintessential cookbook that her mom sent with her to college and I remember not being very impressed by it, I'm not really sure why, perhaps because my mom hadn't used this book, or maybe it just didn't have enough personality for me. Anyway, back to cookbooks, I don't remember how old I was when I wanted to move on from just looking at and drooling over cookbooks to actually making things, it was probably between 8 and 10, having already mastered box macaroni and cheese and rammen I suppose I felt I was ready to move up in the world. I'm pretty sure I remember what I made first, my mom had this really old kids cookbook from when she was a kid and in looking through that I decided to make "dit-dot macaroni and cheese" (hot dog slices on top of mac 'n cheese). I think it turned out okay though slight substitutions had to be made; the recipe called for a can of cheese soup, I hadn't realized such a thing existed, I don't know if it still does or not, but we made white sauce and added cheese instead. The macaroni was a sucess and homemade mac n' cheese has become a staple in my life, to the point that I have the recipe memorized (it's not a very hard one anyway).
Back to cookbooks again (sorry for getting so side tracked), I have recently come across a cookbook that I really want: Mad Hungry: Feeding Men and Boys by Lucinda Scalla Quinn. I'm trying to remember just what about this book I liked so much, but I'm drawing a blank. Ms. Scalla Quin has already gained my faith through her appearances in one of my favorite cooking shows, Everyday Foods, and I came across her recipe for homemade tomato sauce that I've come to love; as for the book itself it included some very nice basics, good pictures and anicdotes, so dispite the fact that I propably wouldn't eat a good deal of the recipes in the book, I really enjoyed it.
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