(no subject)
You know, it occurs to me that my collection of cookbooks absolutely fails.
My problem's two-fold. One is that the type of cookbook I like isn't all that common. I like cookbooks that are as much about the why as they are about the how. One of my favorite cookbooks of all time is On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen. I don't think it even has any recipes. But understanding a bit of the chemistry involved in the ingredients is immensely useful to me, considering how often I cook based off pure random "let's throw things in the pot and see what happens". The second is that look at the price of an average cookbook. Example: Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume One is $40 at list. A cookbook I've been eyeing longingly, Starting with Ingredients, is also $40. That's just a tad beyond impulse buy to me. Compare this to, oh, I don't know. Off Armageddon Reef. Brand new book by one of the top three best-selling science fiction authors. $25.95 list. I wince a little at that, even. I like to keep my book purchases below $20, if possible. Even my non-fiction, marketed to a niche market and a hell of a lot more expensive than your standard mass-market paperback, is a hell of a lot cheaper than my average cookbook. And most cookbooks are little more than a collection of recipes, which I can get online at Foodieview for free, already tested by a bunch of random internet strangers. So. My collection of cookbooks is tiny and would be even tinier if I hadn't inherited my mother's (not incredibly large) collection of cookbooks.
This complaint prompted by the fact that I feel like reading a cookbook, but I can't find any I feel like reading. I have a semi-interesting book that I'd read on the "artistry" of cooking, which I mainly adore for the lists of what ingredients complement each other, when they're best, and generally advice on how to concoct your own recipes. But alas, I can't find it. I swear, what I really need to do is organize all my books. Sadly, I'm lazy.
Might read those vegetarian cookbooks my grandmother gave my mother when my dad was diagnosed with diabetes. Except I hate the font they're in.
...Or I could read the three other books I'm currently reading instead of starting a new one. No wait four. If you count a book I'm reading only because it was in the car and I was in the drive-thru at the pharmacy and god, they were incompetent beyond belief. The one thing you never want to hear after fifteen minutes waiting in the drive thru is "Ma'am? Are you sure your prescription's ready?" I'm now almost a quarter of the way through Eric Flint's 1824 again after that.
I feel like talking tonight I guess. I just don't have anyone interested in listening to me whine at length. Fortunately, that's what lj was invented for. Or if not, you certainly couldn't tell by the way it's used.
My problem's two-fold. One is that the type of cookbook I like isn't all that common. I like cookbooks that are as much about the why as they are about the how. One of my favorite cookbooks of all time is On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen. I don't think it even has any recipes. But understanding a bit of the chemistry involved in the ingredients is immensely useful to me, considering how often I cook based off pure random "let's throw things in the pot and see what happens". The second is that look at the price of an average cookbook. Example: Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume One is $40 at list. A cookbook I've been eyeing longingly, Starting with Ingredients, is also $40. That's just a tad beyond impulse buy to me. Compare this to, oh, I don't know. Off Armageddon Reef. Brand new book by one of the top three best-selling science fiction authors. $25.95 list. I wince a little at that, even. I like to keep my book purchases below $20, if possible. Even my non-fiction, marketed to a niche market and a hell of a lot more expensive than your standard mass-market paperback, is a hell of a lot cheaper than my average cookbook. And most cookbooks are little more than a collection of recipes, which I can get online at Foodieview for free, already tested by a bunch of random internet strangers. So. My collection of cookbooks is tiny and would be even tinier if I hadn't inherited my mother's (not incredibly large) collection of cookbooks.
This complaint prompted by the fact that I feel like reading a cookbook, but I can't find any I feel like reading. I have a semi-interesting book that I'd read on the "artistry" of cooking, which I mainly adore for the lists of what ingredients complement each other, when they're best, and generally advice on how to concoct your own recipes. But alas, I can't find it. I swear, what I really need to do is organize all my books. Sadly, I'm lazy.
Might read those vegetarian cookbooks my grandmother gave my mother when my dad was diagnosed with diabetes. Except I hate the font they're in.
...Or I could read the three other books I'm currently reading instead of starting a new one. No wait four. If you count a book I'm reading only because it was in the car and I was in the drive-thru at the pharmacy and god, they were incompetent beyond belief. The one thing you never want to hear after fifteen minutes waiting in the drive thru is "Ma'am? Are you sure your prescription's ready?" I'm now almost a quarter of the way through Eric Flint's 1824 again after that.
I feel like talking tonight I guess. I just don't have anyone interested in listening to me whine at length. Fortunately, that's what lj was invented for. Or if not, you certainly couldn't tell by the way it's used.