There are a number of great food blogs that are cook-the-book, and I have found it fascinating to read the experience of Carol at Alinea at home, Julie Powell of the Julie/Julia Project, and Sara of Sara Discovers How to Eat (and many more!) Cook the book blogs are a really cool way to work on your cooking skills. Plus, I like having a project, and this one will certainly take up my time and energy.
So it begins! I am going to cook my way through The Essential New York Times Cookbook, by Amanda Hesser.
Why this book? You may not know this, but I was a History major in college, with a concentration on the early 1900's. The way that we cook and the way that home cooking has evolved has always interested me. I think that this book will be a really neat way to explore our national culinary history. What recipes are from the depression? Which ones are wartime recipes? How did trends in society play into what people were cooking in their home kitchens? Plus, while I consider myself a pretty capable cook, I don't tend to go outside of my culinary comfort zone all that often. I want to expand my culinary knowledge and practice in all directions. Learning about the past, and practicing my skills for the future. The best way to get better at something is to practice it.
What I am going to do:
- Post as frequently as I can. Include in the post the page number the recipe is on.
- Take pictures of the things I make.
- When I make substitutions/ adjustments (due to time, or tools, or cost) I will note it in the post.
- Cook from the book at least three days a week (since I live alone, a majority of these meals will be just for me. I can take leftovers for lunch, but I am figuring I'm going to have some dinners of leftovers, as well).
What I am not going to do:
- Cook all of these recipes in a year. I think over thousand recipes in a year is way too ambitious, even for me. So over the first couple of weeks, I'm going to develop some sort of cooking/posting rhythm.
- Post the recipes. Amanda Hesser did an awesome job writing and editing this cookbook, and the authors wrote the recipes, and If you want the recipes, grab a copy of the book and cook along with me! You can get it on Amazon for a great deal. If however, there's a link to it somewhere else, (as part of an interview, or something like that) I will provide a link to the recipe.
*Note to my friends in real life: You are all hereby invited to dinner, A LOT. I am going to need your help eating all of this food, so if you want to get in on the action, give me a call, or send me an email, and I'll send an email out at the beginning of every week saying what I'm cooking and if it's something you're interested in, just let me know, and you're invited!
