Saturday 26 March 2011

So Many Cookery Books

I love cookery books.  I love reading them but especially I like looking at the pictures! What I appear to be remiss at is cooking from them.  Don't get me wrong, I do cook using recipes from the books, but given that I have so many, I should actually use them more.

I have a collection of all sorts, ranging from an M&S one from 1981 (particularly useful for meat cooking times) through to the Goddess Delia and Nigel Slater.  There are books that I refer to for the same old recipes, and some that I never cook from.  I have books by the respected such as Elizabeth David and Patience Gray, through to the novelty Elvis one called 'Are you Hungry Tonight'!  I even have recipes torn out of magazines, carefully inserted in a relevant cookery book to ensure that it is easily retrieved.  My books have either been bought by myself or been presents.  They range from the celebrity to cheap books of a type of food (e.g. Spanish, Moroccan, French, Italian).
In this era of austerity, I have decided not to buy any more books but cook from the books I already have.  My problem is this, I can't help but feel some recipes become out of date, like fashionable clothes.  They lose their appeal.  Is this correct, or is this boredom (self-inflicted if I only use the same recipes)?

I have decided that the delicate tweaking of a recipe is acceptable.  Downloading recipes from the internet is not acceptable (at least not until I have cooked five recipes from every book; or have cooked once that week from a cookery book).

Some cooking will be for a family evening meal.  Some recipes will be for the all too rare dinner party.  Some might be à deux.

I look forward to sharing the recipe, the cooking experience and of course what it tasted like!