August 21, 2024

Time to talk food and wine, even if these aren't from a Gallo or Wine and Country box.

Somewhere early in our marriage, Pix got interested in cooking. It might have been the smartest way to attract and keep a Fleming man, who have rarely met a meal we wouldn't eat. In those 35 years, we have amassed about 100 cook books that, along with at least 100 issues of Cooks Illustrated, fill the bookcase in our dining room. Many of these (books or magazines) are very beat up. Throw in another 25 or so books about food and beverages in the study, and you might wonder how much could possibly be in storage.

This box features more books on wine, which is not that surprising. I am not much of a wine drinker, but for awhile Pix was really into "good wine." More recently, she lowered her sights for wine, and so I am not surprised "The Right Wine," "Choosing Wine," "Complete Guide To Wine" and even "Wine Journal" (a notebook of blank sheets with insignificant wine motifs that was meant to record notes, but never has been written in) are prominent. To find "Cookshelf Pasta" is also not that surprising. Pix makes an exquisite spicy sausage pasta that hasn't needed a written recipe. If it did, she might be in trouble as I count 3 cookbooks just on Pasta in our permanent collection. What is it with having so many duplicate cuisines?

That's why my discovery of "The Complete Asian Cookbook" (one of these big coffee table books replete with plenty of pictures) was a big surprise. Timing was good, as we have only recently rediscovered great Thai food from a couple of restaurants near us and Pix has been itching to try Asian. I gladly bring it upstairs and we have already tried one peanut-butter based recipe. The amazing thing is that I am pretty sure this is the only Asian cookbook we have. 

Also tossed in here is a "Stop and Grocery Guide," small enough that it could fit in a purse, since I doubt it is much use away from the supermarket. Even more bizarrely is "No More Food Fights: Growing A Productive Farm and Food Discussion." We have a few of these analyses of the modern food industry in the permanent collection, big-ass books like "Big Chicken," "The Third Plate," and "Bet The Farm." I suppose the relative thin-ness (read: un-impressiveness) of "No More Food Fights" relegated it to the basement.

As a general rule, the cookbooks in this box are pretty boring compared to what we have kept in the permanent collection. "Bon Appétit: Light And Easy Appetizers, Entrees, and Side Dishes," "Betty Crocker's Great Main Dishes Without Meat" and "Linda McCartney's Home Cooking" are all (unpleasant) reminders of our vegetarian period. Ugh! I think I will forget to mention these to Pix, although I am not worried she will desire and of these cookbook, but may just decide to go down that "health pathway" again. Our collection in the dining room already includes a bunch of Moosewood cookbooks, ones that provided a lot of vegetarian recipes (many of them quite good, I admit), along with a couple of cookbooks for diabetics, managing insulin, or the overall Mediterranean diets, all of which were recommended for me post heart attack. Luckily, those cookbooks are mostly passed up for the same beaten up "Cooks Illustrated" and three or four standard cookbooks that Pix uses.

All of this is a minor irritation for me. That's a lot of bookshelf space we could use for something other than ignored cookbooks. How many cookbooks does any chef really need? I can watch Pix spend an hour looking for a certain recipe; it shouldn't take that long, right? One of her most used cookbooks is "The Best Recipe," so frequently used that the spine, front cover and back cover have fallen off. Even before it got beaten down by heavy usage, we added "The New Best Recipe," "The Best International Recipe," "The Best Light Recipe," "The Best Recipe Series: Baking Illustrated," "The Best Recipe Series: Perfect Vegetables," "The Best Recipe Series: Soups and Stews," and "The Best Recipe Series: Steaks, Chops, Roasts and Ribs." (It will tell you how depressing my life is when I note the latter is the least used.) Trust me, you can find different versions of a recipe through these books. When everything is the best, nothing is the best. These cookbooks represent the participation prizes of meals.

Frankly, the most interesting cookbooks we own, we never use for actual recipes. Alton Brown's "Good Eats" series are beautiful, heavy-ass books that could serve more as coffee table books than cookbooks anyway. The text bursts with witty asides and dorky jokes, and the pictures are fantastic; but the recipes are a challenge, requiring some obscure vegetable or spice. Similarly, a couple of cookbooks that are historical in nature (showing a recipe from ancient Rome, for instance) also have interesting context and beautiful pictures, but require ingredients one is unlikely to find in Elkhart, Indiana.

Recently, Pix has even gone to using recipes she is finding online. Ironically with more time in our shared retirement, a desire to create elaborate and exotic meals has diminished. I sense this could be a time to propose the kind of change that would have ended our marriage 15 years ago: "Hey, babe, why don't we box up most of these cookbooks? Just think what we could do with the bookshelf space!"

If this is my final blog, you will understand how that conversation went.

Full series here.