At last count, I had fifty cookbooks.
Yes, I am aware that’s a bit insane. but I like cookbooks. Their calm, harmonious pages filled with pictures of delicious-looking food accentuated with on-trend homewares and aesthetically-pleasing spoons (long story) delude me into thinking that I can also be That Person, that I can whip up a three course meal for all my family and friends one cosy evening (or one sunny beach day, depending on the recipe). I can be That Person who has fun in the kitchen, adding a dash of this and a jot of that, taste testing as I go.
Alas, I am not That Person. I am That Other Person, the one who obsessively checks the recipe as I go, paranoid of missing a step and botching the whole thing. I am That Other Person, who can only handle one pot cooking at a time. I am that Left-Handed Person who uses can openers awkwardly and grates vegetables backwards. I am an eater, not a cook. I like to help in the kitchen, not take charge. All my best kitchen-y moments involve cooking with my husband, not solo. I am not a kitchen whiz.
Cookbooks help me aspire to be less shit in the kitchen. And they really do work, up to a point! Prior to getting into them, my repertoire for dinners consisted of tacos/nachos/burritos, stir fries, macaroni, lasagne* (a pretty yum lasagne, I am proud to say), and spaghetti bolognese**. This was fine when flatting, but once I’d left university I felt compelled to up my game. I learned all the kiwi staples, like cottage/shepherd pie (same recipe, different meats, totally counts as two different meals, amirite?). The Edmunds cookbook guided my first forays into baking.
But then, once I was living with Josh and cooking every second night, I started buying cookbooks. I started with a couple of $5 Kmart ones because they looked cool. They gave me new ideas. Then I bought some better cookbooks with recipe tips and ingredient guides, and they showed me how to do it. And now I’ve noticed that two of my faves, Chelsea Winter and Nadia Lim, both have new cookbooks coming out in October, only a month away. So I have decided to review my cookbooks. It’s a good way to get back in the kitchen after a long time of being either pregnant and unable to handle the food smells, or soothing a baby that decided to scream every night right around dinnertime.
Cookbook reviews upon first release can be a bit annoying. The author hasn’t had much time to cook anything from the book, so maybe gets the chance to try two or three recipes once. Nuh uh, no way. That’s not enough. Goodreads has barely any reviews of Kiwi ones. Google searches don’t result in much, barring one or two local magazine reviews. So here I am, and for the next few months I’m going to review what I’ve bought, and I’m going to buy the new ones and try a bunch of recipes.
So there we go. A good opportunity to do more writing AND cooking. Maybe I really can become That Person?
* Fun Fact! Lasagne is plural and lasagna is singular, just in case you’ve ever been confused about the spelling. So a lasagne is multiple pasta sheets and the overall meal and a lasagna is the pasta sheet itself.
** Another fun fact! ‘Bolognese’ is the Italian spelling and ‘bolognaise’ is the French one and more commonly used in Aus/NZ back in the day. So they’re both correct, unless you’re in Italy.