Part XII: Cooking the Books

Techie Smurf and his family did a Kon Mari of their house this year.  Visiting, I noticed it mainly in their bookshelves and linen closet.  Their home was never cluttered before, but they did have a lot of "stuff", as most of us do.

Inspired by that, as much as an upcoming room remodel, I've been trimming down my own possessions.  I'm doing more of a Swedish Death Cleaning approach, since it takes others into account and isn't all about my personal "joy".  I'm finding that other family members want many of the things I thought I'd be "burdening" them with.  To be fair, I'm getting down to the good stuff that I simply never use.  This is going to be a posh garage sale.

When I got to the cookbooks, I started flipping through each one before deciding I didn't want it.  You know what, some of the ones I never open have a lot of good recipes in them!  I've gotten used to googling recipes on themes I want to make.  When you flip through a cookbook, you have a greater chance of finding a recipe that never crossed your mind.

So I'm going to try to use my cookbooks more.  I'll read through them, make sticky tabs of things that look worthwhile, and actually make dishes with the wisdom of those who came before.  I'm counting Grandma Sophie's recipe box as a "cookbook", especially the cards older than I am.  Since I'm doing that, I'm also going to count the L.A. Times and any magazine recipes that are worthy of clipping.

There will almost certainly be original recipes in here too.  Odds are, I'll start with something in a book and update it to this century.  Current food trends will still be explored.  I don't have that many cookbooks.