Shop at home

First, shop at home. This is one of my mantras for 2010. Actually, I’ve been telling myself this for much longer, but I’m hoping it will actually sink in this year. Have you ever been really hot to buy something, and then, by the time you get it home, you don’t have the time to read the instructions, or the book goes on the shelf for later, or it’s just too good to use? Well, at least one of those describes my software shelf, probably one third of my book collection, and my entire stash of fabric and yarn, to say nothing of the grand piano. So this year, I’m going to try to use some of this stuff to create beautiful things and beautiful experiences (and finally understand how some of this software works, beyond just the basics.)
Is this really about art? Well, gee, it’s my blog, so I guess I can write about what I want to. But isn’t at least one of the purposes of art to beautify life? To lend creativity to the mundane? To spin dross into gold?

Where to begin? Just choosing what to get to is an overwhelming project in itself. However, I happened to be wringing my hands while in the kitchen, and realized that I was facing my wall of cookbooks. I have upwards of 220 cookbooks; depending on how you count pamphlets and specialized guides, even more. And how many of these do I ever use on a regular basis? Maybe 5. Okay, you clutter control freaks are now saying, get rid of the rest. But I must tell you, if there were a fire, after getting my kid out of the house, and making sure the pets were safe (with the possible, er, exception of one cat) I’d grab the cookbooks and run out naked. For certain, these are the possession my child will need to sort through when I croak. She doesn’t get rid of anything either, but I digress…

Possibly still inspired by envy at Julie & Julia, which everyone knows I should have written, better (and been cashing the checks on by now), I decided to select one cookbook per month for the next year, and cook a recipe from it at least twice per week. I’ve run out of shelf space, so I’m hoping this “shop at home” will stem the tide, although truthfully I bought 2 more cookbooks over last weekend.

I can dine in for years with this. Of course, the Nikipedia, dedicated foodie that she is, was ecstatic. And she uttered those fatal words, “Mom, I can HELP you,” more than doubling the potential workload of this project.

Next post will be about our January experiments. Let me know if you have any nominations for a cookbook you’d like to see tested—chances are, I probably have it!