It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new.
But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful.
There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power.
Alan Cohen
"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend.
Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."
Groucho Marx
The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live.

Friday, December 16, 2011

The Cookbooks

I used to have shelves and shelves of Cookbooks.
One of our houses had a pantry and 2 shelves, from wall to wall, were Cookbooks.
I was rich in Cookbooks.

And then we decided to move to South America.
Someone had it in his head that we should not take every single thing we owned with us.
When it came to the Cookbooks, I had to put my foot down.
It was so very hard to choose.
They were more than just Cookbooks .. They had been with me for years !
There was my First Cookbook, then the one that I bought for a gift and liked so much I kept it.
There were the gifts, the books bought on trips and the Cookbook by a man that loved Paris as much as we do .. he died young and I am so glad I kept that Cookbook.

But then there are the magazines with recipes in them.
In English, don't forget.

The familiar recipes with ingredients that I can no longer find here.
Recipes that cannot be followed, recipes that are bound for the trash bin.

Today, a rainy day, I sat on the floor by my little pantry and went through my one shelf of Cookbooks, saying Hello, reminiscing with them about the time I spent so many hours trying to get a dessert just right then finding out that I left out the sugar.
Remembering when I bought that book , Rao's .. New York City Italian food Cookbook.
Personally, at this point in my life, I would rather go to Rao's than bother trying to cook one of his recipes.

And so it goes.
I am cooking for two people now.
I am lazier than ever.
I don't have the same cooking fever I used to have and I never bake anymore.

So today meant Goodbye to some recipes.
I kept the books.. but there were folders full of recipes, lovingly cut out from the New York Times .. gone now.

I feel lighter.
I have the books that mean something but the other stuff is just that ... stuff.
There will be more, I cannot help it, I am a collector.
But for now, it is mostly just the Cookbooks.

I think we will have sandwiches for dinner tonight, it is too warm to cook .

5 comments:

  1. Mine are a mess of clippings and printed pages. I never know what book to look in to find the recipe I tore from a magazine and stuck in a book. but I would never part with them. Have a wonderful weekend.

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  2. Sometimes getting rid of things is freeing ... much like children growing up. xoxo.

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  3. When we moved to Oz, our "one thing" we had to bring was books. My wife loves cookbooks (mine are the scraps and hand written notes variety too). Hope you're doing well... :) We're mixed weather here in Melbourne at the moment, hot then cool then back again..

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  4. Clifton ! How great to see you !
    Doing very well, thank you. And how is that little one ? muchas besos ! C

    ReplyDelete
  5. She's very well too. Growing up fast (4 yrs old now) and excited about the holidays of course! I'm happy to have re-located my bookmark to your blog. I have a bit of catching up to do!

    ReplyDelete

Comments are welcome..Thank you.

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