Aha! I've got it!

I am sitting here today with a ridiculous migraine and watching Julie and Julia through my brilliant wifi Netflix connection through the Wii. Meryl Streep is pure genius, as always! Anyway, I read the book first, and it was wonderful. Then I looked up Julie Powell's blog, which is still out there by the way. After I was done reading I procured my very own copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking Volume I. I had (and still have) every intention of working my way through it just like Julie. I was very inspired, I love cooking and thought the challenge would be...for lack of a better word, fun. Now it is months later. I haven't touched it. It still sits on my kitchen table, and I think it sometimes looks at me disdainfully and whispers "chicken". But I'm not really. My culinary bible has always been The Joy of Cooking. I had an edition from 1960-something, which included lovely sketches of certian kinds of game and how to prep and cook, such as squirell and possum. Or opossum. Whatever, anyway I also have the 2000 edition and I use it all the time. You'd think I knew how to roast a chicken, but every single time I do, I faithfully open to page 379, the poultry section, actually the book just falls open there now, and pull the red ribbon book mark over to the stained and wrinkled page, and reference how much time per pound and what temperature the meat should reach when I insert the instant thermometer into the thigh without touching the bone, and look for clear juices. I'd be lost without it.

Anyway, so I thought, I don't just want to copy Julie, I want to do my own thing. I thought about working my way through one of my trusty Martha Stewart cookbooks. Yes, I unabashedly love Martha, and for about 10 years waited with bated breath for and reveled in each new issue of her Living magazine. I find her cooking to be a very American style and here's the problem - but for desserts, (oh I'm so sorry to say this Martha, mea maxima culpa) I really find the end results of most entrees kind of...meh...completely lackluster. Her techniques are precise, and really take a lot of fear out of cooking, but the end results are just sort of bland. I thought of trying something from each section of JoC...nah....and then...a revelation!

I love baking. Anyone who knows me knows that even on a 90-degree day in July, my oven will be on, and my kids will be asking me to put on the light so they can see what's inside. Now on my cookbook dedicated shelf, I have a copy of Julia Child's Baking Book. She presented this on TV as well, as a completely separate show from the French Chef, and every recipe was demonstrated by it's originator. The recipes are from the baking experts for each area: bread, puff pastry, cakes, etc. Julia wasn't exactly a spring chicken at that point so every episode had the recipe originator demonstrating and Julia attempting to try her own hand, but then mostly just eating along the way, as well as digging into the end result. When I originally got the book, my plan indeed was to work my way through it. And I started, but alas, I had no audience. Case in point: had some dinner guests who, when I announced desert (ok it wasn't an announcement so much as me yelling "who wants cake?!") looked at me like I was crazy and said "We don't eat sweets". Not even no thank you. Just waving away my white chocolate cake with raspberry sauce. So, not only did I never cook for the people again, I pretty much never baked from that book again. Or much at all.

Now circumstances are different and I do bake. In fact I havea great boyfriend (aka the "pseudo-husband") who, along with my children, will pretty much eat anything resembling food, even when dangerously past the printed "best by" date on the label. So I've decided to revisit my old plan. I am going to work my way through the book again. Maybe not in order, or maybe I don't know yet. But I'm going to do it. And then I'll write about it. Whether you want to read it or not.

I'll let you all know when you can come over to be fed. But do NOT refuse my white chocolate cake with raspberry sauce.