Friday, January 06, 2006

2006: The Year of Domestic Beth?

Hmm. As I read that subject line, I think it’s probably a little unlikely that I’ll become super-domestic this year, but that certainly won’t stop me from tryin’. Thanks to a Christmas gift card to Borders, I’ve purchased not one, not two, but THREE massive cookbooks as well as a McSweeney’s anthology of snarky hipster lit. The Puffster’s kitchen will hopefully soon smell of homemade soups, a la the Williams-Sonoma Soup edition; healthier traditional food a la A New Way to Cook; and shi-shi schmancy food a la the Dean and Deluca Cookbook.

Did I mention Mark Bittman also has a new cookbook out? A girl could go culinarily out of her goard if she wasn't careful.

This could be all motivated by another gift I received recently, a book called Julie and Julia, by Julie Powell. The woman gets it in her head to cook every single one of the recipes in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. It’s hilarious. It has reignited my love for Julia Child. There’s something very endearing to me about a six-foot-two former spy with a passion for life and a foul mouth and a love of brie and butter. Her kitchen was custom-built for her frame, two inches higher than a “normal” kitchen so that she wouldn’t have to stoop her gigantic self over the sink and counters. I mean, how does that fact not make you smile? Did I mention you can get DVDs of Julia Child’s old shows? How does THAT fact not make you smile?

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