My name is Jasmine and I am a cookbook whore. Yup – that’s right! I am completely and irrevocably addicted to cookbooks. To say that my cookbook collection is out of control doesn’t even begin to accurately describe the stacks of books that are taking over my house. In fact, my husband has banned me from bringing home any more books (yeah right!) because they are starting to take up as much space as our two daughters combined. Let’s just say that I cannot pass a bookstore without bringing home a new member to my shelves. And don’t even get me started on internet shopping: New cookbooks, used cookbooks, highly acclaimed out of print hard to find regional cookbooks – what an enabler of my addiction!
So I decided to create this blog because I needed to actually do something with my books besides simply collecting them. I’m the type of person who enjoys cookbooks so much I read them like novels from cover to cover, tasting the list of ingredients in my mind as I go along. But the fact that the vast majority of my collection are still virgins to my kitchen, made me realize that I needed to give them more of a purpose in life. This desire in conjunction with my ongoing project of creating a masterful tome of family favourite recipes to pass along to my children, led to the idea of a blog: why not test a select number of recipes from each cookbook, record the results and provide a review of the overall book.
At this point I should probably make a disclaimer about my qualifications, and caution readers of this blog that I am by no means a professional chef nor do I consider myself to be a culinary expert of any sort. Simply put, I am a stay at home mother of two who happens to be a food groupie. Ever since I was a kid I have had a love affair with food and cooking, and my husband and I regard ourselves as ‘foodies’. Therefore this blog is coming from the perspective of the average home cook preparing food in an average home cook’s kitchen. That being said, a friend of mine pointed out that average home cooks don’t have Japanese chef knives and meticulously pondered professional tools from restaurant suppliers. Huh. She may have a point! Okay so let’s say instead that the perspective of this blog is from a slightly obsessive home cook preparing food in a slightly obsessive home cook’s kitchen. Sound good? Regardless of how my culinary skills (or lack thereof) need to be qualified, it is my hope that people visiting this site will find useful information they can draw upon when making their own cookbook decisions, searching for the perfect gift for someone, or simply looking for some new inspiration before heading into the kitchen.
I hope you have fun exploring this site, be sure to check back often for new postings and feel free to send me any of your comments or suggested books for review.
Happy cooking!
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