I love cookbooks. Not in the traditional way. Not because I have an insatiable urge to continually try new recipes because, truth be told, unless it's a special occasion I'm pretty much a one-trick pony when it comes to three square meals. Also not because I want to have a vast array of cookbooks from which to choose to make everything from meatloaf to crème brûlée.
I love cookbooks for a far deeper reason. My cookbooks are lovingly perched atop my dresser and are the pillar for my mother's beloved blue bowl. I could think of no home more fitting for the two things that hold such sentimental value to me (the third is my precious Tiffany Somerset ring thanks to R). I'll take a quick detour for the very brief story of the blue bowl. It's not much of a story, really. I think it showed up after my maternal grandmother passed away and it held the fruit in the kitchen. I'm not sure if it was the color of the shape of the bowl but it's very light blue and very old school. My mother passed it down to me when I moved out with specific instructions, "do not put this in the dishwasher. This bowl is older than me, it came from a time before dishwashers." Since then, I've moved several times and the bowl has always ridden shotgun.
Back to the cookbooks. My phone is full of photographs of cookbooks that I see in the bookstore and I put them on my Amazon Wish List which has nothing more than cookbooks that I've scouted. I was thinking today about the origins of my love for cookbooks and I guess it has to be a combination of several things: my love of books in general, my love of beautiful photos and my love of cooking. As I mentioned, I scout out my cookbooks before purchasing them and I usually don't actually use them for cooking as much as I do the internet... which is kind of sad now that I've typed it. I enjoy having them around, lining my bookshelves, acting as decor and keepsakes. My favorite gifts are cookbooks. Most importantly the ones with hand written notes just inside the front cover wishing me many great meals and/or lots of love. Not much warms my heart quite like the gift of a thoughtful cookbook. I don't know many others who are as
My favorite time spent is in the kitchen and cookbooks symbolize that. To me, when you invite people in to something you're creating, it's a very intimate time. I love spending time with R in the kitchen. I've been lucky enough to find someone who compliments my style: he's adventurous while I'm more by-the-book. My mother always got the sister and me involved in kitchen time. We spent countless hours over the island sharing stories about our day, picking with fingers or forks at something we'd created, laughing and sometimes crying. We continue to congregate in the kitchen whenever the three of us are together and now that the sister has her own place and our family grows, there are more hands and hearts involved.
