Tuesday, July 29, 2003

I received my new cookbooks last night. The Zuni Cafe Cookbook, Nigella Bites, Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, and Julia's Kitchen Wisdom.

I devoured Julia's Kitchen Wisdom in one sitting and am using it as a reference whenever I go back to Mastering the Art of French Cooking, which I will do, soon. I also read through Nigella Bites- the salt and pepper squid was all I felt I HAD to try, but it is a lovely looking book. The Zuni Cafe cookbook frightens me no end. I don't know how well "Stop. Think. There must be a harder way" meshes with my own cooking philosophies, but I will be trying their roast chicken and bread salad- how can I not? and I definitely want to eat there someday. (Of course, if I do, I'll then feel justified in complaining if the ingredients are short of perfection or cooked inattentively, this whole book being an advertisement of the opposite...)

All of this made me feel a little badly that all I cooked last night were blueberry pancakes and bacon. But I needed the bacon fat for the fried chicken I'm making tonight (Southern Living's recipe calls for bacon fat. We'll see). And they were delicious. I felt bad about usurping pancake making, it having been Jeff's turf, but he says he doesn't mind, seeing as how from scratch pancakes are so much better than his from a box version.

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