Friday, January 26, 2007

Tip from Michele: www.loulies.com


A good foodie friend (actually, I think I mean a good friend who is a foodie) recommended this website to me--she knows Suzanne, who is one of the founders. I haven't had time to explore it fully, but it looks great--I already found a recipe I want to try for chickpea flatbread, and I like the tip on how to free up pomegranate seeds.

The only question that I have is something I've actually been pondering for some time, which has to do with cookbooks. Loulie's has a nice section on cookbooks, and I suspect everyone on this blog has their own set of favorite books. What frustrates me about my cookbooks is that I have really only scratched the surface of most of them, and every time I give in to temptation and acquire another cookbook, I realize I'm putting myself further away from ever really getting the full value out of my existing cookbooks. Maybe it's because my own approach to cooking meals is to head to the market, buy things that look fresh or appeal to me on whim, and head home to look for a recipe that will use them--and it tends to put me on a shorter exploratory leash.

How to other people approach the dilemma? How often to any of you plan out menus (daily, weekly) and then systematically go out and get everything for it?

1 comment:

Eli Stefanski said...

I, obviously, do the same thing when it comes to cookbooks -- I'm enamoured by them, buy them, and barely touch the surface. Just got a new book from the Boulevard for my BDay which I"m very excited to dig into to. I thought it was the nature of the beast -- but then I thought about Barefoot Contessa. As most folks know, it s my favorite cookbook, primarily because I have touched about every recipe in the book. The pages are marred by my sticky finger prints. Honestly, I think it has to do with quality of hte book.

I'm an inspired cook. Mostly when I'm in my 'foodie' place, I am inspired by the farmer's market, a recipe in a new cookbook, or a meal at a restaurant. Something in my brain resists the urge to get inspiration from more than one source. So if I got the farmer's market and see beautiful things, I will start putting them togehter in my head rather than looking for a recipe to connect them.

I'm in sad place these days when it comes to food. B/c its just me during most of the week, I eat a lot of Kashi frozen meals or fresh salad. If Scott were here, I will cook more during the week, but I won't experiment all that much. My culinary exploration usually occurs when the work week isdone.