Reading Cookbooks

Jane Kramer writes a charming piece in last week's New Yorker on her ongoing search for the perfect recipe for whichever dish that has seized her imagination at the moment. In addition to reminding me that I need to cook more, it's hilarious to learn that in a few weeks, from her cottage in Umbria no less, she has amassed 22 recipes for pot-au-feu, including one prepared by a vegetarian Englishwoman who never cooks, and that requires beef cheeks, which, Jane says,

are not easy to come by if you live in New York, where the only people who sell them are wholesale butchers and you have to buy them in frozen blocks of thirty pounds.

This reminds me of my annual preparation of Citrus Glazed Turkey with Chipotle Gravy for my non-vegetarian friends & family, of my three year quest to find pumpernickel bread on a regular basis after first setting foot on these western shores. AND it gives me permission to stack several of my loveliest food tomes on my coffee table for casual perusal.