Yes, here we are. Still a song reference for a title. Thank you Weird Al!!

So, I love to cook. But I cook off the fly – I just MAKE stuff. I’m so happy I have the time and energy (and necessity since we no longer have my income) to cook pretty much every day. But I generally fall back on a catalog of standards that I can do in my sleep.

Simultaneously – I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE cookbooks and menus. They’re like my favorite reading material. I can TASTE the stuff just by reading about it. Reading is almost as good as eating it, and amazingly and thankfully with less calories!

So tonight I pulled out 4 out of 5 of my most beloved cookbooks and a pack of post-it notes to start planning future meals of stuff I can’t just make by winging it. Will I still probably go, “meh, whatever, I’m gonna do this instead of that”? Most definitely. But I’ve got INSPIRATION!

So, my cookbooks of choice?

First up: the Dungeons and Dragons cookbook: Look, I love playing the game, and this book (gifted by a Twitter/Facebook friend of mine) has some yummy looking options. I’m totally going to try some. Don’t be put off by the “geek” part of it, there is some seriously good stuff in here.

Book 2, The Red Rooster cookbook by Marcus Samuelsson: This thing is going to require some investment. There’s like 452 ingredients in every recipe, and 137 are things you’ve either never heard of, or at the very least don’t have, and there’s 73 steps to complete the cook. He kindly has a directory of where you can get much this unusual stuff, and I’m a BIG fan of “search the internet to see if there is a reasonable alternative.” For example, I’m planning to take a pork roast recipe of his and make it next week. It calls for sunchokes. Look – I have found that you can get these on Amazon, but only in 2+ pound increments. I only need 1 lb. I have no idea what I would do with the rest so I’m not going to order them from there. So what are the alternatives? According to the internet: jicama or parsnips seem to be the best braising alternatives. So that’s where I’m going. Parsnips it is based on what is available at Wegmans. I’ll let you know how that works out.

Book 3: Alton Brown’s Every Day Cook – Alton’s techniques and procedures often leave his recipes out of reach of the average cook. I feel like this book is an exception. There are tons of recipes in here that I love the idea of but know my family wouldn’t eat, or couldn’t eat (eggplant allergy is real y’all.) Many of the recipes are things I have heard of but don’t know how to make off the top of my head. Like carbonara and crouque monsieur. I’m interested in trying those. But I’m also interested in trying the left field recipes he has, most specifically – green grape cobbler. Could be disgusting, but I’m willing to give it a go.

Lastly, Joshua Weissman’s Unapologetic Cookbook: I think this one is the most disappointing to me. I watch his videos all the time online, and he makes some really complex and amazing looking food. But the cookbook? There’s a fucking recipe for grilled cheese. If you can’t make grilled cheese without a recipe you should give up on the cookbook and just order from Dominos. There are a lot, and I do mean **A LOT**, of super easy and common food recipes that most people already know how to make. But there are a few gems in here. I am not a much of a “from scratch baker,” mostly owing to the fact that I don’t have a lot of counter space to be rolling out or kneading dough, but his recipes for bread look outstanding. If that’s your thing, you should buy the book on that premise alone. For me? There’s a pretty amazing looking chicken fried steak recipe, a pot roast recipe, and a couple of soup recipes, all which look promising. As we come into winter, I think his tomato soup recipe maybe my first up from that book.

So yeah, me and these books and a package of post-it notes was a better part of my day today. If you’re not much of a cook, I’m sorry, this post is boring as shit for you. It is just where my brain is at right now, so here we are.

If you do like to cook, I do recommend, ironically, the D&D cooking book the most of the four. Very accessible recipes that all sound really tasty. Never mind the game references, you don’t need those to enjoy the food.

Do you have favorite cookbooks that you could recommend? I’m always looking for something interesting, with food I can (relatively easily) make for the family. Let me know your thoughts.

But ugh, if you are tuning in for the first time, I really do have better stuff than this. Use the menu to transport yourself back to 2017 and read from there. There’s tribbles and bunnies and deadly cars and crazy other stuff. Enjoy!

But that’s me for today. In the words of Emmymade (another internet person who’s videos I LOVE to watch,) I hope you enjoyed that, I hope you learned something, and I’ll see you next time, toodaloo, take care, goodbye!