cookbook overload!

I've amassed some cookbooks over the last few years.

Before I moved to the new house, I went through all my cook books and gave away the ones I didn't want anymore or didn't use.  I was left with just a few.  However, me being me, I've built up the collection again.

I'm not sure why I have a fascination with cook books. I think it's because I enjoy the possibilities. I love browsing them in the bookstore, looking at the pictures, and reading the recipes. I then buy it or ask for it as a gift. Once I get it, I then sit down with the book all over again and peruse it. Lots of times I actually read it--I tend to pick up a lot of cooking knowledge this way. I might cook one or two recipes from it...and then it goes on the shelf, never to be picked up or cooked from again.

Some of the books listed below were gifts, some I bought either new or used, and a few I grabbed from the cafeteria at work (someone brought in a huge pile of old cook books a few months ago and I grabbed one).

This is what I have:

1. 365 Pies & Tarts by Better Homes and Gardens
2. Baking and Pastry by the Culinary Institute of America
3. Betty Crocker's Best of Baking
4. Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum 
5. Chocolate by Christine McFadden and Christine France
6. Colette's Cakes by Colette Peters
7. Cooks Illustrated Baking Book
8. Gastronomique by Ida Bailey Allen
9. German Cooking by Mariana Olszewska Heberle
10. How Cooking Works by Sylvia Rosenthal and Fran Shinagel
11. Martha Stewart's Cooking School by Martha Stewart
12. Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck
13. Russian, German & Polish Food & Cooking by Lesley Chamberlain
14. The 4-Hour Chef by Timothy Ferriss
15. The Art of the Cake by Bruce Healy and Paul Bugat
16. The Big Pressure Cooker Book by Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbough
17. The Fine Art of Italian Cooking by Giuliano Bugialli
18. The New Best Recipe from the Editors of Cooks Illustrated
19. The Science of Good Cooking by Cooks Illustrated
20. Eat Like You Give a Fuck by Thug Kitchen
21. The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion (10 Anniversary Edition) by King Arthur Flour

I'm not sure if this is a huge list, or if it's normal.  I'm hoping it's somewhat normal.

So, my plan for 2017 is to cook at least one recipe from one of my cookbooks every week. (Obviously some of these books are strictly dessert cook books and, since I don't generally eat dessert and neither does Bob, I'm excluding them from the one-a-week requirement. That eliminates 1, 4, 5, 6 and 15.) It will get me cooking more and both of us eating better, hopefully. Plus the books will get some use.  While I'd love to do something ambitious like cooking through Julia Child's cook book, I just don't have that in me; it's expensive and time-consuming. And it's been done.

My plan is to start this week. I'll be sure to post what I make.  Wish me luck!