The beginning

I don't really make New Year's resolutions. Before the start of every year, I make some goals for things I want to accomplish during that year. This year, one of the things I want to do is to work through all my cookbooks.  My collection is out of control.  It's not like normal peoples' cookbook collections. It has overflowed beyond an entire bookcase.  Yes, that's a 5-shelved book CASE.  I don't have a total count on them. I know it's beyond 500...probably somewhere closer to 1000. I don't really want to know. I think it's too many. But for the most part they've all been handpicked, or were gifts and I am hesitant to just discard them without a second thought. So this brings me back to the goal. 

My plan is to cook 5 recipes out of each book before I consider it "done".  I figure just cooking one or two doesn't really give you a feel for if the recipes work well or are to your taste. And any more than that and good god I'd never finish working through them. 

Working through the books will serve a number of purposes. Mainly, I'm doing it to whittle down my collection. If I make 5 recipes out of a book, and the majority of them are bad (or maybe even mediocre...we'll see if I need to pare down further), I'll sell/donate the book. Otherwise it stays. I'm also hoping this will keep me cooking at home more, which *ideally* will have me spending less money on eating out. Also, it will increase my repetoire of what I can cook, I'll learn new skills, techniques, etc., and I'm hoping it will make me more adventurous in what I'm willing to eat. 

I've been trying to figure out a way to track the books...the number and titles that I've gone through, and figured what better way than through a blog. This way I can also track the recipes I've made and be able to reflect on if I've actually met my goals. I have a number of books that are already "done", which I'll start a list for, and will help me feel like I've already got a head start on the task before me.  Essentially, it's my very own Julie/Julia experiment.