Me and the Joy 11 March 2007, 04:03

The Joy of Cooking — this cookbook was an engagement gift from my mom and stepdad, intended (along with a nice set of pots and pans the previous Christmas) to help re-establish us in Canada way back in ’03.

I used to live with this cookbook (in hardcover) because a roommate had it, but Mom has always had a copy. Its illustrations (since updated) were so dauntingly dainty and arcane.

Only The Northern Cookbook has Jellied Moose Nose, but the Joy will certainly tell you how to draw, quarter and dress a squirrel. Since 1931 it has been the ultimate desert-island cookbook.

Now that I own a copy, I have noticed the wild range of recipes, from Depression-era and white-trash cooking to the finest tables in the United States.

What’s up with that?

As I get into the Joy, I’ll post a few experiences and observations on this site.

The genesis of Me and the Joy is my Fotolog, which was in turn a response to Cypher’s Foodlog. It is inspired by food bloggers everywhere, and dedicated to Mom.

Who says?

I’m an amateur cook and liberal-arts-educated 9 to 5 career girl stay-at-home-mum/student from anglo Canada.

Spending weekends and holidays with my chef-trained mother, I would occasionally chip in on her catering jobs as a kid. I was raised semi-vegetarian and cooked one or two family meals a week from the age of 10. My teenage restaurant work included a fish and chips shop, the salad bar at a steakhouse chain, and baking/breakfast at a youth music festival.

I have lived in the Netherlands and Lyon, France and travelled to European culinary hotspots such as the Loire valley, Catalunya, and Tuscany. Everywhere I go, I check out restaurants as well as grocery stores to take the pulse of the food culture.

I don’t have every gadget in the book, and I prefer a quick, economical, “fresh food” approach to my own cooking. Nor do I lean heavily on butter and cream to spruce up my dishes, as my loyalty to Slow Food is tempered by a conviction that healthy and tasty are not mutually exclusive. I’m not a big adventurer when it comes to trying new and strange things at restaurants (that’s my husband’s job). I don’t get The Food Network because I don’t have TV.

The ideal cook can make a great meal out of next to nothing with zero resources (as Mom did when we stuck her with a frozen Finnish reindeer steak and our cheap piece-o’-crap foreign gas stove while we were living out of a shoebox). While many cooks use gadgetry and “gourmet groceries” as a crutch to offset their limited knowledge and experience, I don’t have much to prove. I’ll grow in knowledge and experience, and I’m finally old enough to know both my limitations and preferences.

Other favourite cookbooks

Great resources

—Originally written 20 February 2005

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