The Julie/Julia Project

One of the things that anyone moving out for the first time has to face is ... the kitchen. Sure I'd been in there before to make toast, boil water for my tea or instant noodles, re-heat stuff in the microwave and I've even baked on several occasions. So it's not like I'm a total n00b in the kitchen. But I'm not much of a cook. Or rather I don't know what to cook. How did my mother ever do it? For me, food has recently lost it's spark because I could only make like 10 things. Sure it's 10 more then some people, but when you have to eat 365 dinners a year, 10 becomes a very boring number.

By now some of you may have heard me talking about a book I recently finished reading: Julie and Julia by Julie Powell. For those of you who have not read it yet, it is about a woman who feels that she is stuck in a rut where she doesn't love her job and she feels that at the age of 30 she has not accomplished anything in her life. So she decides she's going to cook 500 French gourmet recipes from an iconic cookbook "Mastering the art of French cooking". As if that wasn't crazy enough, she planned to accomplish this all in a year. And it changed her life.

So I'm not attempting to follow in her footsteps. I don't think I could even handle 365 recipes, let alone 500. And I'm not sure I could stomach French cuisine (you can keep your livers and brains!). I love my job more than I hate it, but maybe I am in a bit of a rut. Maybe I just need something to look forward to on a day to day basis other than waking up, going to work, going to the gym, eating, surfing the net/reading a book, going to sleep and then repeat.

So Viv and I have decided to push the limits of our culinary skills before we attempt French cuisine. The book we finally decided on is "The New Best Recipe". If you're ever in a Borders, have a look for it. It's the book that resembles a dictionary with so many words that it probably has the words 'fashionista' and 'supercalifragilisticexpialidoceous' in it. There's only about 1000 recipes in it typed in size 8 font and 0 photos. For our own sanity, I can assure you we're not planning on making it all through 1000 recipes and especially not in the next year or 2 even. I don't think there is even a plan. I think the idea is just to find something exciting to look forward to and plan for.

So, this is it.