12 MONTHS

12 COOKBOOKS

1 ME

It’s happening! I’m challenging myself to take a year to get back into things that make me happy outside of work, which basically means get back to being super obsessed with food and all things yummy. My resolution this year is twofold: 1) More cooking (I like food lots, so I should get better at making it), and 2) MORE BLOGGING! So, here I am!

I like to have some achievable goals when I start a new project, so I’ve made some rules for the journey to make it easy to track my progress:

1. New cookbook every month
2. 10 recipes per cookbook
3. Blog about it

That’s it! Easy enough, right?

In theory, yes! I am a strong, independent women living in an apartment in NYC with access to groceries at all hours of the day (or at the touch of a button). I have a loving boyfriend who will help keep me honest (and provide feedback/commentary/sous-chef-skills on the recipes). I’ve got a super nice kitchen that I’m finally going to use appropriately (and is basically the reason I live in this apartment). And I have a healthy obsession with cookbooks, all of which I’ve been meaning to make my way through.

So this plan is going to be easy, right? Possibly. I built these rules knowing that I have a habit of over-scheduling myself, which can be problematic from a cooking perspective, but 10 over a month seems very achievable in the abstract. That said… I didn’t end up starting this challenge officially until today, which leaves me off to a rocky start to complete January’s goal. BUT I HAVE FAITH IN ME. I have 16 days left in the month to get 9 more recipes made, and I didn’t make any restrictions on how many recipes I could complete at a time (which is a GREAT loophole).

A quick clarification: This is not a resolution to eat healthy; the goal is to eat homemade. The fact that some of these recipes are healthy ones is a coincidence, but I swear my only goal is DELICIOUS.

First up:

SMALL VICTORIES by Julia Turshen

I’ve been obsessed with this book for a while, so much so that I bought the cookbook for my mom when it came out! Like me, she has a large collection of cookbooks and very few she truly references over and over. Small Victories has become an exception, with my mom referencing this book over and over again and recommending it to everyone she knows. She tells me about all of these amazing recipes she loves from this book, and I’ve cooked one or two with her myself. As you can see from this photo, I already have a few recipes picked out.

I can’t wait to try some of these out in my own kitchen, and now is my chance to make my mom (and myself) proud. PLUS: what would a cookbook challenge be without my own personal Julia 🙂