Chowhounds: A simple way to mix it up a little bit

If you’re like me (and on several levels, I strongly advise you to pause at least a moment to thank your personal God that you’re not), you enjoy food a great deal. That’s easy enough. For some, cooking is intuitive and easy. Me, not so much. I was blessed by having two excellent cooks for parents, but I don’t think the genes carried over too well. I am a spastic mess in the kitchen. Klutziness, sloppiness and general ill temper mark my periodic kitchen disasters. Well, at the ripe old age of “a lot more than I feel like I am,” I’m fixin’ to fix all of that. For those of you that share the same gastronome and kitchenphobe profile, here’s what we can do:

New Cookbook Sunday

OK, I know damn well that I’m not the first one to think of something like this; New [blank] Sunday concepts are just about everywhere. But screw it…give it a shot. Enjoying food in the age of information overload means that we have an infinite number of recipes at our disposal via the Internet, cookbooks assembled by an ever-increasing cast of celebrity chefs and more traditional sources indigenous to the 20th century. Maybe you have a slew of cookbooks that you’ve looked at but never really got much out of. We may have 30 or 40 such tomes on our dining room bookshelf, yet only a select few have the true mark of honor – pages that are waterlogged or crusty from ingredients and other friendly fire from use of a few select recipes repeatedly. Let’s tap a different one of these once a week to strengthen our chops and rid us of the kitchen anxiety, no? Every week, reach for a cookbook or similar source that you think has been relatively untapped. Pick out a recipe you’re at least a little comfortable with, discuss with your Beautiful Bride or other significant other, shop for the ingredients and let it rip. Start off slow – I picked out a wicked easy shrimp dish myself – but who cares…we all learned the basics on how to ski on the bunny hill, didn’t we? Next week I’ll go for something a little more challenging. While you’re at it, try working out pairings of wine and/or beer with each of your dishes to complete the experience. You can always spend an extra 15-30 minutes in the gym on Monday to work off your newfound culinary success. Good luck and enjoy!