I received a lovely new cookbook for my birthday: Plenty: Vibrant Vegetable Recipes from London’s Ottolenghi by Yotam Ottolengi. I have to admit I was a bit overwhelmed at the first page turning event. I’ve spent 20 years in the Mollie Katzen world. I created my pantry, refrigerator and buying patterns based on recipes from her books. I can open any Mollie Katzen cookbook and have every ingredient for a recipe on hand. I looked through Plenty and it was different enough that I could not make a single recipe without going to the grocery store. My pantry was not Plenty ready.
After the initial read through Plenty and the humbling realization that I was going to have to plan and re-think my cooking experience, I read it again with the eye of: what’s the least overwhelming thing to make?
I read it again (how many people actually read recipe books?) with the eye of: what would I like to make that would take the least amount of new pantry items? The final read through focused on: what will I choose this week to buy new items for and commit to following a new set of instructions? This took 2 weeks. I set my sights on Asparagus Vichyssoise: my next food post.
Since the vichyssoise, I’ve managed a half dozen other ventures from the book. Cooking takes up a chunk of my mental energy, my time and physical resources. I see that there will be some recipes that I won’t be able to do due to the unavailability of the ingredients. I do see that I will be meandering my way through the book to expand my culinary adventures.
