So Many Dishes

I’m terrible at taking selfies. I never like how they look, and I end up deleting them —definitely a benefit of digital photography. But I’m good at taking shelfies: pictures of my bookshelves. I’m part of an online reading community, and we sometimes share such photos.

I took pictures of my cookbook shelves today after my project for the day, which was to empty the shelves, clean them, weed out a few cookbooks that I don’t need and don’t look at anymore, and then reorganize. I’ve been thinking about doing this for several weeks, but what prompted me to do it today was the arrival of a new cookbook.

I love cookbooks, as much for reading as for their recipes. The original Mediterranean Dish cookbook is one of my favorites, so of course I had to preorder the new one. I even got a signed copy, but I didn’t realize that it was going to be personalized!

I have cookbooks in two bookshelves. One set is next to our desk, adjacent to the kitchen. The other bookcase is in the family room. I can actually sit in my usual chair and reach over to those shelves. Now, all of the Mediterranean cookbooks are together on one shelf, along with other ethnic cookbooks grouped by region. All of the annual compilations of Cooking Light that I own are together. Most of my more general cookbooks are in the bookcase near the kitchen. The organization system may not be intuitive to someone else, but I think it’s going to work for me.

A word about our somewhat unusual bookcases. They are actually old crayon stock boxes. My dad worked for the company that made Crayola crayons. He would bring home these wooden boxes that were used in the factory to store crayons when they came out of the molds or the labeling machine, and we used them for storage around the house when I was a kid. When Ken and I got married, he got us the box pieces, and we nailed them together and painted them. They’re great for larger books, so, 52 years later, we’re still using them!

I hope you find a good recipe to try tonight. Happy eating!