Preheating the oven

Everyone collects something.

I happen to collect a lot of things, but one of my favorite collections is my set of cookbooks. I've got the old, with binder-style recipe books from Betty Crocker and Better Homes & Gardens. I've got the new, with Food Network chefs. I've even got the genre-specific, with recipe books made especially for Crock Pots, chocolate, smoothies, and more.

And I'm getting hungry just thinking about them.

Some of my many cookbooks

For me, the love of cooking started when I was a child, before I had ever learned to cook. I would watch The Frugal Gourmet on Channel 11, especially when I was home sick from school. I loved watching him make a recipe from start to finish, with all his chatter in between. Unfortunately, at that time my "cooking" was pretty much relegated to the plastic food in my Playskool Party Kitchen.

I thought I would love to cook like that when I had my own home, and that I surely have done. I really began cooking and baking late in college, and I progressed into the food-loving home "chef" that I am today. Of course, like anything I'm passionate about, I began collecting things.

I've always loved my mom's Betty Crocker cookbook, so of course she got me an identical copy. I was even more hooked when I received as an engagement present my first cookbook by Ina Garten, my cooking and baking idol. Her zest for great entertaining continues to inspire me.

Now I own at least a dozen cookbooks - almost the entire Ina Garten collection - and I started to think I have more recipes than I could ever make. I suppose that would be true, if I continued to haphazardly try out new recipes, but I have committed to something a little more purposeful.

I will go through my recipe books and make every recipe one by one. (Every recipe I'd actually want to eat, that is.)

I figure this could take a year or more, and I thought I might need a blog to keep me on track. I also thought some friends and family might be interested in reading about my successes and failures - not to mention potentially eating some of them! More than anything, I want to be able to look back on what I've done, as well as what I've learned from these books.

I'm also inviting friends to become guest authors and post about their own recipe adventures. The first of these is likely to be my friend Paul, who brainstormed with me about this blog and shares my love of epicurean delights. If you are interested in posting occasionally, let me know.

So visit again to see what I have served up next time - and bon appetit!