Otherwise They're Just Taking Up Space

One of the novelties of our suburban life which pleased me to no end was this magical extra room known as the laundry room. In apartment life the laundry room was in the basement if you were lucky, or several blocks away if you weren't. I spent many many years paying other people to do our laundry because I simply couldn't endure the laundromat - a luxury I know, but one which we endlessly justified by comparing our hourly rate at work vs. the .60/pound the nice people charged to do our laundry (and fold it) for us.

With the advent of in-house laundry, this rationalization flew out the window. I still do not relish the laundry job, but I have come to accept it as something normal people do. However, our particular laundry room may well be the largest room in our house and that seemed like a lot of room to allocate just to soiled things. So, in my optimism, I rechristened our laundry room: the prep kitchen. It has industrial shelving and a 6 foot long stainless table; all of the bizarro ingredients that don't belong in our regular kitchen (I'm looking at you, atomized glucose); and the massive stacks of cookbooks I have amassed over the years. This configuration, though, has proven the out of sight out of mind adage, and only in very special circumstances do I pick up one of those dusty cookbooks.

This will now change.

Starting this week, I will select a never before made recipe from on of the books and we will have it for dinner on Thursdays. There is really no point in ever buying another cookbook (and on this point, I have been rather firm - I haven't had a new cookbook in well over a year) if I haven't made at least some of the recipes from the existing ones.

True, there are some limitations. As there is still some calorie-watching going on in our household, it will be safe to assume that pork belly in cream sauce will not be on the menu anytime soon but, as luck would have it, the first book I selected at random immediately coughed up an acceptable meal: lime and chili crusted seared tuna.

Watch this space on Friday for the post-game.