The Joy of Porn

OK, I'm not afraid to admit it. I like it. I like the feeling of a nice new mag in my hands, the way the photo is set up, the colours, I can practically smell it all as I check out each spread. But I'm a bad, bad man. I rip shit right out of the magazine, I sometimes fold pages back and I bend, crease and mutilate with abandon. Not to mention the stains and sticky pages. But the recipes, the articles and little tidbits just MAKE me do it.

You got me! I'm addicted to food porn.

It's a bit of a joke among my friends, and definitely a default gift. My love of cookbooks and cooking magazines is really out of hand. They have taken over my kitchen, that's for sure. And there are boxes and boxes out in the garage just waiting/hoping I'll remember them and use them again. It could happen.

I have YEARS worth of recipes in shoeboxes and envelopes. I come by this honestly, my grandmother was the same and I have all of hers too. At one point, years ago when I had spare time, I tried organizing them into easily findable categories. That bold and valiant effort died on the vine - I don't think it even lasted a month before I just clipped out things and put the on a shelf, then in a box when the shelf started shedding recipes. I like to bring them out sometimes and get caught up in it all again. I can picture myself kneeling on the floor, tending a sourdough starter like a cat with dropsy (Can cats even GET dropsy? What IS dropsy?) or examining striations on a heirloom vegetable to see if it'll make the perfect Summertime Strata. There's a lot to be said for picturing this kind of thing, especially if you have a great imagination (like me!). Not least of which is that one needn't actually DO it.

When it comes to magazines, I'm of two minds. Make that several minds. It's part of being a Libra, I swear. I love the down- home goodness of some magazines like Home Cooking. They helped me make Twinkies and icing into little sweet dill pickles, and that's a good thing. Sorry Martha, but it really is. And I like showy ones like Food & Wine, telling me that I need to go to Kerala to learn how to make a masala blend with some nice lady in the comfort (relative) of her home. And I like the travelogues, pictorials, foodnerdiness of Saveur, telling me that Pawbucket Maine has a strawberry festival right now followed by a four page spread on blue potatoes. I subscribe to 4 magazines, and I read them all. Food & Wine, although I don't find the wine parts either interesting or useful. Gourmet. Bon Appetit. And Saveur. My buddy Alexa started me on that, I owe her one. LoveloveLOVE it.

But a special place in my heart goes to Cook's Illustrated. God how I love that magazine. So much so that I refuse to buy it on stands - I'll wait for the annual compendium and then take a weekend to pore over it all. Reminds me, must get the latest one. Articles, recipes, consumer comparisons and great illustrations, hence the name I guess. Not cheap, but oh so very worth it.

Plus if you subscribe to some of these, there's additional content Just! For! You! on their websites. And that's always fun, because none of us spend enough time online as it is! But still.

There are a TON of foodie sites I like to look at and get inspired by, and so many more I don't even know about yet! And don't even get me started on cookbooks, that's a whole nuther post for DAMN sure.

I'll see about scanning in some of those recipes that follow me around, or some of the pics that accompany them! I'm not tech savvy for much more than that at this point but I'm willing to learn!

Upcoming posts: Cookbooks, canning, the last of the Summerlicious gorgings and some tried and true recipes!