...this life

I like cookbooks. I have too many cookbooks. I hardly ever use any of them and have never used a couple of them. And yet, like a child drawn to brightly colored cereal boxes on the lower shelves at the grocery stores, I'm drawn to them at the bookstores and I keep buying them, and like the boxes of cereal that sit on the shelf, tried but left to get stale, so do my cookbooks.

What they are is a symbol of the life I imagine I want to be living.

In my real life, the dishes are mismatched, the napkins are the cheapest I can buy, and you might have to fill your plate in the kitchen and carry it to the dining room table yourself. Most likely the meal will be one I've made a hundred, if not thousand, times before. There's a high probability it will contain ground beef and/or cream of something soup. Its a good day when I remember vegetables and a really good day when they're fresh (not canned or frozen).

I want to be a better cook. I want to produce pretty as a picture meals. I want to make each get together with friends a culinary event to remember. The cookbooks are full of possibilities. They are a subtle form of self help book -- buy this, read this, do this and this beautiful, tastefully arranged life can be yours.

Like all self help books, reading the book is enough isn't it? You don't really have to do the work.