Do you work your way through a cookbook?

[BagofHolly]

One of my FB friends has revealed herself to be a hugely enthusiastic cook and buys a recipe book and works through it from start to finish. I'd never thought of recipe books like that - for me they're a reference, not a novel. But is that me that's odd? Just wondered!

I have worked my way through a couple. One was Michel Roux as I tried two recipes and they were so good I decided to learn them all. For others though I use them as a reference. I have Vefas kitchen a definitive book on Greek cookery, it is over a 1000 recipes and as much as I like Greek food I couldn't work through that!

Is it a baking book your friend worked through? These are easier to just speed away at.

No - I dip in and out and actually have a few cookbooks (one is that Gordon Ramsey's Sunday Lunch one) where I've never used a recipe from it at all. I buy way too many cookbooks.

No, I don't either. I have dozens of cookery books, both DH and I love cooking and a good cookbook is something we both love, but in our whole collection we only have about two or maybe three books that we have ever made more than a handful of recipes from. Its as much about the pleasure of reading them as the pleasure of cooking from them! Although for that reason, we tend to like books by 'proper' writers, and generally we hate books by TV chefs.

Interesting! i'm not so odd then! The friend concerned has oodles of cookbooks, mostly French (cos she's French) and just ploughs through. She orders what she needs from Ocado the week before, and then cooking is her relaxation from work. I've been in her kitchen. It's uh-MAZE-ing.

Oooh, I'd love to go to someone else's house for dinner though, if they were going to work their way through a cookbook, you might get something really interesting that you'd never try yourself!

No.
Some I do work my way through, some I dip in and out of and others I've read but not cooked anything from.
More thn a week of the same book nd I think I'd get bored anyway.

I'd love to work my way through a cook book, and every time I get a new one, that's what I plan to do. And I do it for...two days! I have loads of cookbooks, and I love reading them in bed, but rarely try out new things - just due to lack of time.

Definitely read a new book from cover to cover, but then dip in and out. Am currently trying to cook some more Indian food, so have made curries a bit recently from one particular book but the family would mutiny if they had curry every night!

PS have made a couple of recipes from the Gordon Ramsey Sunday Lunch book, and they were very nice. But keep away from the wilted lettuce - bleurgh - lettuce should Not Be Cooked.

I've often wondered about this -like the Julie/Julia movie.

I thought about going through the Delia how to cook series with the dc.