I was all ready this morning to write about my latest and greatest purchase from the kitchen section of Bed, Bath and Beyond, but I’ll be saving that for tomorrow’s post because, omagosh, I stumbled upon something that caused my heart to stop this a.m. and, therefore, is blogworthy.
But, a little background first. Back in August, TaNK and I flew back East for a family wedding. We linked up with Juice (my sister), and my mom and dad for a “five states in five days family fun vacation.” And, indeed, it was a fun vacation to remember. One of the stops we made was in northern New Jersey to see my Uncle Bobby – who I haven’t seen in nine years or so. I’ve always known he was “into” cooking, but was downright flabbergasted when he set out a Henckel knife for us to use to casually make turkey sandwiches for lunch. (By the way, that’s the equivalent of giving a toddler a glass of juice in your finest crystal goblet and letting them run helter-skelter throughout the Louvre.) Needless to say, when I saw a certain family member who shall remain nameless use the knife to cut a sandwich directly on the plate, I cringed as the knife cut through with ease and ssssccccrrraaaapppeeeddd along the plate. My Uncle Bobby had a newfound respect for me when I gave a brief dissertation to the family on why you don’t treat a Henckel that way. Admittedly, a year ago I would’ve been right there cutting on the plate too, though.
So, just before we left Uncle Bobby’s house, I noticed he has a fairly extensive collection of top-notch cookbooks. He surprised me when I asked him to show me his all-time favorite, most frequently used cookbook. I was expecting something classic like Julia Child, Alice Waters, Jacques Pepin, the Galloping Gourmet, etc. Holy bells! He immediately pulled out a Giada DiLaurentiis cookbook from 2005!
Really? Giada DiLaurentiis? As in the one chef on Food Network I can’t stand and never, ever watch because it’s so blatantly obvious they gave her a show only because she’s beautiful and her grandfather is famous?
I hate eating my words.
And that’s exactly what I did when he started thumbing through the pages, showing me notes in the margins of several recipes. He had tweaked a few things here and there, but said that on-the-whole, her recipes were outstanding. And this from a man who is so hard-core that it’s nothing for him to set out Henckels for turkey sandwiches! That is a man I will trust when it comes to preferred cookbooks!
Yes, there’s a point to me sharing all of this.
So, since August, I’ve been dying to get my stubs on a copy of that cookbook. You can find them anywhere, but this purchase had to be on my terms. First, it had to be on sale. Second, months later, I had to still be as interested in purchasing this cookbook as I was when Uncle Bobby first showed it to me. Third and finally, I had to actually watch Giada on Food Network and the Cooking Channel to see if her style truly suited me. Turns out she’s not just a pretty face. Girlfriend knows what she’s doing (although I grind my teeth when she uses the blade of her knife to scoop things off her cutting board – so bad on many levels and is a violation of Culinary 101!). Her recipes are shockingly simple and major crowd pleasers – and are WAY better than anything of Rachel Ray’s. So, I wanted me that cookbook.
And today, at Barnes & Noble, at 9:45am… a girls’ dream came true!
My heart literally stopped and I sucked in a sharp breath when, low and behold, on the 50% off table, I spied…
Manna from heaven!
And a bonus book!
Thank you, hubby! You just bought me my Christmas gift a little early!
