Cooks and their Books

My well loved copy of MtAoFC

Last week I was purusing my copy of Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French cooking when I decided to hunt down my copy of Julie Powell's book "Julie and Julia".  For those of you who don't know what or who I'm talking about here is a link:
http://juliepowellbooks.com/books.html
Anyway, it occured to me that in times of stress and boredom and or both, I turn to cookbooks such as  Mastering the Art of French cooking, for fun and inspiration and relaxation and I remebered that this was what Julie Powell did as well.  Her ennui with a boring government job made her search for that "something more" that we all look for at such times.  I can definitely relate to the boring job but in my case I chose to be where I am in order to have a family friendly environment, plus my boss is as nice as they come so I really can't complain, it's just, well...boring. 

Anyway, a couple nights ago after the kids were asleep I decided to look for the Julie and Julia book.  Turns out that although it's been a year since we moved to this house this book was still packed away somewhere...but where?  We have about 20 boxes of books still packed away as we've no actual place to unpack them too.  After hunting up on the 3rd floor where the kids playroom and said boxes of books reside, I was still without my book.  Now I'm pissed off, now the "I can't find anything in this mess!  This house is a disaster!" rage begins.  Lovely husband suggests that perhaps it's in the basement but now I'm mad and tired and just leave it for a night.  The next morning I tromp down to the basement and the rage begins anew.  First I have to clear a path through inumerable types of "stuff" piled all over the floor before I can even get to the stack of boxes and plastic containers where my book might be hiding.  Luckily for me and everyone else in the house, the sought after book was in the first box I opened.

I have been happily re-reading this little jem which has been hiding away for a couple years.  It's a great read although Julie is a lot angrier than I remember but this resonates with me, this internal rage, where does it come from??  Lovely husband has PMS week pegged and just steers clear, keeping under the radar as best he can.  But for Julie and for me, the cooking seems to make things a bit better.  The cooking is relaxing and soothing in a chaotic world.  True, things don't always go to plan but at least if you're having a bad time cooking it's still better than a good time at work.