I confess to having a slight cookbook addiction, one I have no intention of giving up. I keep cookbooks by my bed and read them like novels.  My kitchen bookshelves are overflowing, and whenever someone wants to buy me something for my birthday, somehow I just can’t keep from asking for a cookbook.  My cookbooks runneth over.  (The cookbooks pictured above are not mine, as my phtographer is on a temporary hiatus…Thank you Flickr user “megabeth,”–we actually have many of the same books!) I spend time with every one–drooling, reading I (love cookbooks that tell me more about bread, olives, life in Paris…), marking the pages with the most inviting recipes, possessing every intention of trying that fabulous-looking Crostini with Marinated Escarole and Carmelized Shallots. But do I cook from these books?  Well sure, maybe one or two recipes.  I have a couple of books, like Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Eveyone that I use constantly.  But I also have a shameful number of cookbooks from which I have not managed to make a single thing.  Not one.  And it’s not because there aren’t beautiful recipes to try, or because I don’t want or intend to use them, but because I just haven’t gotten it together to do break out of my ruts and give them a whirl.

I’ve decided to try an experiment.  Every month I’m going to make one of the gorgeous, underused books on my cookbook shelf my “go to” cookbook for that month.  It doesn’t mean I’ll cook every single thing all month form that book, but I’ll make good use of it.  Whenever I’m seeking inspiration for breakfast, lunch, dinner, tea, or cocktail time, I’ll go to that book first and see what I can find.  At the end of the month, I’ll post a review here, and by that time, I hope, at least a few of the recipes in the book will have moved into the regular rotation.  Think of all that unmined treasure!  I really can’t wait to dig in.  I am sure lots of you all are in the same boat.  Who wants to go to their own shelf, pull off a book, and join my experiment?