Back in November, my friends and I went to the Poconos for a weekend, sharing a house next to a near-frozen lake. It was to jointly celebrate two friends’ birthdays, which was honestly a brilliant idea. These are friends from my last job, where we bonded over stress and shitty hours (lol, remember when I worked overnights? I don’t recommend it); I love them all dearly, and obviously volunteered myself to cook a meal.
The day we were to leave, the 2019 Joy of Cooking arrived in the mail. I was originally thinking about bringing a Julia Turshen book, or maybe Smitten Kitchen; something, anything, that wasn’t so enormous and heavy. My girlfriend told me not to bring it. My brain told me not to bring it. My heart, and my friends in a cooking Facebook group that I mod (hi!), told me to just do it, and I did, and I had no regrets. I mean, aside from its weight. It’s a delight, a beautiful new addition to the Joy of Cooking catalogue; the recipes I recognized felt like old friends, and the ones I didn’t, new journeys in food.
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