I love food.  This is not news.  And so when one of our book club options in the From Left to Write Online Book Club was a cookbook, I grabbed at the chance to get it.  Seriously, you knew I’d take the chance to feed my soul and my belly with a free cookbook.

Know what else?

I love cooking.  This may be news.  When you hear my stories about freezer lasagna and frozen pizza, you may have your doubts.  Don’t.  There are two reasons that I don’t cook as much as I would like.

1. I’m tired.  I’m worn the heck out.  And the idea of making a big meal most nights just drains what little energy I have left.  And so I cheat a little here and there.  (Mostly here.)  And I make frozen convenience foods.  I believe even a home warmed meal is better than take out.  Only…*gulp*…I do that sometimes, too.

2. I have dumbed down my cooking.  Oh, and some people dumb down their cooking for their kids, expecting that they won’t have the sophisticated palates necessary to enjoy the apple sage pork chops or the ricotta cheese stuffed shells and especially for the beef and pepper stir fry.  Nope.  My kids have always loved that stuff.  It’s my man.  He eats chicken.  Fried chicken.  Chicken wings.  Chicken fingers…also fried.  And so in order to have family meals, we eat S-style.  This is to say, we eat as if we’re eating off the kid’s menu at any restaurant.  Ah, the things we do for love.

So, I devoured the soup section of the book and the salad section.  (You would die if you could see all the salad dressing recipes.)  I should have read the book with a napkin to swab up the drool.  Oh, and the pictures.  They are entirely too yummy.

And we have a plan.  Wednesdays used to be Trader Joe night in our house.  That was the night that S would dine on Bojangles because it was all you can eat night.  We would eat things like Mushroom Risotto and Mushroom Turnovers.  We planned to work our way through the entire frozen food section.  Mission accomplished.

This cookbook has become our new love.  And with recipes like Mushroom Bisque and Shrimp and Corn Chowder, it’s easy to see why.  My daughter, who made an amazing pork tenderloin last Wednesday, is eager to try out these complex recipes and test her mettle, so to speak.

The thing about food is that it is such an amazing way to bring people together.  They eat, they laugh, they talk.  It’s one of the main reasons I love my food holidays.  And a cookbook like The Earthbound Cook will be bringing us together for years to come.