On the Joys of Reading Cookbooks

I have this quirk: I like reading recipes. Yes, I know it sounds strange, but I actually really do. I read recipes in magazines; I read recipes online; I power through thousand-page-long cookbooks like Joy of Cooking, and then…I RE-READ them. And for all that I don’t even like cooking. In fact, I’d rather clean toilets than cook. But still, I never wondered about my fascination with cookbooks until recently, when my daughter approached me about it…

She: “Mom, how many times will you read this cookbook? Why are you even reading it?”

Me: “Hmm…”

And then it suddenly clicked. All these years I haven’t just been reading recipes – I’ve been looking for a recipe that wouldn’t require cooking!

Alas, I never found one…