Why Bouchon?

Ok, so I haven't made any of the recipes yet. That's not exactly true, but I'm starting over so let's pretend. That doesn't mean getting this far has been a cakewalk. I spent at least the better part of one (1!) day trying to determine which book would be the best to achieve the goals I have (Quick goal refresher: 1. Learn 2. Satisfy infatuation 3. Eat) There were some practical limitations that ruled out some immediately. For example, there's no way I was cooking through the Joy of Cooking. That would mean one recipe a day for 12.33 years. That's a little longer term than I had in mind. Some other books I own are a little too narrowly-focused. Bouchon seemed to be a happy medium in pretty much all of the logistical departments. It covers just about every imaginable aspect of every meal, but in a concise, instructional manner.

More importantly though, Bouchon is a book of French bistro cooking. Really good French bistro cooking at that. At least it is supposed to be, we'll find out. It covers the range from simple to complex, comfort food to delicacy, and fun to serious. It has a type of at-home and relaxed feeling that is appealing to me, and that was the deal maker.

Here We Go

I've decided that it would be a good idea to cook my way through the Bouchon bible cookbook for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, I think it offers me a great opportunity to learn a lot about how to actually cook things. This is something that I only mildly have a clue about now. Second, I recently had the opportunity to eat at both The French Laundry and Bouchon while on my honeymoon. To say they were the best meals of my life would be an understatement. Ever since then I've had a slight infatuation with Mr. Keller and his food. Really I guess it's just the food, since I've never even seen the man. Last, I'll get to eat a lot things that I've probably never had before.

If you haven't seen it, it's a pretty big book. There are somewhere around 200 recipes, most complete with pictures that look far better than my dishes probably ever will. I've seen many people write about how it could be a great coffee table book, but that's not really the point of a cookbook, is it?

Here we go...