PASSIONATE RATIONS

Houston, we have a problem.

My husband and I love cookbooks (which is probably because we love food and cooking).  And that’s a good thing.  A fun thing.   However, the food-related publications are beginning to take over space not just in the kitchen, but in sundry other corners of the house as well.

There are big ones, small ones, thin ones, fat ones, cookbooks about chocolate, about Chinese cooking, about cheese.  And there are magazines:  Gourmet, Bon Appétit, Cooking Light, Vegetarian Cooking, Cooks Illustrated….

I could go on.

The same thing happened with our music collection.  Large clusters of renegade CD cases threatened to engulf us, their plastic casings crunchy underfoot, taking up too much space in a too little house.

But then came the iPod and various other digital dreamware and we attained the ability to download 500+ CDs onto a device the size of my palm, with room to spare and with search capability, thereby empowered to banish all those CD cases to storage.

Now, I ask, why hasn’t the digital age caught up with the cookbook?  Most of them do not come with accompanying CDs and this seems…quaint…in the digital age.  

My life would certainly be easier (and my kitchen much bigger) if I could download the cookbook and have the capability to type in my commentary on the recipes for future reference without feeling guilty about the fit my husband will have when he discovers my pencil scribbles in the margins of his Moosewood cookbook.   And it would be one hell of a lot easier to search by ingredient, or genre (dessert, entrée, beverage, etc.) so I could more easily use my leftovers…or hold a smashing dinner party.

I propose that publishers begin including CDs with their cookbooks in formats compatible with the most widely used digital information platforms (iPod, Google…whatever) for the convenience and gratitude of their users (because, really, we “use” cookbooks, rather than “read” them, right?).

The magazines could offer an annual compilation CD for an extra charge….

Because books give us many things digital cannot (solidity, a certain smell, the ability to spatter beet juice on the pages, decor possibilities), I do not propose going entirely to a CD format, but, as sidekicks, CDs would be a force to be reckoned with in the kitchen.