I get obsessed by things pretty easily. My “obsessions” started back in ’95 with HTML (this is, at least, the first time I really remember getting obsessed with a topic) and has progressed through quantum physics, knitting, Ruby on Rails, Project Management, poker and, most recently, cooking. My obsessions each generally follow a similar route – I first read everything I can on the subject – books, ebooks, audiobooks, magazine articles – I read it all. Then, if it’s something I can practice (see HTML, knitting and cooking), I do. Obsessively. While reading as much as possible about the subject. If it’s not something I can practice (see quantum physics and poker) on my own, then I just read. And read some more. Then I read a bit more, just in case I’d missed something.
My bookshelves at home are studded with large swathes of books on these subjects. I own HTML manuals from way back in HTML 2.0 days and enough poker theory books to start a respectable bonfire. I have pattern books for knitted items that I will likely never be able to get to and I have every book Stephen Hawking, Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Michio Kaku have ever written. I get obsessed. There is just no other way to explain it.
On the plus side, while I might go on to a new obsession, I rarely completely abandon my old ones. I still read popular science books on the subjects of cosmology and quantum physics. I knit pretty regularly. I’ve been known to join in a poker game occasionally, too. I still write in HTML, though it’s a different beast now than it was in 1995. And I cook.
This is my current obsessive topic. I recognize this because Amazon has begun sending me emails that are peddling professional cooking books and books on foodie topics. I got two yesterday alone. I have 2 copies of Mark Bittman’s How To Cook Everything – one in hardback format on my cookbook shelf and one in iPad application format.
Besides giving you, my loyal readers, some insight into my crazy-brain, this is also a plea for help. Do you have any good cooking books (cookbooks, books about food, books about chefs, etc.) that you really love? Any that you want to recommend to me? I need another book or two or ten to round out this current obsession of mine. If you are close enough, geographically, I’ll pay you back by making you some food.
