Well……  Those of you who know me well, know my obsession with cookbooks….. sadly, the obsession does not extend towards being a good cook….. or even trying all the recipes…. but there is nothing better than curling up on the sofa (in winter) or in the hammock (in summer) and reading a good cookbook.  Nigella Lawson, I could read her recipes for hours…. failed at making a few.

Those people will also know of my insane knack of making fun activities more than a little OTT (“If something is worth doing, it’s worth overdoing”)…. I will be armed with post-its….. flaggies…. pens and pencils…. and my iphone for notes.

So here is my plan.  I am going to read the cookbooks I have that are designed for lunches….. then slowly add in some of the others as I feel the need….. and I will be looking specifically at the following things.  I want to look at the information given, the simplicity of the instructions, the pictures, and how well the recipes hold up over the workday.

There will be a ranking system with points…. 😀

So, marks will be allocated as follows:
General information about foods/lunches etc:  5 points
Ease of understanding and cooking recipes: 5 points
Originality: 5 points
Pictures, appeal and accuracy: 5 points
Overall gut feeling: 5 points

Why have I broken the points down like this?  Well….. I want information…. because the more I read about food, the less likely I am to eat takeaways….. the longer between recipe book readings, the shorter the gap between drive throughs.  I want to be able to understand and cook the food.  My skills are low-average…….. and I tend to get sidetracked easily.  I’m not concerned about the ingredients, because I am unlikely to make something that has overly expensive ingredients or out-of-season ones…. because that is just the way I roll.

Originality….. well…. I want new ideas so that I don’t resort to a bar, or some fries, or something equally bad.  The pictures are what makes me want to cook something, and when it all turns out to look NOTHING like it, I get grrrrrrrrr about it.  And the overall gut feeling gives me a chance to vent about whether all the recipes are good, cost of the book, etc, and should balance out the older books in comparison to the shiny new ones. 😀

Each review will be accompanied by a recipe from the book made and photographed.  (This is the bit that makes me do the cooking).

And at the end (whenever that is), I shall declare a winner.  For all that means.  😀