Disappearing Cookbooks

Confession...

I have so many cookbooks, I sometimes misplace them.

I've been a lazy cookbook cook, avoiding getting into the kitchen all summer. Even with air conditioning, I just haven't felt like cooking.

Consequently, I've been buying a fair amount of those delicious rotisserie-style chickens you can find at most grocery stores these days. The best in my town come from the local grocer: Ric's Food Town. While the other grocery stores also prepare rotisserie chicken, there's something different that Ric's does that makes the chicken taste better. I have yet to find out what that secret is.

This post, however, is not about finding out secrets of the Ric's head rotisserie chicken chef. Instead it's about being totally unable to find a cookbook that I knew I had, somewhere.

Rotisserie Chickens to the Rescue! by Carla Fitzgerald Williams is a clever title for a clever idea: take a rotisserie chicken and see how many different ways you can use it to feed your family. I swear I used to own that cookbook.

In fact, I knew I owned the cookbook once upon a time as one of my favorite recipes is from the cookbook. But could I find the cookbook all summer? No.

I scoured the cookbook shelves. I looked under the beds and under the couches. I wracked my brain trying to remember what I'd done with the book: did I give it to the thrift store? Did I lend it to a friend? No searching either my physical space nor my brain space made the cookbook appear.

And then I went to visit my sister. Her husband made fettuccine, I brought organic basil pesto. Using some of my weekly CSA allotment, my sister cooked up crunchy bruschetta and a green salad. Dinner was an outstanding celebration of summer - topped off with homemade vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce from mom. Eventually we got around to talking about books.

We're all readers and have exchanged different books throughout the years. Fiction? Yes indeed. Science fiction? Sure thing. Non-fiction? Absolutely. History or biography? Yep. You name it, my family's probably interested in reading it, or has already read it. This time I got four of the Game of Thrones series to bring home for some autumn and winter reading material.

Another book teased me from the shelves, too and I leaned down to read the title. At first I was baffled, but then my memory kicked into gear.

I gave my sister the rotisserie cookbook, lauding one of those recipes as well as the chicken rotisserie at Ric's. The cookbook is now home with me, and I can stop hunting under sofa cushions. Hurry Curry on page 223 is definitely on the menu soon - or should it be Knife and Fork Burritos? Choices, choices...