The cure for kitchen burnout?

At my last book club meeting, we chatted as we filled plates from the potluck table. We talked about the TV show, and how it differed from the book. We talked about how revolutionary its publication was. And we talked about how many times we had to make the recipe before we got it right.

The book up for discussion? Julia Childs’ Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

A cookbook club is like a book club, but instead of reading a book and discussing it, we explore a cookbook, try some dishes from it and bring a dish to share for our meeting. For logistics and variety, we don’t cook from the same cookbook (the Ramapo Catskill Library System doesn’t have 16 copies of most cookbooks). During Ina Garten month, we all cooked from one of her cookbooks. Before that it was Indian food with Madhur Jaffrey. Sometimes the theme is a little broader — I’m still disappointed that I missed tailgate month, but I joined up just in time for the cookie swap.

I joined in hopes that it would get me out of a slump. No, slump is an understatement. I am experiencing kitchen burnout. I know I’m not the first mom to go from passionate cook to a person who wonders how often we can have ramen.

The reality is that cooking is work that I have done every day for 14 years, and I’ve done a lot of extra cooking, too, in the form of so many kitchen projects: canning, pickling, dehydrating, butchering, sausage-making, gifting and experimenting. I used to love learning how to make something from scratch, just to see how it comes together and how it tastes. Cooking was necessary work, and also a hobby.

My family hasn’t stopped expecting to eat every day, so my husband has taken over more and more of the cooking now that he works from home. Now he does the majority of the cooking, and I appreciate it so much.

With the cookbook club, I go through three stages every month. When I pick up the book, I curse myself for signing up for this thing as I flip through its pages, immediately overwhelmed.

Then about a week before the meeting I realize that I have to choose a recipe or two and try them out. It starts to get pleasurable once the logistics are over, and I am in the zone – chopping vegetables or kneading dough. It’s especially fun when my husband or kids choose a recipe as well. When I made Boeuf Bourguignon and baguettes, my kids made a chocolate Charlotte (a molded mousse dessert with lady fingers dipped in orange liqueur). We feasted that night.

Then leaving the cookbook club, belly full, that old enchantment bubbles up. I feel excited about food again, and how it makes me feel, both to feed people, and to be fed by them.