Holy moly, it's almost 2020

I started the project of cooking through The Joy of Cooking over a decade ago.  I was a graduate student who wanted to learn to cook.  I'm a methodical thinker and the idea of cooking all the way through a cookbook to learn really appealed to me.  It was a category of blog in the...what do you call the first decade of the 21st century?  Well, during that time.  I really should have taken a look at the size of the book before committing.  That being said, I really think I could have finished it before the new edition came out had I not taken almost a decade off.  During that decade I moved to DC, lived near fantastic fish and shellfish, continued cooking out of TJOC, and didn't blog about it at all.  I'm not going to bother writing up any of those recipes---if they are in the new edition I will talk about them when I make them again, if they aren't then no big loss (although I did make an aspic--I'm not sure that recipe made it into the 2019 edition!).  So, when I lived at high altitude in Colorado, I didn't finish the high-altitude recipes, and when I lived on the coast I didn't finish the shellfish and fish recipes and I'll be kicking myself about both of those things as I try to knock them out.

There have been some big life changes.  Since the last major time blogging, I have been divorced and remarried.  I have 2 small children.  And I've moved back to Des Moines, IA where we could buy a house with a yard and have a big kitchen for cooking and an open concept for entertaining.  We entertain quite a bit which will help with finishing!

As you should know by now, the new edition of TJOC came out in November 2019.  This both filled me with regret (why the heck didn't I finish this years ago?) and renewed excitement (why don't I finish it now!).

What will stay the same: I'm still going to post pictures.  TJOC still doesn't have pictures.  I'm still not going to post the recipes so quit asking.  Go buy the book or download it on your phone.  I'm clearly a fan and I'm not going to help you steal from them.  I will still post my honest experience cooking the recipe.  If the fish catches on fire, I'll take a picture of the disaster.

What will be different: I'm married to a chef now so my cooking has gotten far more professional looking.  My knife cuts are better.  I still can't plate worth a damn.  My photography skills have also improved, which will probably disappoint some of you!  But don't worry, this is still a no-food styling blog.

I'm reindexing.  The original indexes will stay exactly where they are and the new indexes will start as November 1, 2019.  I'm going through all the old posts and adding a "Round 1" tag to them as well.  Everything new will have a "2019 edition" tag added.  Some of you have been around since the beginning and that's crazy and awesome.  Some of you are new and that's exciting, too!  So let's keep going along this journey, together.