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Cravings
I have
to
confess:
I have
been
bingeing
again.
No, not
in the
usual
food and
drink
way. But
my
problem
isn’t
the kind
of thing
I like
to talk
about in
public.
However,
here
among
kindred
souls,
the
guilty
truth
can come
out.
I've
been
buying
too many
cookbooks
online
again.
I know
I'm not
alone.
Every
man,
woman,
and
child on
the face
of the
earth
must be
buying
cookbooks
regularly
to
support
the rate
at which
they are
published.
Nevertheless,
I don't
feel
quite
comfortable
settling
down to
read my
latest
Jacques
Pepin
during
lunch. A
lot of
people
still
think a
cookbook
belongs
in the
kitchen.
I do
read
cookbooks,
though,
and I
know how
it all
started.
First
came
volumes
filled
with
recipes,
preferably
with
lots of
nice
color
pictures.
When the
pictures
became
less
important,
it was
the
obsession
with
encyclopedic
facts,
countries
of
origin,
history...and
the
slide
into
addiction
was
unstoppable.
The road
to a
fascination
with
Internet
book
buying
has much
in
common
with
getting
hooked
on
cooking
itself.
Isolation
and
thrift
can
motivate
both
interests.
If you
cannot
find
what you
want
locally,
the
great
World
Wide Web
comes to
the
rescue.
The
obvious
advantage
the
online
bookstore
has over
its
traditional
competition
is
flexibility.
Real
business
hours
can be
inconvenient,
but
Amazon
and its
sort
never
close.
Literally
millions
of
titles
can be
brought
to you
whenever
you
want.
And, as
you get
sidetracked,
your
original
search
becomes
a kind
of free
association
of
interesting
topics,
leaving
you with
a
shopping
cart
full of
riveting
titles
you
didn't
know
existed.
The
temptations
are
infinite.
If your
budget
is
tight,
you can
leave
your
cart
behind
for next
time or
send
your
shopping
list to
friends
and
family,
in hopes
that the
goodies
turn up
under
your
Christmas
tree.
Either
way, one
must be
strong
to
resist
the lure
of so
many
juicy
selections.
Another
surprising
facet of
online
book
hunting
is the
social
aspect—and
you
don't
even
have to
get
dressed
to take
part.
Most
online
booksellers
attach
both
media
reviews
and
reader
feedback
to each
title.
While
the
opinions
of total
strangers
can
never
equal
thumbing
through
the book
yourself,
they do
offer an
engaging,
and
sometimes
entertaining,
alternative.
One of
the
“best”
reader
reviews
I ever
read was
a
condemnation
of a
cookbook
I was
considering
buying.
This
dissatisfied
customer
lashed
into
this
ethnic
cookbook,
basically
for
being
startlingly
authentic
and
including
recipes
that
used
foreign
ingredients
and
produced
the kind
of
exotic
food the
buyer
didn't
like.
Besides
posing
the
baffling
mystery
of why
this
person
purchased
it in
the
first
place,
the
review
provided
a lot of
helpful
detail
about
the
cookbook.
Sometimes
you will
find
that the
object
of your
desire
has gone
out of
print.
While
the
major
players
like
Amazon
and
Barnes &
Noble
offer
automatic
services
to try
to
locate
rare
titles,
a
specialist
does a
much
better
job.
On one
of my
earlier
shopping
junkets,
I
wondered
why few
books
are
available
that
demonstrate
the
basic
techniques
of
ethnic
cuisines.
For
classical
French-inspired
cooking,
this
kind of
book is
relatively
commonplace.
Why not
for more
exotic
styles?
This
thought
led to
my
discovery
of Ken
Hom's
fascinating
book on
Chinese
techniques.
Although
I am not
ever
likely
to bake
whole
animals
in clay,
Hom’s
book
teaches
many
less
esoteric
and more
useful
skills.
Unfortunately,
the book
has long
been out
of
print,
but by
using a
service
like the
Advanced
Book
Exchange
(ABE),
tracking
it down
was a
snap.
Ordering
books
via the
Internet
has one
other
advantage,
especially
if you
are far
from the
main
lines of
supply
in the
USA: you
have the
time the
package
is in
transit
to raise
the
money
for the
bill.
Is there
a
cookbook
you’ve
wanted,
but have
been
unable
to
locate?
Try one
of the
links
below.
You just
might
find
it—or
one or
two or a
dozen
others
that
will
catch
your
interest.
And
don’t
forget—my
chapter
of
Online
Cookbook
Shoppers
Anonymous
is
always
looking
for new
members.
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