Welcome to the voting thread for our May 2023 Cookbook of the Month. While there were a variety of nominations, two emerged as clear leaders, and we’ll choose between them for our collective cooking pleasure:
HOW TO VOTE: Click the knife-and-fork icon on the post below naming your choice. If you change your mind, you may click the icon again if you’re still within the time limit, or reply to this post and let me know. Please vote with the intention to cook one more more recipes and post about your experience should your choice win.
VOTING WILL CLOSE on TUESDAY, APRIL 25 at 11 PM GMT/7 PM EDT/4 PM PDT.
Or, I type selfishly, we could keep doing Venice. I’ve been away most of the month, and now LLD is away. I’m planning to make something from the book for myself this evening, but won’t have tons of cooking time until June.
People either wanted to cook from VENICE this month and were busy or they don’t want to cook from it and won’t given another month. I’d propose just doing another COTM nomination for June. Maybe we will hit on a book that people are interested in and will use and those who want to get into VENICE still can post their experiences on May’s COTM thread.
Perhaps at this late date, we could use June as a COTM Catch-up Month, just adding to any previous COTM thread (including, of course, Venice), and try for a reset in July, with conventional nominations.
It’s been a few months of sparse nominations, and only a few votes even for winning books. Those who voted for the current month are MIA for whatever reason, but the same is true so far for the multi-month BCOTM, so who knows. Even books that take off more tend to have many reports from a few people really into that one book. (I’m just thinking on the page about the possible future of COTM.)
I wouldn’t mind an all previous COTM on HO month as a catch up. I know participation is sparse. But I am hopeful we will find a book or two which will spark our joy for cooking as a group from one book.
I have all these feelings. I miss the camaraderie of the old COTM. At the same time, having family dinners is more difficult these days with Lulu in high school with extra curricular stuff happening. Hoping something comes along that makes all sorts of people want to join in, and has enough appealing stuff in it that cooking just for me and LLD feels like fun. Right now, post-pandemic nonstop cooking, and pre-empty nesting, I’m not minding being somewhat lazy in the kitchen.
I like this option of just revisiting all our books the best. I have been extremely busy in recent months, so it’s been hard keeping up with COTM. Actually I’ve been off social media in general, just because of a lack of time while I do a really big thing. I don’t want to see COTM die out! I worked really hard when we transitioned it over from CH, because it meant a lot to me and still does. I’ve actually cooked one recipe from Venice that I haven’t reported yet. I also have a couple from the previous COTM that I haven’t reported, but I doubt I’ll bother.
One problem I’m having with Venice is that the produce isn’t quite aligning with CSA box, and once the CSA boxes start (which happened at the first of April), using that produce is my priority in my cooking. If it had been COTM in April, I had some things that would have aligned, and things will start to align again as I get into summer produce. But I have a number of recipes flagged and will get to them eventually. It’s just with the lack of time, I tend not have meals planned and just improvise with whatever is on hand. Not the best way to accomplish COTM cooking.
If everyone is in agreement, one of us can make a post on the first explaining what is happening, and maybe include links to all the COTM posts, or maybe just the archive.