I've Got 99 Cookbooks and Rachel Ray Ain't One

99.

I have 99 cookbooks in my house.

This number does not include the cooking magazines or binders of recipes that have been passed down or collected from relatives.

99!!!

I knew I had a lot, but I had never counted them before.

Something needs to be done with these books, and I think I have come up with an idea.

There are quite a few of these books that I go back to on a regular basis, but the majority of them have not been touched in years. I need to pare them down somehow.

In order to do that, I am going to cook a recipe from each one of those 98 books at least once a week. Ideally, I would like to knock all 99 off before the year is out but I don't know if I can pull it off in 52 weeks or not. I can certainly try though.

My goal is to cook the healthiest and most 17 Day Diet compliant recipes I can find in each book.

Some books will be impossible to find healthy in, like:

Some are going to be ridiculous, like :

Some are going to be challenging, like:

Quite a few are going to be very ethnic:

I've got multiples from Ina, Martha, Julia Child, New York Times and Williams Sonoma. I have loads of Moosewood books that came with my husband when we got together. There are loads of Jewish cookbooks that I have collected, pop-culture cookery from the Sopranos, Star Wars, and Orange Is the New Black. There's Giada and Gwyneth, and all of Oprah's personal chefs. A tattered copy of the original Silver Palate Cookbook and huge bibles from Bon Appetit and Gourmet. My first cookbook from Betty Crocker and my second book that I can remember buying after college...The Joy of Cooking. There is something for everyone in my collection.

After this experiment I hope to be able to purge a few books without feeling too guilty about it. I'm pretty sure no one needs this many cookbooks. Whatever happens, it will hopefully be a fun challenge to complete!