Cookbook-reading, Nostalgia & Low Expectations

Is this a cosy cocktail for small and gentle times?

“Like many of us after the holidays, I crave smallness, calmness and the quiet pleasure of low expectations and early nights.”

This is me. I mean. It’s not me. It’s a line from a piece by Shannon Reid, published a couple of years ago in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. When I was researching ideas around comfort for my Honours work last year, I bookmarked it because it rang so true.

Low expectations. Low stakes. Low-key living. Ahhhhh.

These are some of the real-life filters I apply to my life, partly because of illness, but also partly because it’s so noisy out there in the world …

(Some) people are striving to be heard for reasons of varying merit, via a whole bunch of wonderful/questionable approaches. And it’s a lot, right? The discourse. The rhetoric. The outrage. It feels relentless. Honestly, it’s enough to make a person chug along in first gear, looking for things we already know about, safe things, rather than the gloss of anything new, lest one of the yelling people catches our eye. #EarlyNights!

Shannon’s piece is a perfect reminder that slowing down and taking time for activities that might seem run of the mill, that might not initially rank on the novelty/dopamine scale can actually bring a surprisingly bolstering dose of happiness and comfort. It also taps into the idea that we have everything you need in this moment to feel okay, if only we would just slow down and look around … and this is a realisation that can benefit many of us.

“ … The winter pleasure of reading cookbooks for me is in their possibilities,” Shannon writes. “Maybe I will become a person who bakes my own bread. Maybe I’ll develop a go-to jam recipe. Maybe I’ll cook a whole fish encased in salt. And maybe I’ll try a new soup. Probably not. But maybe.”

It gets better. Shannon then goes on to say that she’ll likely open a can of tomato soup when she’s done flipping through the glossy cookbook de jour. I cheered a little bit when I read that. I love it so much because it shows the relatable truth that we can feel lifted by ideas of new things and at the same time we can choose something trusty and non-new. Something nostalgic. Or something … reliable … even unremarkable? #Smallness!

Image via: Maria Speidel’s Why I’ll Never Konmari My Cookbook Collection

Fact is, sometimes just knowing about the new thing/s is enough, you know? A bit like putting something in your online shopping cart and never checking out. It could be the same for the comfort-recipe-read. Sometimes the last thing you want to do is buy a bunch of ingredients and take a punt on a recipe that might not bear fruit, you know? Just as Shannon’s cookbook romp reminded her that she belonged and to open a can of soup, perhaps Ottolenghi’s butter beans have you thinking it might be good to crack open a tin of Heinz, drop some bread into the toaster, put on an excellently cheesy movie and prepare to go nuts with the cracked black pepper? #Calmness!

(Also? I like canned tomato soup much more than homemade. It’s the nostalgia. I like that cookbooks can connect us to our past, our present … our future selves!)

I really love that the cookbook-reading Shannon recounts is undertaken from the safety of home (or potentially a cosy bookshop or library?) I love that it potentially harnesses the idea of what might be to memories of what has been (hello tomato soup!) … with a dose of what we have thrown in (g’day, baked beans!)

The cocktail of aspirational cookbook browsing, ‘ideal-self’ activating, meal-making is a pretty irresistible one. It doesn’t matter if we’re reading from the kitchen counter or from under the covers in bed, we can conjure up the meal that fits, if we allow it. #QuietPleasure!

In the magical thinking of book-browsing we can cultivate a sort of ‘ideal self’, the kind that gathers and produces the recipes we read, possibly slouching against an imaginary AGA or seated beneath a pretend vineyard pergola or propped up on a make-believe and impossibly coastal Nancy Meyersesque couch.

In the serving (the actual new recipe or something else trusty that it reminded us of or that we realised we preferred/happened to have) and the eating, we can treat ourselves (and/or our family and friends) to the fruits of the bookish inspo in a very tangible, possibly makeshift, gently demonstrative and (hopefully) delicious way.

This low-expectation and very fanciful cookbook reading practise lets us devote a pocket of time to ourselves; celebrates the comfort of food, books, loved ones and home; and reminds us we have what we need, in this minute, just for now. #TomatoSoup!

x Pip

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Wondering: Do YOU have a cookbook that’s a favourite comfort read?

image of Ina via

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Related reading …

Nancy Meyers’ favourite food scenes are inspired by Ina Garten
Why do we keep buying cookbooks we never use?
Margaret Moon on cookbooks as a comfort read
There’s no better time to read a cookbook like a book book