I have had some pretty unglamorous jobs in the food industry. I worked in the office of a peanut plant during the summer after my freshman year of college (specifically, in the division that sold the leftover peanut hulls– one of my office mates was constantly talking about “whole hulls,” which in her Southern twang sounded like “hoe hulls”). I also washed dishes for a small catering company while I was between jobs a few years ago; once you’ve washed dishes in a professional kitchen, you’ll never eat another restaurant meal again without thinking about the person in the back…
I am a bit of a cookbook hoarder. I know this, you know this, my poor husband definitely knows this, and so do all the saintly people who helped me move over the summer. I actually pared down a good bit of my collection before the move, parting ways with cookbooks I bought but never used, the ones I bought for cheap at Ross during college (and whose recipes never turned out quite right– probably why they were going for five bucks at a discount store in the first place), and the ones that just didn’t speak to me anymore….