Hi all! This is my new blog about cooking and maybe about life. How many of you guys saw the movie Julie and Julia? A very fun movie. In the movie Julie decides to cook her way through Julia Child's French cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Not a small feat.

I have decided to do something similar but with the cookbook my sister, Jane introduced me to many years ago, Women of Great Taste by the Wichita, Kansas Junior League. Thank you Jane. I am going to do this for several reasons. Even though Women of Great Taste is really the only cook book I ever use and has most of my favorite recipes, I have only cooked about a hand full of recipes from the book. I am very set in my ways about what I cook and more importantly about what I eat. I want to expand my skills and palate. I love to cook and I love to write. So I thought I would combine the two.

Unlike Julie who gave her self a year, I am going to take a little longer. I am only going to prepare two recipes a week. And I am going to start at the beginning and go through to the end. It should take a little over 3 years. Lots of writing and cooking.

A little background. Women of Great Taste was published in 1995. Twenty thousand copies were pinted that year and another 20,000 copies the following year. I do not know if there has been further printings. You are still able to get the book both through Amazon.com and from the junior league itself. Women of Great Taste won the Midwest regional Tobasco award the year it was published. The Tobasco company judges community cookbooks from all over the country. The books have to be part of a fundraiser for the community.

Junior Leagues all over the country publish cookbooks. Most of them are high quality hard back books like Women of Great Taste. Incidentally, Chicago's junior league published a cookbook last year call Peeling a Wild Onion, which won the Tobasco second place nation award. Chicago is the Native American word for wild onion. We were beaten out by Morehead City's A Little Taste of Heaven Since 1857: The Morehead City Heritage Cookbook.

Publishing cookbooks is still big business. Here is a link to an interesting article. www.tampabay.com/features/food/general/article1000227.ece. Apparently the best selling cookbook of all times is Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book.

I hope you will join me through my adventures.