the silver spoon

i was recently reading josh friendland's blog "the food section" (which definitely deserves a bookmark in any foodie's internet browser) when i came across his post "this is how we roll" where he talks about a cookbook that i am sure many of us own, the silver spoon. i am certain that all of us italian food lovers rushed out to grab our very own copy of this italian food bible when it came onto bookshelves last year. friendland aptly writes: "how many of you cookbook collectors out there picked up a copy of the silver spoon last year only to leave the behemoth languishing on your bookshelf to gather dust? i confess that i did."

well, i am guilty as well. since acquiring the italian cookbook of all cookbooks, i have been more than afraid to take it off the shelf. the sheer weight of the book has been deterrance enough but combined with the task of actually choosing one dish from the thousands and thousands of recipes would certainly cause a minor heart attack. however, my boyfriend tim (a food celebrity in his own right for competitive eating skills that could rival the japanese), being both physically stronger and emotionally braver than me, lugged the cookbook off the shelf last weekend on my birthday to find a gnocchi recipe. well he found about 100 but chose the basic gnocchi so that we could recreate one of the first meals we made together over three years ago. even though the gnocchi you make at home might not be the melt in your mouth experience you might get at your local italian joint, creating gnocchi from scratch not only satisfies the guilty pleasure of returning to your childhood play-doh playing days but also gives that much more satisfaction with each bite, knowing you made this as a labor of love and didn't just boil those frozen dumplings from trader joe's (although those are pretty damn good to have on hand too). so that night in celebration of my twenty-five years of life we ate our homemade gnocchi dressed in pesto. ok, so i definitely could use a food mill or a potato ricer in my kitchen, but there's nothing wrong with biting into a small chunk of potato in your gnocchi - after all, that is what they are made of! anyhow, sitting there that night to dinner, filling our bellies with our heaping plates of pesto-ed gnocchi, i remembered the reason i bought that book in the first place - to remind me of the many authentic italian meals i enjoyed in italy - and i promised myself it wouldn't be another year before i pulled that behemoth off the shelf again.

and then some crazy thought crossed my mind.  what if i attempted the julie and julia challenge with the silver spoon? alright, i'd probably have to give myself a good 10 years as opposed to just the one that julie powell had to conquer every recipe in julia child's mastering the art of french cooking but if i was able to complete this daunting challenge, i really will have mastered the art of italian cooking as it just might include every conceivable italian dish ever. anyway, when i picked up that book again, i was quickly reminded of how heavy it was, and my crazy idea quickly subsided back into crazy-ville but hey, it was a thought . . . any takers out there?