I collect cookbooks. I love them. I love the pages and pages filled with possibilities and pretty pictures. I have about 40 of them. Excessive? Probably, but it doesn’t stop me wanting more. I remember learning in a food history paper I once took that we buy cookbooks because we are wooed by the lifestyle portrayed in them. Effortless entertaining, overflowing laughter and platter upon platter of the most delectable food. They give the idea that this author lives the most sociable and fabulous of lifestyles and is of course the most popular of all his or her friends.