New Year Resolution: Cooking through an entire cookbook

Hey All!

Hope the holidays brought you an incredible amount of food memories and time with people you care about most.

So one of my New Years resolutions is to cook all the way through a single cookbook. Thought about it a bunch last year but a series of trips and distractions (girlfriend) slowed that effort.

Wanted to ping the experts here to see if anyone has tackled any one book and would suggest it.

Right now I am thinking maybe:

Julia Child - Probably mastering the techniques
Pok Pok
Jerusalem
Simple French Food - Richard Olney

Love the idea of a french book / Julia Child but would be curious to hear your feedback on health level comparatively speaking.

Perhaps should add that I have a decent collection of books and do not mind tackling the most challenging of any recipes. With that being said it would be nice to find a book that goes in-depth on a particular cuisine as I really enjoy learning the nuances and techniques different cultures use to really develop their flavor and their food.

What would you suggest?

I've been tempted to do something like this--I think of those you mention, Jerusalem would be my choice--if for no other reasons than the recipes are straightforward--I seem to get less frustrated with things that don't seem to make sense the way I do with other celeb chef books--and there's a lot of variety and clean flavors. It's definitely one of my favorites.

If you want to learn something Asian (modern Chinese in particular), have a look at Barbara Tropp's China Moon Cookbook. It's got a similar sensibility to Julia Child's books.

Oooh nice. I was actually thinking about looking around for something in the Chinese realm this evening. Thanks for the tips!

Richard Olney's Simple French Food is one of my favorite books and has also been quite influential. It's probably the book I wish I spent more time with. If you have the book already, you probably already have a good sense of it. Regarding health, I think if you eat reasonable portions, you'll be fine.

You've probably seen seen the movie Julie and Julia in which Julie sets out to do exactly that- Joy from cover to cover.

Very entertaining. Julia's TV kitchen is reproduced in the Smithsonian Museum.