One month, one cookbook

I have a lot of cookbooks from which I’ve made only one recipe. They’re the culinary equivalents of one-night stands, which may be what a woman in her middle years is reduced to – no, wait (slap, slap) aspires to – as kale becomes more attractive and infinitely more forthright than some Dale.
I also have cookbooks I’ve never used. I page through them and read them in bed or on the porch. Intriguing recipes are duly noted, with every intention of cooking them someday, you know, when I have time.
Then there are the cookbooks, fewest in number, to which I turn again and again. Sometimes, the red ribbon is still marking the page from the last time I made clafouti. I can always find my lasagna recipe in Betty Crocker because it’s the rippliest from the way the noodles have dripped water onto the page.
Still, these other cookbooks lie waiting, and in that way we attach feelings to cars and washing machines and computers (mostly varying degrees of cranky), I wonder whether they feel some resentment at being merely reading material, if not wall insulation.
So I’ve decided to delve into them, one book at a time, one month at a time. I won’t cook from them exclusively; I want to make my favorite dishes when I wish, and besides, that’s been done, most famously, by one Julie channeling Julia.
Instead, a chosen book will be my default. On those days when I’m casting about for an idea, it will be my go-to resource. When I entertain, I’ll look here first. And when I try a new recipe, I’ll tell you what transpired.
By the end of the month, I should have a handle on whether this book has a place in my life. Is it in sync with what I keep in my refrigerator or cupboards? Maybe it will change what I consider staple stock. Maybe I’ll learn a new technique that I’ll take with me to the grave. Maybe, at month’s end, I’ll take a particular volume up to Half-Price Books and be done with it.
I’m starting with “A Platter of Figs and other recipes” by David Tanis, the head chef at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif. The title and author’s name are all in lower case, which has always struck me as precious and smirkingly humble.
But I’ve been thumbing through this book on and off for several months, and I want to like the idea that an outstanding dessert may be nothing more or less than a perfectly ripe platter of figs. Except I also know that there lurks a recipe for pig’s ear salad.
I’ve never cast about for dinner idea imagining that as a possible solution.
I grew up on a hog farm. I know where pig’s ears have been.
So we’ll see. It’s Sept. 1. Shall we dance?