Republished with permission from the Ester Republic.

I suffer from what one might call a bit of a collection addiction. Not of trinkets, per se, but for items in which I recognize some value beyond their utility, and thus feel the compulsion, nay the responsibility, to honor, preserve, and indeed showcase that value, lest it be lost to the world forever. My collection of fine art, for instance, consists of a relatively small, but action-packed closetful of comic books, each a prime representative of what I believe to be an as-yet-unacknowledged post-modern renaissance of self-reflexive American art.

More fledgling in size (but gaining) is a collection of cookbooks that my wife and I have been putting together. (more…)

This is what we’re up against: