WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE COOKBOOK?

Some years ago, I was surfing the Internet looking for information about a cookbook author from the 1940s, when I happened to come across an article published some years ago by a newsletter called Simple Cooking.  The title of the article was “THE COOKBOOK CLOSEST TO MY HEART” and the editor of Simple Cooking posed this question to its subscribers: what cookbook would you rescue from a fire, if you could rescue only one? Out of all your favorite cookbooks, which one is closest to your heart?  The responses were varied and interesting, and included replies from a number of cookbook authors (Jean Anderson, Irena Chalmers, Julia Child, Laurie Colwin, Marion Cunningham, Karen Hess, and others) as well as comments from cookbook dealers Marian Gore and Jan Longone.  What surprised me most, though, was the number of cookbooks that I had never heard of!

The topic itself piqued my curiosity.  Back in the 1990s, a food writer for the Los Angeles Times called me on the phone one day and asked if we could do a telephone interview. I said sure, and she proceeded to ask me a few questions about my collection. One of those questions was “What is your favorite cookbook? If you had to choose just one or two, which would it be?”

I was caught off-guard by the question (and whatever my response was, it didn’t appear in the newspaper article which appeared in the December 15, 1994, issue of the Los Angeles Times). Actually, the article was really about a cookbook dealer who, at that time, had a used cookbook store in Burbank. I’ve never been quite sure how I got into the act.  And, I couldn’t tell you what my response was in 1994—my “favorite” cookbook changes frequently. (I have a theory that the only people who could limit their selection to only one or two books are people who don’t actually collect cookbooks).  At that moment, one of my favorites was  Jean Anderson’s “AMERICAN CENTURY COOKBOOK” which was published in 1997, so it wasn’t even a consideration in 1994. Anderson’s “American Century cookbook” is such a wonderful potpourri of recipes covering a hundred years—and I’ve discovered that I am greatly partial to any cookbook that manages to combine recipes with history and food lore. This thought occurred to me some time ago while I was writing a review of Mary Gunderson’s “FOOD JOURNAL OF LEWIS & CLARK, RECIPES FOR AN EXPEDITION”. The history fascinates me as much as the recipes do.

I might have said, in 1994, my choice was “AMERICA COOKS” by the Browns, – Cora, Rose, and Bob, – who compiled a book of favorite recipes when there were only 48 States, so you won’t find Alaska or Hawaii included in the roster. “AMERICA COOKS” is still one of my favorites, though. Actually, all of the cookbooks written by the Browns are really worth having in your collection.

I am very partial to another cookbook that skillfully combines recipes with history, called “CINCINNATI RECIPE TREASURY” by Mary Anna DuSablon (originally published by the Donning Company in 1983, reprinted by the Ohio University Press in 1992 with a number of reprint editions following).   I found a soft-cover edition of this cookbook back in the 90s when I was in northern California with my brother, Jim—and bought copies for all of my sisters and brothers. For transplanted Cincinnatians, this really is a treasury of recipes for dishes not found anywhere else in the United States (such as Cincinnati chili!)  I got a big kick out of the fact that my brother (a great cook, certainly, but not a cookbook collector) read the entire cookbook as we flew from Oakland to Portland.

On a similar note, I was delighted and charmed to discover Jeanne Voltz’s “THE CALIFORNIA COOKBOOK” some time ago – and this cookbook was published thirty-something years ago!  However, it’s a bonanza of California recipes and I have to admit, after living fifty years of living in California, I am more Californian, now, than Buckeye.

One other favorite Ohio cookbook is a little spiral bound book you’ve probably never heard of, titled “HAPPINESS IS…CHEVIOT PTA COOKBOOK”.  My sister Barbara was greatly involved with the compilation of this little cookbook, published in 1974 and she drew the graphic illustrations that appear throughout the book. It also contains many of our family favorite recipes.

I have to admit to also being very partial to all of my Quail Ridge “Best of….” cookbooks as well as a growing collection of cookbooks from Gooseberry Patch.  Both sets of books are filled with contemporary recipes that are generally quick-and-easy, important factors for today’s busy cook. (Thirty-something years ago, however, I would have said that the Farm Journal series of cookbooks were my favorites for everyday cooking. The Best of the Best as well as the Gooseberry Patch cookbooks remind me of the potato chip commercial that says “bet you can’t eat just one”. Bet you won’t be satisfied with just one of these cookbooks!

And, as I have spent more and more time over the years, researching and learning about books such as The Joy of Cooking, The Meta Given cookbooks, Myra Waldo’s collection of cookbooks and Jean Anderson’s  equally wonderful collection of cookbooks—I don’t think I could ever choose just one or two.  It’s sort of like that old saying, “When I’m not with the one I love, I love the one I’m with” – my favorite cookbook is probably the one I am reading right now. But if I absolutely had to choose just a few?  I think my first choice would have to be “Grandma’s Favorite”, a family collection of recipes that took us over 20 years to finally get published. My sister and I were finally able to get it to a publisher in 2004. Most of our family favorites are in this cookbook. I am also very partial to The Office Cookbook—another endeavor by coworkers and myself that also took over twenty years to get to a publisher. “The Office” referred to here is the one where I worked for 27 years before retiring in 2002.

But I have a confession to make: A few years ago a brush fire was burning dangerously close to homes in Quartz Hill, Palmdale and Lancaster. People were being evacuated close to my sister’s home, a few miles away.  At night, looking up the street, the line of fire coming over the mountain range was frighteningly close. For the first time I really DID think long and hard about what could be saved if evacuation became necessary. I then realized there would be no way to save my collections of cookbooks, cookie jars and other things. There would only be enough room for us and our pets and that would be assuming that I could get the cats into carriers. I did take out a valise and filled it with our most important documents. I could also save all the photographs that are on CDs but not the albums themselves. It was a moment of truth. Things can be replaced (maybe) but lives can’t.

But assuming we live in a perfect world in which our favorite things could be saved– what’s YOUR favorite cookbook? The one dearest to your heart?

Happy Cooking!

 

Sandy

 

 

BUNNY’S JOY

My brother Jim and Bunny (Ursula) Walker married in 1963 and embarked on a marriage that lasted for 49 years, producing two daughters and one son—and in time, five grandsons. My BF Bob and Bunny were kindred spirits and would sit outside smoking together whenever they visited me, or when we all gathered in Florida. Is it any wonder that they were both felled by the same disease, cancer of the esophagus? And that they died within eleven months of each other?

The first time I saw my sister in law, Bunny’s, copy of JOY OF COOKING was during a visit to Michigan in 1994, along with my sister Becky, to witness the marriage of Bunny and Jim’s son Barry, to Kelli; and a few days later we participated in Jim and Bunny’s youngest daughter, Julie’s, high school graduation—and a memorable party for which my sister and I participated in making chocolate-covered large fresh strawberries.

One day during that visit, Bunny made cream of asparagus soup for us—asparagus was in season and we all liked this vegetable. Bunny consulted her “JOY OF COOKING” cookbook for the recipe and I was enthralled, seeing such an old copy of a famous cookbook. This edition was published in 1963, and in the Dedication page, Marion Rombauer Becker writes “In revisiting and reorganizing ‘The Joy of Cooking’ we have missed the help of my mother, Irma S. Rombauer. How grateful I am for her buoyant example, for the strong feeling of roots she gave me, for her conviction that, well-grounded, you can make the most of life, no matter what it brings! In an earlier away-from-home kitchen, I acted as tester and production manager for the privately printed first edition of ‘The Joy’. Working with Mother    on its development has been for my husband, John, and for me the culmination of a very happy personal relationship. John has always  contributed verve to this undertaking, but during the past ten years he has, through his constant support and crisp creative editing, become an integral part of the book. We look forward to a time when our two boys—and their wives—will continue to keep ‘The Joy’ a family affair, as well as an enterprise in which the authors owe no obligation to anyone but themselves—and you.” – Marion Rombauer  Becker

Could the Rombauer clan ever imagined – even after ten years of THE JOY OF COOKING being published, that it would continue, year after year, to exceed everyone’s greatest expectations?

I am a Johnny-come-lately to “The Joy of Cooking” – even though I began collecting cookbooks in 1965, my focus was then and still is today on community cookbooks although I have branched out a bit. Sitting down with Bunny’s worn, stained, cover-falling-off copy of THE JOY OF COOKING was a revelation to me. Part of the original dust jacket was folded up inside. Also folded up neatly inside are a package of typed recipes – chili parlor chili, Skyline Chili, Beef Bar-B-Q, Hungarian Goulash, as well as perhaps a dozen or more other family favorites that cry out “Cincinnati”. There is a copy of a recipe for Skyline Chili in a handwriting that I don’t recognize. For those not familiar with Cincinnati Chili, Camp Washington Chili Parlor, Skyline Chili, Empress Chili – they are all variations of a particular chili dinner that all Cincinnati children grow up  with—we were weaned on 4 way or 5 way chili or a couple of Coney Islands. A four way is spaghetti, topped with Cincinnati Chili, a mountain of grated cheese and oyster crackers. For a 5-way add a serving of kidney beans to the dish. Coney Islands are Cincinnati’s version of a chili dog – but the specially made small hot dog comes from Kahn’s – “the weiner the world awaited”- and is topped off with mustard, chili, some chopped onion and a huge mound of grated cheese—all piled onto a hotdog bun. I can eat three of these in one sitting but can’t budge for a few hours after.

Another clipping inside the book is a seasoning for fish, chicken or steak, in my brother Jim’s handwriting. Next I found an intriguing recipe for Blackberry Brioche that was clipped from a newspaper –and I can’t wait to share it with my penpal Bev, who keeps me supplied with Oregon blackberries. This is followed by a small little stack of newspaper clippings—the kind you only find in old recipe boxes or packed within the pages of a family cookbook. There is, I was happy to see, an article from my favorite food writer, Fern Storer, for a Lemon Pound Cake; next is a recipe for a ham loaf – an old clipping; the back of the recipe is an ad for 6 large 12-oz bottles of Pepsi Cola for 15 cents (plus deposit). I found a recipe for making a Swiss Steak Sauce that was published in the Cincinnati Enquirer in 1960. Then I found a recipe for Chipped Beef Skillet Lunch that appeared in the Cincinnati Enquirer in October, 1958—(oh wait! I thought – Jim & Bunny didn’t get married until 1963. Were these recipes originally in her mother’s possession?  Was the cookbook originally her mother’s?  who can I ask? Who would know?)

From a Cincinnati Enquirer clipping dated January 21, 1960. O found a recipe for Casserole Lasagna, that I am interested in trying; then I uncovered a  recipe for Broken Glass Torte (made with three kinds of Jello)  followed by small clippings for  Banana Nut Bread, a Tangy Dressing for Tangy vegetable slaw, plus a few others that are too battered to decipher.

On a page  somewhat spattered, I found Bunny’s recipe for Cream of Asparagus Soup:

Wash and remove the tips from 1 lb fresh green asparagus, simmer the tips, covered until they are tender in a small amount of milk or water.

Cut the stalks into pieces and place them in a saucepan. Add

6 cups of veal or chicken stock page 490

¼    cup chopped onions

½ cup chopped celery

Simmer these ingredients, covered,  for about ½ hour  rub them through a sieve.

Melt:

3 Tablespoons butter

Stir in until blended

3 Tablespoons flour

Stir in slowly:

½ cup cream

Add the asparagus stock. Heat the soup well in a double boiler. Add the asparagus tips. Season the soup immediately before serving with salt, paprika, and white pepper. Before serving, garnish with:

A diced hard-cooked egg    **

I imagine that a bookstore dealer would toss Bunny’s Joy of Cooking into the trash, considering it unworthy of resale. I think much the same often happens to an individual’s recipe box – the contents are thrown into the trash and the box is put up for sale.

I don’t pretend that I am the owner of Bunny’s Joy. I think of myself as a steward, waiting for a daughter or a grandchild to come along and ask “Do you know where my mother’s or grandmother’s Joy of Cooking is?” to which I can reply “I’ve been saving it for you”.–Sandra Lee Smith

CLASSIC CHINESE CUISINE

“In China, more than in any other culture, food and civilization are synonymous…” Nina Simonds

I absolutely LOVE Chinese food – unfortunately, however, it doesn’t always love me. Over the years, I’ve discovered that many of my migraine headaches could be traced to having dinner in a Chinese restaurant.  Obviously, there’s something in the ingredients that doesn’t go well (I’ve often suspected MSG). What to do? Am I condemned forever to spend the rest of my life avoiding a kind of cuisine that I adore?  Of course not!  The solution was simple – I just don’t eat Chinese restaurant  food anymore. That doesn’t prevent me from enjoying my own, or that made by friends who understand my dilemma.

So, of course, you can understand my delight discovering CLASSIC CHINESE CUISINE by Nina Simonds, revised and updated from the original Houghton Mifflin book published in 1982.  I am amused by the original publishing date of 1982 – I don’t think I knew how to cook anything Chinese in 1982. (You’ve come a long way, baby!).  I really like CHAPTERS books. This is a large soft cover book with the most mouth-watering assortment of photographs (by Alan Richardson), easy to follow directions, and–of course—wonderful recipes.

Acknowledges the author, “This book is the product of more than 10 years of study, research and experience. So many people contributed by sharing their knowledge, expertise, and encouragement. She tells us that, “for a foreigner in Taiwan, whose basic Chinese vocabulary considered of the words ‘Hello’, ‘goodbye’ ‘thank you’ and ‘no MSG’, the phrases ‘Ni chi bao le mei you?’ was extremely useful. This salutation is uttered when greeting a relative or friend, and it is frequently blurted out at acquaintances when further conversation is impossible…although the phrase symbolizes a wish of well-being, translated literally it means ‘HAVE YOU EATEN YET?’. For a 19 year old woman who had grown up fascinated by all aspects of food and who had traveled to Asia to study Chinese cuisine, this sentence was a revelation.  Clearly, I had come to the right place”.

Ms. Simonds had grown up in New England to a family for whom food had always held a special importance. She recalls that while most parents are content to read fairy tales to their children at bedtime, her father would bundle the four of his children, pajama-clad and squeaky clean from their evening baths and then describe in mouth-watering detail, the various delicacies sampled on his latest business trips. By the age of five, remembers Nina, they were all well versed I the subtleties of cold stone crab with mustard sauce and familiar with the heady fragrance of fried saganaki, a Greek specialty of fried cheese.

“It was hardly surprising,” she writes, “that after one uninspiring year in college, I decided to reassess my goals and steer myself toward a food oriented career….”  She took an introductory course in Mandarin and a growing fascination with Chinese cuisine led her to Taiwan in 1972 where for three and a half years she apprenticed herself in restaurant kitchens with some of Taipei’s foremost chefs.  Many of these chefs were the finest of the Chinese master-chefs who had fled from China after the revolution. She writes that she was overjoyed to discover in Taiwan all the various regional flavors of China had been preserved and the restaurants in Taiwan were an  ideal training ground for studying authentic Chinese cuisine.

During that time, Simonds translated several cookbooks with Huang Su Huei, a renowned authority on Chinese food. She lived with a Chinese family and for the first time in her life, was surrounded by a nation of people whose preoccupation  with cooking outdid her own.

Simonds writes that the Chinese fascination with food dates back to the beginning of an established culture. Ancient Chinese society held men  with a refined knowledge of food and drink in high esteem. In FOOD IN CHINESE CULTURES, K.C. Chang relates that I Yin, a prime minister of the Shang dynasty (18^th century B.C. to 12^th century B.C.) and once a chef, apparently  initiated his political career on the strength of his cooking prowess (perhaps akin to James Beard running for president in the U.S.A.?)

At a time, writes Simonds, when most other cultures regarded food solely in terms of basic survival, Chinese cuisine was well developed and correct preparation, service and consumption were an essential part of social behavior.

She adds   that “In his writings, Confucius placed great emphasis on food and helped to   establish the refined standards of Chinese cuisine that have endured to this   day.  By the Han dynasty (206 B.C. to   220 A.D.) the Li chi, the most extensive   handbook of ritual and social behavior ever compiled, was widely in use. Some   of the earliest written recipes and rules of conduct for meals appear in this   volume. A section titled ‘Five Points   to Ponder at Meals for Scholarly Gentlemen’ gives guidelines for ‘Taking   food as a Means of Attaining Tao: The superior person does not for one moment act contrary to virtue, not even for the space of a single meal.     He first adopts the right posture, make the proper table arrangements and     reflects on his own adequacy before he takes any food…” Sandy’s     Cooknote: Taoism is a     Chinese philosophy based on the writings of Lao-tzu (fl. 6th    century bc), advocating humility and religious piety.

Simonds also writes “Through the centuries, food has been the inspiration for innumerable Chinese scholars, artists and poets. One of the earliest examples is a poem written in 200 BC by Chu Yuan as an appeal for the departing soul of a beloved king. Culinary delicacies, in appetizing detail, are mentioned in an attempt to lure him back to life….”

Simonds believes that “Food is an international language that can provide valuable clues to the history and culture of any country.  This is particularly true  of China,” she writes, “ and it is my belief that insight into the history of philosophy of food in ancient China contributes to the understanding of modern Chinese cuisine and culture…”

With this in mind, she has tried to acquaint the reader with the stories behind the food, relating the origin of the dishes, their symbolic importance and their significance in the contemporary Chinese diet….”

Accordingly, Ms. Simonds has carefully selected recipes from the repertory of classic Chinese dishes to represent a sampling of traditional specialties from all parts of China. “Although refined by chefs down through the centuries and slightly adapted to modern methods, many of these dishes were originally conceived and developed in ancient China…”

Before listing recipes, Simonds has gone to great lengths to provide us, the readers, with an extensive list of Special Ingredients. Some you may know about, such as Hoisin Sauce and Soy Sauce, Oyster Sauce and Chinese Rice Vinegar—but are you familiar with Gaoling Wine, Sesame Paste or Rice Vinegar?   Others that we might not have been so familiar with twenty years afo—but have become acquainted with over the years would be Cilantro, Dried Tangerine or Orange Peel and Five Spice Powder.

There are these and many others to acquaint yourself with. CLASSIC CHINESE CUISINE is packed with interesting tidbits of information for preparing the recipes, or some morsel of historic information. For example, Simonds writes “In the city of Taipei, food vendors pass through the alleyways, day and night, hawking their wares. One man rode a bicycle with a box strapped behind his seat, filled to the brim with hot steamed bread and flower rolls. Upon hearing his call, my Chinese surrogate would dispatch the children to buy a supply of the buns to eat with our dinner instead of rice. Flower rolls are particularly delicious with red-cooked meats and stir-fried meat and vegetables dishes…”

Flower rolls, incidentally, are made with a basic dough and get their name from the shape. Illustrations with the recipes provide some easy to follow directions.

And recipes?  I can’t begin to give them all justice. CLASSIC CHINESE CUISINE contains hundreds of mouth-watering recipes. Sometimes just the name alone makes the recipe enticing. How could anyone resist a recipe called TWO WINTERS OR VEGETARIAN EIGHT TREASURES –or how about PHOENIX EYE DUMPLINGS which, Simonds explains, gets its name from the phoenix, a symbol of beauty and peace, long venerated by the Chinese. A number of dishes are said to have been inspired by this mythical bird.

CLASSIC CHINESE CUISINE is a large soft-cover cookbook published by CHAPTERS in 1994. It appears to have been reprinted at least once, in 2008. Amazon. Com has a pre-owned copy available for 8.85.  Make sure you find the cookbook written by Nina Simonds! While checking on Amazon to find out what is available, I found half a dozen cookbook by different authors – but with the same title (If I am not mistaken, I believe it has always been a copyright law that titles cannot be copyrighted). I’m sure all the other Chinese cookbooks are     worthy but I don’t have them so I can’t vouch for the other titles.

Alibris.com has pre-owned copies for $1.51 and up.

Review by Sandra Lee Smith

 

BOUNTIFUL OHIO

BOUNTIFUL OHIO, subtitled “Good Food and Stories from where the Heartland Begins”  by James Hope and Susan Failor, and published by Gabriel’s Horn in Bowling Green Ohio, (1993) is the kind of book you will read again and again, with heartland recipes to refer to time and time again.

I hardly know where to begin—this book is so jam-packed with information and recipes.

Mr. Hope is rightfully Professor Hope; he taught at a university in rural Ohio. A native New Englander, James Hope set out, one summer, along with professional home economist Susan Failor, to “discover” Ohio.

Cincinnati, Ohio, is my birthplace; I was a native buckeye up to the age of twenty-one when my husband, baby, and I set out to drive across country to California.  But Ohioans never forget their roots and I have spent many summers, with my children, visiting relatives and friends in Cincinnati suburbs.

During those summer vacations, we made numerous trips to the famous chili parlors for platters piled high with Cincinnati chili, a concoction like none you have ever eaten. (A Four Way consists of spaghetti, topped with Cincinnati chili, chopped onions and grated cheese, topped off with oyster crackers. The best place to go to is Camp Washington Chili Parlor).

We ate wonderful German sausages with sauerkraut, farm-fresh sliced tomatoes and sipped Ohio’s famous Meier’s wine….so imagine my delight, discovering BOUNTIFUL OHIO—An entire cookbook devoted not only to recipes                              and foods cherished by Buckeyes, but filled, also, with the foodlore of Ohio.

I always knew that Cincinnati was famous as a meat-packing town, most notably Kahn’s, just as I always knew that Proctor and Gamble’s first company was located in Cincinnati. What I didn’t know is that P&G owed its origins to the meat-packing industry, too, that candle maker William Proctor and soap maker James Gamble married sisters and combined forces to form one of the most successful American business enterprises ever. This business owed its foundation to the fats and scraps collected from meat-packing plants.

Comment the publishers, “The recipes in this book range from cheesy cornbread to Sara’s Amish dressing and from Firelands Braised Beef Noir to Di’s Ohio sour Cherry Pie (winner of the best pie in America). They are the wholesome flavors of good food from home in Ohio”.

I also discovered an apple maple chutney recipe that I can’t wait to try, and along with an authentic recipe for Johnny Marzetti, the story behind its origins.  If you have very many regional cookbooks in your collection, you most likely have an assortment of Johnny Marzetti recipes, with Marzetti spelled many different ways. Here, then, is the true story behind Johnny Marzetti.

While not a community cookbook, BOUNTIFUL OHIO is definitely a regional cookbook, a book you will thoroughly enjoy and treasure for many years to come, whether or not you are from Ohio–or neighboring Kentucky, Indiana, Michigan, West Virginia or Pennsylvania.  While numerous books have been published, extolling the virtues of Midwestern cooking, few have delved so deeply to explain why it is so good.

In the Preface, James Hope and Susan Failor write “You don’t have to travel far to go a long way in Ohio: the state is so diverse—geographically, economically, ethnically—but the scene outside your window changes constantly. Sometimes that makes it hard for Ohioans to figure out just who they are—but it intrigues and delights the authors of this book, and is one of the reasons we decided to write it…”

The authors say they’re glad they did. Being interested in food, they ate their way from border to border and found a lot of it, in a variety ranging from five star virtuosity (The Maisonette in Cincinnati that held that rare ranking for decades, closed its doors in 2005).

The authors say that Ohio is one where farm and cookie factory literally exist side by side.  Ohio is smaller in land area than 33 other states, so it packs a surprising amount of agriculture and industry into a small space.

“Midwesterners that they are,” write Hope and Failor, “Ohioans don’t toot their own horns much. But Ohio ranks among the nation’s top ten or twelve states in corn, soybeans, wheat, fresh vegetables, dairy products, chickens, egg, hogs and vegetables for processing. It does more than grow food, too; it also processes vast amounts of ketchup, pickles, soup, ice cream, Swiss cheese, cereal and many other things. Most people don’t realize what an efficient little cornucopia this state is…”

The authors owe the success of BOUNTIFUL OHIO to all the people listed at the end of the book—farmers, grocers, chefs, food processors, homemakers, extension agents, professional government officials and dozens of other Ohioans who helped them write this book.

Chapter One is titled “IN SEARCH OF BOUNTIFUL” and Professor Hope explains that he took to the road in mid-August, a few days after teaching his last class of summer session at a university in rural Ohio and was now free for a year, on leave to do research of the kind that is supposed to add to the world’s body of knowledge. He would do that, but had something else in mind, too.

He says that like William Least Heat-Moon in BLUE HIGHWAYS and Ishmael in MOBY DICK, Hope was in search of something. While those writers were trying to fill gaps  in their souls, he was hoping to fill a different kind of vacancy—he was looking for good things to eat.

(Many books have been written in the past three or four decades about finding good food to eat throughout the USA—I know because I have collected a lot of those books–but this was the early 1990s and a lot of those books hadn’t been written yet).

Professor Hope confessed that after years of gulping quick lunches between classes, he was hungry and intended to eat leisurely and well—but there was a deeper purpose to this as well. He had a theory (as professors often do) that food, and the search for it, would help him come to know Ohio, perhaps become even more of an Ohioan.

Culture, he writes, is all the things a people value—it is how they establish their identity, their sense of who they are, their uniqueness. Culture, he says, is art, music and literature but it is also film, furniture, car ornaments, roller coasters and merry go rounds. And, says Professor Hope, it is food. Especially food: our foods are among the common statements of who we are; we create and consume them all day long. (I would have said it’s also our cookbooks. In the mid 1960s when I first began collecting cookbooks, I started with a church cookbook my father bought from a co-worker at Formica. Dad bought several copies of this Cincinnati Methodist church cookbook, for my sisters and my mother and me.  I cherished that cookbook and began to wonder if there were of it “out there.”  I have learned a great deal over the years about places from the cookbooks published by churches and clubs).

Professor Hope says that getting to know this place and its culture—to become part of it—was important to him.  He had lived in Ohio for more than a decade and a half, but still felt like a New Englander, someone from away. “I couldn’t blame the Ohioans,” he writes, “they seemed friendlier than the taciturn Yankees with whom I was raised.  The problem was this: I had never really taken the time to get to know the place, and Ohio seemed more like an address than a home.”  (This is something I can relate to—when we first came to California in 1961, I didn’t feel like a Californian. We returned to Ohio in 1963 for the birth of our second son, Steve, – but before the year was over, I knew we had to return to California. Ohio was no longer my home. I had somehow become a Californian).

But, back to James Hope and BOUNTIFUL OHIO – in which he says that New Englanders know exactly who they are and they have the sights, the sounds, the ancestors and the flavors to prove it to you, whether you ask them or not. They claim a sense of place as birth right and have all the materials for it. Professor Hope says he grew up surrounded by mountains and Indian trails, Revolutionary War battlefields, home ports for clipper ships and brooding houses with small-paned windows that concealed secrets.

Further on he writes how, in the sixth decade of his life, he knew where he had been; he did not know where he was now and meant to do something about it.

There is a great deal more to the Preface to BOUNTIFUL OHIO but I would be remiss to write too much of it and take away from you the experience of seeing my home state of Ohio from another’s eyes. (I have been seeing Ohio through my birthright eyes and then, later on, I began seeing Ohio in a different light—becoming more appreciative as I got older and would visit places with one of my brothers or one of my nephews. With my brother Bill over the span of several years – we visited Hale Farm and Cuyahoga National Park, as well as Stan Hywet mansion in Akron, Ohio. This is a 65 room Tudor style mansion built in 1912 by Goodyear Rubber company founder F.A. Seiberling and his wife.  It was touring the house and gardens that made me realize how much I love old houses. Curiously, the house is not named after a person, as commonly believed, and it took 4 years to build at a cost of $150,000.

You can spend a lot of time reading BOUNTIFUL OHIO—it’s the kind of book to read a little at a time, relishing all the history—and the recipes!

BOUNTIFUL OHIO can be purchased on Amazon.com at one cent and up for a pre owned copy.  Mine is a softcover (oversized) cookbook.   A great addition to collectors of regional material.

Alibris.com has pre-owned copies of BOUNTIFUL OHIO starting at 99c.

A great regional cookbook to add to your collection!

Review by Sandra Lee Smith

 

 

 

FRESH FROM THE FARMERS’ MARKET by Janet Fletcher

I love the synchronicity of things. It was when I first began collecting Farmer’s Market cookbooks and writing about them that I discovered one I hadn’t known about.

This is FRESH FROM THE FARMER’S MARKET by Janet Fletcher. (Let me tell you; the cover of this cookbook is totally captivating).

Ms. Fletcher’s book, published in 1997, comes to us from Chronicle Books in San Francisco (one of those names you come to recognize as hallmarks in cookbooks).

The publishers at Chronicle Books tell us “Across the country, consumers are rediscovering the old fashioned pleasures buying direct from the growers. (and as I write this, fifteen years after this book was published, I’m sure you will agree; this is as true today as it was in the 1990s). They write, “They’re also discovering the wonderful variety of fruits and vegetables available fresh from season to season…FRESH FROM THE FARMER’S MARKET, by Janet Fletcher, offers cooks a seasonal produce guide plus eighty fabulous recipes…”

Mary Ann Gilberbloom, a publicist at Chronicle Books, says that, on a personal note. since she started working on this book, she began taking her daughter to local farmers’ markets. She says it has changed her very picky ten year old’s view of fruits and vegetables.

Explain Chronicle books, in their press release, in FRESH FROM THE FARMER’S MARKET, Fletcher celebrates America’s incomparable harvest with recipes and photographs that showcase the riches of each season.  Her compelling text conveys the pleasures of shopping the farmers’ market and highlights the benefit of buying direct from the growers access to fully ripe, fresh-picked produce; the chance to buy unusual varieties, many that supermarkets never carry; and the availability of more organically grown produce….the text includes the voices of dozens of farmers describing the special attributes of the produce they bring to market, explain why it’s so often superior to the wares at the local  grocery store. Then, in eighty tantalizing recipes, Fletcher puts these fruits and vegetables center stage, motivating readers to make the most of their purchases….”

“Noted photographer Victoria Pearson,” Chronicle Books proclaims, “captures the year round beauty of the farmers’ market in fifty stunning natural light photographs/…” (Trust me, they do not lie. As someone who has studied photography and spent years trying to capture the perfect photograph, I am in awe of Ms. Pearson’s  work).  Victoria Pearson is a  Los Angeles based photographer whose work has appeared in ”A BREAD FOR ALL SEASONS,” as well as MARTHA STEWART LIVING,  CONDE NAST TRAVELER and TOWN AND COUNTRY magazines.

And if someone out there is saying “so?, I simply want to say, it isn’t often that photographs of a recipe that ensnares you and piques your interest, so that you say “I can do that!” (whether you realize it or not, a gorgeous color photograph of a recipe for, say, a collage of fruits as shown on pages 114 of Ms. Fletcher’s book—is often the impetus that motivates us into rushing out to buy the necessary ingredients  to make a yummy-sounding recipes). Even the cover of this great cookbook is a collage of fruits, veggies and the farmers’ market.

Janet Fletcher trained at the Culinary Institute of America (a name most of us are familiar with) and the Chez Panisse Restaurant in Berkeley, California, and at the time of publication, (1997) was a staff food writer for the San Francisco, Chronicle, and she also contributes frequently to magazines on wine and food topics.  She has authored or co-authored eight cookbooks, including MORE VEGETABLES, PLEASE, GRAIN GASTRONOMY and PASTA HARVEST.  Ms. Fletcher lives in Oakland, California, with her husband, who is a Napa Valley winemaker.

“Season by season” proclaim Chronicle Books, “Fresh from the Farmer’s Market guides readers to fruits and vegetables at peak freshness and explains how to recognize quality.  Did you know that a fresh strawberry is a shiny berry?  Or that a squeezed artichoke squeaks when fresh? (go ahead! Squeeze the artichokes!  Or that a fresh green bean will stick to your clothes?  (and no, I didn’t know that!)

“Regular farmers’ market shoppers,” say Chronicle Books, “will find fresh  inspiration in recipes such as Festive Spinach Salad with Roasted Beets and Feta, Tapioca Pudding with Strawberry Rhubarb Sauce and Quesadillas with Squash Blossoms and Corn…”

For my money, not much can compare with the Blackberry Macaroon Tarts, the Pasta with Eggplant, Tomato, Olives and Capers, or the fresh fig galettes (these were a must when our fig trees were in season, back in the day).

Along with the great recipes and mouth-watering photographs, you will surely enjoy Ms. Fletcher’s chatty style when she shares with you the background to her recipes, The farmer’s markets and her experiences. It’s like spending an afternoon with a good friend over for coffee and….fig galettes.

FRESH FROM THE FARMERS’ MARKET is available at Amazon.com starting at  sixty cents for a pre-owned copy. I couldn’t find it listed on Alibris.com but if you go to either of these sites, you will find a bumper crop of cookbooks relating to farmer’s markets.

If this review generates enough interest, I can review more farmer’s market books.

Review by Sandra Lee Smith

JANE & MICHAEL STERN, COOKBOOK AUTHORS

The concept may have originated with Duncan Hines, but Jane and Michael Stern have forged a career out of traveling throughout the country and then compiling cookbooks about the foods they have tasted while traveling hither and yon.  And I suspect, being a writer myself, that some of the non-cookbooks written by the Sterns were offshoots of their travels and research into the cookbooks they have been writing for more than a few years now. I know that when I am researching one thing, others pop up and you fish around for some paper and pen or pencil to jot down other ideas that surface. Some of the books appear to be a nod towards favorite people or topics.

In 2003, I reviewed a beautiful Cookbook titled THE LOUIE’S BACKYARD COOKBOOK” by Jane and Michael Stern, with recipes by Doug Shook. This compilation at the time of publication in January, 2003, was the latest in a series from Rutledge Hill Press of Nashville, Tennessee, celebrating America’s best regional restaurants.  Louie’s Backyard is a restaurant, located in Key West, Florida. While I lived in North Miami Beach, Florida, for three years, I’m sorry to say I never made it to Key West. Louie’s Backyard Cookbook makes me yearn to go.

That said, a number of other cookbooks, well-compiled with beautiful dust jackets have been created by the Sterns. These include:

*THE BLUE WILLOW INN COOKBOOK/Voted Best Small-Restaurant in the South by Southern Living Readers, published in 2002;

*THE DURGIN-PARK COOKBOOK/Classic Yankee Cooking in the shadow of Faneuil Hall, also published in 2002;

*FAMOUS DUTCH KITCHEN RESTAURANT COOKBOOK/Family Style Diner Delights from the Heart of Pennsylvania, published in 2004;

*COOKING IN THE LOWCOUNTRY FROM THE OLD POST OFFICE RESTAURANT/Spanish Moss, Warm Carolina Nights and Fabulous Southern     Food, also published in 2004;

*SOUTHERN COUNTRY COOKING FROM THE LOVELESS CAFÉ/Fried Chicken, Hams, and Jams from Nashville’s Favorite Café, published in 2005;

(Asterisk denotes the cookbooks in this series that I have.   But to get a better picture of what Jane and Michael Stern were writing before they latched onto the concept of the series named “A Roadfood Cookbook, Celebrating America’s Best Regional Restaurants” we have to go back in time.  In my collection, I have the books preceded with an asterisk. To date, this is the list of literary accomplishments achieved by the Sterns, possibly incomplete. Mostly, I searched on Google for titles I didn’t have, checked for titles in the ones I do have, and then ended up in Amazon.com ordering half a dozen more.  The books I ordered should be coming in the mail anyday now.

Here is a list of books written by Jane and Michael Stern:

TRUCKER: A PORTRAIT OF THE LAST AMERICAN COWBOY, 1975 Jane Stern only. One critic wrote: “like many early 70′s books on culture of the USA, it was written with heavy realism with nothing hidden-no gloss. The tone is reverent but lays out all the harsh realities of truckin’, great photos, great poetry, almost punk. 70′s graphics set the tone to this gritty ode to the “last American cowboy”. a REAL slice of American pie”.

ROADFOOD, 1977, 8^th edition in 2011,Roadfood: The Coast-to-Coast Guide to 700 of the Best Barbecue Joints, Lobster

AMAZING AMERICA, 1978 – out of print (and hard to find), described as: Unusual, interesting, and extraordinary sights, events, and attractions throughout the United States, ranging from the Campbell Museum in Camden, New Jersey, to the Calaveras Jumping Frog Jubilee in Angels Camp, California.

AUTO ADS, 1978

DOUGLAS SIRK, 1978, Michael Stern only (Sirk was a film director who was born in Germany to Danish parents, raised in Denmark but moved to Germany when he was a teenager. He started his film career in 1922 but left Germany in 1937 because of his political leanings and his Jewish wife. He made numerous films, including Magnificent Obsession in 1954 and All That Heaven Allows, in 1955)

HORROR HOLIDAY/Secrets of Vacation Survival, 1981

*SQUARE MEALS/AMERICA’S FAVORITE COMFORT FOOD COOKBOOK,  published in 1985 reprinted 2001

JANE AND MICHAEL STERN’S COAST TO COAST COOKBOOK: REAL AMERICAN FOOD, 1986

ELVIS WORLD, 1987 – Has been described as a vast universe defined by all that Elvis stands for: the music, of course, and the movies, the life and the legend, but also the cascade of material things he collected and consumed (from pink cadillacs and the cheeseburgers to diamond rings and Graceland), the glitter and the mammoth success (one billion records sold, more than anyone else in history starting with its four page-gate fold title page, this book is bursting with rare photographs, with wonderful Elvis memorabilia (1950s fans magazines: “Elvis – Hero or Heel?”  Elvis wallets, Elvis handkerchiefs, Elvis bedroom slippers with the Elvis with the Elvis phenomenon as it exists today. Elvis Presley has become an American symbol as recognizable as the American flag. He is a landmark in almost everyone’s life, and his image continues to mesmerize. Elvis has transcended his previous status as merely the most popular entertainer in history, and “Elvis world” explains and revels in this phenomenon. With affection and wit – and a touch of irreverence – the Sterns guide us through Elvis world, showing us an Elvis we’ve never seen before. –This text refers to an alternate hardcover edition.

*A TASTE OF AMERICA, published in 1988

STERNS GUILD TO DISNEY COLLECTIBLES VOLUME 1 by Michael Stern,  published in 1988

SIXTIES PEOPLE, 1990

JANE & MICHAEL STERN’S ENCYCLOPEDIA OF POP CULTURE, VOL 2 1990

THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BAD TASTE, 1990

*AMERICAN GOURMET, published in 1991

WAY OUT WEST, 1993

*HAPPY TRAILS: OUR LIFE STORY BY ROGER ROGERS, DALE EVANS, JANE AND MICHAEL STERN, 1994

STERNS GUILD TO DISNEY COLLECTIBLES VOLUME 3 by Michael Stern,  published in 1995

*EAT YOUR WAY ACROSS THE U.S.A. published in 1997 (My favorite Cincinnati eatery, Camp Washington Chili, is featured in this book)

THE BEATLES, A REFERENCE & VALUE GUIDE, Barbara Crawford & Michael Stern, 1998

DOG EAT DOG: A VERY HUMAN BOOK ABOUT DOGS AND DOG SHOWS, 1998

TWO PUPPIES, 1998

CHILI NATION, 1999

*UP A COUNTRY LANE, BY EVELYN BIRKBY, JANE AND MICHAEL STERN 2000 (This title came to my attention when I was writing about old time radio programs, WHEN RADIO WAS KING – Don’t touch that Dial” (June, 2009)

*BLUE PLATE SPECIALS AND BLUE RIBBON CHEFS: THE HEART AND SOUL OF AMERICA’S GREAT ROADSIDE RESTAURANTS, 2001 (does not have the logo of “a Roadfood Cookbook Celebrating America’s Best Regional Restaurants”- it appears that the logo was adopted and appears for the first time on the Blue Willow Inn Cookbook-sls)

*THE BLUE WILLOW INN COOKBOOK/Voted Best Small-Restaurant in the South by Southern Living Readers, published in 2002;

*THE DURGIN-PARK COOKBOOK/Classic Yankee Cooking in the shadow of Faneuil Hall, also published in 2002;

THE HARRY CARAY’S RESTAURANT COOKBOOK: THE OFFICIAL HOME PLATE OF THE CHICAGO CUBS, 2003

AMBULANCE GIRL:  HOW I SAVED MYSELF BY BECOMING AN EMT, 2003, Jane Stern only

*FAMOUS DUTCH KITCHEN RESTAURANT COOKBOOK/Family Style Diner Delights from the Heart of Pennsylvania, published in 2004;

*COOKING IN THE LOWCOUNTRY FROM THE OLD POST OFFICE RESTAURANT/Spanish Moss, Warm Carolina Nights and Fabulous Southern     Food, also published in 2004;

ELEGANT COMFORT FOOD FROM DORSET INN: TRADITIONAL COOKING FROM VERMONT’S OLDEST CONTINUOUSLY OPERATING INN, 2005 (with Sissy Hicks)

*SOUTHERN COUNTRY COOKING FROM THE LOVELESS CAFÉ/Fried Chicken, Hams, and Jams from Nashville’s Favorite Café,  also published in 2005;

FRIENDLY RELATIONS, a novel, published in 2005

*TWO FOR THE ROAD/Our Love Affair with American Food, published in 2006

ROADFOOD SANDWICHES: RECIPES AND LORE FROM OUR FAVORITE SHOPS COAST TO COAST, 2007

500 THINGS TO EAT BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE: AND THE VERY BEST PLACES TO EAT THEM, 2009

THE LEXICON OF REAL AMERICAN FOOD, 2011

CONFESSIONS OF A TAROT READER: PRACTICAL ADVICE FROM THE REALM AND BEYOND, 2011, Jane Stern only

Obviously, not every book compiled by the Sterns is a cookbook! For those who like to compile a complete bibliography of favorite authors, this should give you something to work with. I counted 39 titles. One of the articles I read in Google lists more than 40 books.

Jane and Michael Stern, who are both baby boomers born in 1946, got their foot in the door by writing books about travel and food (after college graduation, neither one could find employment in the fields they had majored in).

They may be best known for their “Roadfood” books, website and magazine columns, such as the now defunct GOURMET MAGAZINE, for which they were staff writers for 18 years. The Sterns have won many awards, including three James Beard awards and the James Beard Perrier-Jouet Award for lifetime achievement. They were inducted into the Who’s Who of Food and Beverage in America, in 1992. (When I first began delving into their titles, my first impression was that my younger brother Bill, also born in 1946, would appreciate the Sterns’ early books more than I, being a baby boomer himself. But the deeper I delved, the more fascinated I became.

The Sterns met as graduate students in art at Yale University, married in 1970 – and much to my surprise, divorced in 2008. While they now live in different cities, they continue to write and travel as a team, despite the divorce.  The Lexicon of Real American Food was published in 2011, the same year that Jane published CONFESSIONS OF A TAROT READER, based on her long-standing (but little known) career as a tarot card reader. And, although my blog articles focus primarily on cooking, cookbooks, recipes and favorite cookbook authors—I find myself intrigued by the titles of the Sterns collective or individual non-cookbook accomplishments.  It’s almost like thinking you have known somebody for a long time and suddenly discover there are layers of other interests, like the layers to an onion.

Normally, I would give you ordering information on various cookbooks—but there are too many titles to do this. I suggest, if you are interested in one of these titles, that you visit Amazon.com or Alibris.com (many of their cookbooks can be purchased very reasonably); I obtained a lot of my information on the Sterns’ books from these websites and Google. or, read my post Louie’s Backyard Cookbook, posted in June, 2012 on this blog for a sample of their  “Roadfood”  series.

Review by Sandra Lee Smith

 

 

 

 

 

 

GOOD HOUSE MAGIC BY CAROL TENNANT

GOOD HOUSE MAGIC” also by Carol Tennant is the fourth in this series that I originally reviewed for the CCE; it occurs to me that this book would be a beautiful companion reference book to “Good Kitchen Magic” to give to a new bride – or any young person you know who might be starting out in their first apartment and not know a great deal about how to do a lot of things (and not have mom at their elbow to show them!). Ok, so it’s NOT a cookbook–but how many easy to read and follow books tell you how to take care of your house or apartment?

Similar in style and format to the other Retro MQ books in this series, “GOOD HOUSE MAGIC” is filled with photographs and illustrations from another era—but there the similarity ends, for the ideas and suggestions offered in this, as well as the other MQ publications, are very up-to-date and cover such a wide range of topics.

The author starts with chapters that  suggest ways to set up your house or apartment, what things you will need, how to make your home attractive and comfortable—including a comprehensive list of cooking utensils, pans, casseroles, electric gadgets and baking equipment you’ll need to get started.

Within the pages of “GOOD HOUSE MAGIC”, you will learn some of the following:

• How to care for antiques
• How to  clean
• How to  take care of  chimneys and fireplaces (how many how-to books tell you that?)
• How to take care of your rare books
• Caring for antique silver and metalwork
• How to  care for paintings, drawings, and photos
• How to  deal with allergies
• Maintaining  care for your household plants—and getting the most from your cut flowers
• How to      do laundry and take special care of your “delicates”

And…quite a lot more. You know, my sons grew up in a household where their father was self employed with a washer-and-dryer business for many years—so you’d think that they of all people would know something about doing laundry. Right? Wrong.  I was at one of my son’s not long ago, housesitting, and decided to take the load of towels out of the washer and put them into their dryer. I absolutely could not believe how overloaded their washer was.  A lot of the information in “GOOD HOUSE MAGIC” is really basic, and things most of us take for granted (like separating lights and whites from colored fabrics) – but you’d be surprised how many people just don’t know these basic concepts. There is such a wealth of information in “GOOD HOUSE MAGIC” -   you just might discover a lot of things you didn’t know either!

Ms. Marshall has published several books including one called “FUNKY STYLE” which was also published by MQ Publications.  She lives in London with her partner and two children.

“GOOD HOUSE MAGIC” published 2003 by MQ Publications originally sold for $16.95 in the USA. The ISBN # is 1-84072-451-X.  I found it listed on Amazon.com for $2.38 (new) or starting at one cent, pre-owned. Alibris.com has copies priced at $3.43 new, or starting at 99c for a pre-owned copy.

Originally reviewed for the Cookbook Collectors Exchange in 2004, GOOD  HOUSE MAGIC has staying power.

Reviewed by Sandra Lee Smith

SHEILA LUKINS ALL AROUND THE WORLD COOKBOOK

In the Introduction to ALL AROUND THE WORLD COOKBOOK, author Sheila Lukins writes, “Much of my childhood was spent in awe of the magical songs, stories and mysteriously foods that my grandparents brought with me when they emigrated to America from Russia. My grandmother would tell me wonderful tales about growing up in Kiev, as she nimbly made tiny meat pastries or crepes to be filled with cherries or sweetened cheese mixtures…”

She continues, “I can’t remember which came first, my desire to visit their far away land, or my wish to cook like my grandmother. Throughout the years, these memories blended”.

Thinking back on those times, Ms. Lukins realized that is was then that her book was born. ALL AROUND THE WORLD COOKBOOK, published by Workman, (1994)  is a big, thick, wonderful culinary magic carpet ride.

Sheila Lukins lived in Paris by the time she was in her late twenties; later she would form her own catering service which grew into a partnership to open The Silver Palate Specialty food Shop. A line of packaged foods and three cookbooks followed and eventually the Silver Palate business was sold.

Lukins explains how, after a trip to Spain, she was having lunch with her publisher and editor, “waxing ecstatic about tapas bars, olives, and the new influence of Mediterranean cuisine that was taking America by storm” when her publishers proposed to send her “AROUND THE WORLD” to “adopt, assimilate adapt and create” for her next cookbook. (Don’t you just love it?)

Ultimately, Ms. Lukins visited 33 countries over a two year period. She says she sometimes encountered political hot spots, including her first stop, Russia, the home of her grandparents.

I hardly know how to fit this enormous, wonderful book into a brief review—nothing I can say will do it complete justice. I was delighted to find a number of unusual condiments and spices, recipes for preserved lemons and Thai pickled carrots, tomato apricot chutney and salsa…you know how partial I am to “accompaniments”. There is even a recipe for kiwi salsa!  (It wasn’t too long ago that most Americans didn’t know what kiwi was – nor did we know, a few decades ago, how diverse “salsa” can be…we’ve come a long way, baby.)

But in case your taste buds lean in another direction, there are hundreds—some four hundred and fifty—of other recipes ranging from angel berry trifle to chicken satay, from tapenades to banana bread, and from Andalusian Steak Rollos (a beef steak with Serrano ham) to Dublin’s corned beef and cabbage.

Sheila Lukins fills the pages of her cookbook, not just with recipes but also with stories and anecdotes, tantalizing bits and pieces of her travels to whet your appetite. She tells, for instance, of marketing in Budapest. Budapest! My paternal grandfather came from Budapest!!

She writes, “Budapest’s Grand Central Market, to my great disappointment, was closed during my visit. This grand iron and red brick structure built in 1895 at the foot of the Liberty Bridge, will be closed for major restoration for several years. But I did find a small cozy makeshift market in some old warehouses where a handful of the vendors had set up shop. I knew I was in the right place when I saw all the dried peppers strung outside the entry way…” (by now—lo these many years later—the Grand Central Market and Liberty Bridge should be back in business!)

Under Island Secrets, Lukins tells us, “In Montego Bay, I spent lots of lunchtimes at the pork pit, sitting with the locals at green picnic tables under palm trees, heavy with ripe coconuts, eating jerk pork and chicken…at this roadside joint (literally) with trucks and buses rattling by, the great Jamaican barbeque was served up in plastic baskets lined with paper. Along with the pork and chicken, I devoured yellow yams roasted in foil and deep fried cornmeal crullers….”

I almost feel like I went along for the ride.  ALL AROUND THE WORLD COOKBOOK is the kind of cookbook you will treasure for years to come. It has a delightful easy-to-read and enjoy format and is also a good companion cookbook to Sheila Lukins’ U.S.A. COOKBOOK, published in 1997. A few of my favorite recipes from ALL AROUND THE WORLD COOKBOOK would be Island Grilled Red Snapper, Jerk Pork Ribs Jamaica, the Indonesian Sweet Garlic Sauce and Casbah Carrot Soup from Morocco.  This cookbook will surely use up an entire packet of those little square post-its as you choose recipes to try. And, having mentioned Sheila Lukins U.S.A. Cookbook, I’ll have to provide you with a review of that cookbook as well.

Amazon.com has ALL AROUND THE WORLD COOKBOOK priced at $19.99 for a new copy, or starting at one cent for a pre-owned copy, or 99c for a collectible copy. Alibris.com has copies of this cookbook starting at $1.50.

Happy cooking! Even happier cookbook collecting!

Review by Sandra L. Smith

EVERYBODY’S MAKING UP LISTS (SO I WILL MAKE UP MINE)

Don’t look now but everywhere you turn, a magazine or newspaper is offering a list of some kind.  Parade magazine (the supplement that comes with my newspaper) offered a list of  PICKS – 13 things  for us to look forward to in 2013. Only two of the 13 things impressed me, personally – #2 is Maeve Binchy’s final novel, titled “A Week in Winter”. I have read all of Binchy’s books so I’m sure I will buy this one.   And a Johnny Cash Museum opening in Nashville is something to anticipate, I think.  My youngest son and I are big Johnny Cash fans. I was thrilled when this son became a fan—it was something I could share with him. I am not impressed with the rest of the list which includes a Revamped American Idol (I don’t watch this program) and Stephen King’s JOYLAND – I don’t read Stephen King. One aside – I DID read some of King’s earliest books and loved them. Then he became “too far out” for my taste.

From Travel & Leisure comes a list of “13 for 2013” – the places to go this year, which includes Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and Gold Coast, Australia, Charlevoix, Quebec – and not to be outdone, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

I am more impressed with Bon Appetit’s list of TOP 25 FOOD TRENDS although now I am forced to confess, I am not sure exactly what the top 25 food trends are meant to be.  I’m guessing it’s the article titled STARTERS, the BA 25/what to eat, drink and cook in 2013.  Number 5 features the Good & Evil chocolate bar that costs $18 so I guess some of us (me, anyway) will be sticking to Hershey’s cocoa or the Baker’s unsweetened chocolate bars. Number 15 on the list is Fresh Horseradish which I probably won’t buy anymore; it was something Bob loved and before he got sick, we bought fresh horseradish, converted it into little jars of horseradish sauce and I still have some in the freezer!  Number 16 is a new gadget so you can mill your own flour. That, and the rest of the 25 didn’t impress me much—but overall, this issue of Bon Appétit for January 2013, is worth the purchase if you aren’t a subscriber because it’s the Cooking School Issue and is packed with information from making roasts to salads to sauces and sweets.  It also contains a meat lover’s guide to vegetables.  A must issue for serious chefs and wannabes everywhere.

That said, you might want to check out the FOOD & WINE issue for January, 2013 – it contains Best Recipes & Food Trends for 2013 which includes America’s most exciting new restaurants and their top recipes. The cover features Spice-Rubbed Roast Chicken & two sauces—and out of all the recipes featured, I think this is the one I am most likely to prepare.

From Family Circle magazine for the new year is a list of 35 Ways to be Healthier but the Slow Cooker Suppers may be at the top of my list—while Conde Nast Traveler offers Gold List, World’s Best Places to Stay and features 510 (yes, five hundred and ten) top hotels, resorts and cruise ships. REDBOOK offers 23 Speedy Ways to get Organized while HOUSE BEAUTIFUL features 101 Kitchen & Bath Ideas.

Following is the Cooking.com list of its top choices for favorite recipes:

1 potato and cheddar cheese soup

2 sweet potato casserole

3 chocolate cream cheese brownies

4 CHICKEN NOODLE CASSEROLE

5 EASY PEACH COBBLER

6  OLD FASHIONED MEAT LOAF

7MINI SAUSAGES AND MUSHROOM QUICHES

8 LAYERED POTATO AND CHEESE CASSEROLE

9 ORANGE SOAKED BUNDT CAKE

10 PULLED PORK WITH CARMELIZED ONIONS

11LEMON SNOW DROPS

12 PUMPKIN CHEESECAKE SQUARES

My fav choice from this list was the Orange-Soaked Bundt Cake – but I do love orange in any recipe. You need to go to Cooking.com to get the recipe, though.

I turned my mind to favorite cookbooks – specifically lists of favorite cookbooks and the first to pop up on Google.com is a list from Epicurious.

This is what Epicurious had to say:

“First on the list is (quite naturally) THE EPICURIOUS COOKBOOK: MORE THAN 250 OF OUR BEST LOVED FOUR-FORK RECIPES FOR WEEKNIGHTS, WEEKENDS AND SPECIAL OCCASIONS By Tanya Stelle and the Editors of Epicurous  (clarkson Potter, publishers)

Second on their list is BOUCHON BAKERY BY Thomas Keller and  Sébastien Rouxel (Artisan)  Third is HOMEMADE PANTRY by Alana Cjernila (Clarkson Potter, publishing) which features 101 foods you can stop buying and start making yourself –such as vanilla extract. I have been making my own for a long time but  the book looks like something I will want to add to my collection.

#4 on the #Epicurious list is a book titled ROOTS: THE DEFINITIVE COMPENDIUM WITH MORE THAN 225 RECIPES, by Diane Morgan.

#5 on their list is a book titled, simply, SALADS by Mindy Fox (Kyle Books, publisher) while

# 6 is SEAMUS MULLEN’S HERO FOOD by Chef Seamus Mullen (Andrew McMeel, publisher) followed by

#7 SECRETS OF THE BEST CHEFS, by Adam Roberts (Artisan, publisher) and   #8  is SOUVENIRS by Hubert Keller, and is a food memoir published also by Andrew McMeel.

#9 is VIETNAMESE HOME COOKING by Charles Phan – and last but not least is

#10 VINTAGE CAKES by Julie Richardson (Ten Speed  Press) (note to self: write something about the vintage cookbooks in my collection).

You  can obtain more detailed information on all of these cookbooks by going to www.epicurious.com  and there is a list of top ten for 2011 as well. I am going to be totally  honest with you – I guess it’s my meat-and-potatoes-midwestern mentality, but out of all these books the ones I am most likely to check out when I go back to Barnes & Noble is  Vintage Cakes even though I have a very old cookbook of vintage cake recipes. I like the idea of Souvenirs, but I do enjoy food memoirs and have a fairly respectable collection of these books. I am very likely to buy HOMEMADE PANTRY if it lives up to my expectations.

MY FAVORITE TEN COOKBOOKS FOR 2013

I would like to give a special salute to the following cookbooks – some may not be your favorites and some may be books you haven’t even heard of. But a request I  received the other day for a particular recipe from a Meta Given cookbook, (thanks to Mary Jane for requesting it), made me stop and think about the cookbooks I turn to most often when someone  (including myself) is searching for a particular cookbook.

So #1 on my list today for best ten reference cookbooks is META GIVEN’S cookbook.  When I was a teenager, a copy of Meta Given’s “The Modern Family Cookbook” appeared in our family bookcase (a little cherry wood bookcase with glass doors, that my younger sister now has). I think it was a book club offering but that baffles me as neither of my parents ever joined a book club. I have a vague memory of my mother refusing to pay for it and so it languished on the family bookshelves until I began to read it and eventually claimed for my own. And, to add to the mystery, there is no indication on the inside pages of the cookbook that it was ever a book club selection.  The original copyright was 1942. This edition was copyrighted by Meta Given in 1953, which sounds about right to me.

Not surprisingly, the pages most stained are those with cookie recipes on them- rocks and hermits, gum drop cookies, something called cocoa Indians, lemon drop cookies and molasses drop. My mother turned me loose in the kitchen when I was 9 or 10 years old and most of the time, I baked cookies.

I now own a copy of the original 1942 “Modern Family Cookbook” which is somewhat thicker and heavier than the 1953 edition. But in 1947, Meta compiled “Meta Given’s Modern Encyclopedia of Cooking” which is in two volumes. I had to laugh at myself; I thought I only had a copy of Volume I, but when I began going through some of my old cookbooks in our new built garage library, I found a copy of Volume II. So, it’s “Meta’s Given’s Modern Encyclopedia of Cooking that I am elevating to first place”. You name it and chances are, you will find it in one of these two volumes.

#2 in my list of favorites is “Ida Bailey Allen’s Service Cookbooks, volume 1 and 2”.   The cookbook I grew up on, and learned to cook from, was – as I have written before in Sandychatter—an Ida Bailey Allen Service cookbook that I believe my mother bought for a dollar at Woolworth’s. (I now have that very cookbook, the Service Cookbook, which is certainly battered, tattered and stained. Years later I searched for, and found, more pristine copies).  When someone requests a long forgotten recipe, I have often found it in one of Allen’s cookbooks. She was a famous radio recipe personality back in the day and I wrote extensively about her in my article “I LOVE YOU IDA BAILEY ALLEN, WHEREEVER YOU ARE”. It had this title because this is another one of those instances where I have been unable to learn what happened to the cookbook author when she disappeared from public view. Ditto Meta Given! I am still trying to discover where Given went when she retired!

#3 on my list of favorites “AMERICA COOKS” by the Browns, – Cora, Rose and Bob Brown. Published in 1940 by Halcyon House, “America Cooks” presents favorite recipes from 48 states (Hawaii and Alaska were not yet states in 1940).  I’ve read “America Cooks” many times—and it was “the” book that led to my quest to find other cookbooks like it; cookbooks with America in the title, regional cookbooks that were still regional before the USA became so homogenized. Now I have an entire bookcase with cookbooks bearing the name “America” in their titles but I still love “America Cooks” the best. Thanks to my penpal Betsy, who introduced me to The Browns’ cookbooks, I began collecting all of their titles. All of their books are truly the kind of cookbook you can sit down and … read like a novel. And much to my surprise and delight, earlier this year—or maybe it was the year before—a descendant of the Browns discovered by Blog and wrote to me.  And thanks to one of them, I managed to find a copy of the Browns’ Vegetable Cookbook, the only one out of the series that I was missing. For me, exchanging messages with someone from this Brown family was sort of like Paul Harvey’s famous last line “now you know the rest of the story.” I heartily recommend ANY of the Browns’ cookbooks as great additions to your cookbook collection.

#4 on my list of top ten for 2013 is another one for which my Sandychatter subscribers write requesting a recipe. The title is “THE MYSTERY CHEF’S OWN COOKBOOK”.  The Mystery Chef was a man named John MacPherson who hosted a Philadelphia cooking program “The Mystery Chef” on NBC in 1949. It was one of NBCs first daytime programs and the show ran on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons from March 1^st through June 29.

MacPherson was a former chemical engineer who arrived in the USA from London in 1906.  He started on radio in the 1930s when he took over a program for a friend and soon began to share his love of cooking with his listening audience. His “Mystery Chef” radio program   ran from 1932 to 1945 – a period of time in which radio recipe programs were in their heyday. (What baffles me is that I never came across the Mystery Chef when I was writing about radio recipe programs…first for the Cookbook Collectors Exchange, and more recently, on my Blog. Please see “When Radio was King” a post I entered on my blog on June 21, 2009). Radio recipe programs were enormously popular almost from the inception of radio and continued for decades. NOW you have television recipe programs, a forum that started very simply and has grown until we have the Food Network and dozens of television chef celebrities!)

MacPherson’s programs featured recipes for a limited budget, which makes perfectly good sense considering that in the 1930s the USA was in the throes of a Great Depression. He was very popular with thousands of people who requested copies of his no-fuss recipes. In 1934 MacPherson copyrighted his recipe book which was published in 1936 under the title “The Mystery Chef’s Own Cook Book” by Longmans, Green and Co.  And why he had the name of the Mystery Chef will most likely make you laugh, as it did me.  MacPherson writes, in his cookbook, that having a job as a radio cooking show was considered beneath him, by his family, particularly his mother. So he didn’t use his own name, and became famous simply as “the Mystery Chef”.  Every so often someone who remembers the Mystery Chef radio program or had a Mystery Chef cookbook, will write requesting a favorite recipe. So, The Mystery Chef has spot number 4 on my list.

#5 on my list is cookbook author Jean Anderson’s “AMERICAN CENTURY COOKBOOK”, the most popular recipes of the 20^th century and although Anderson has written numerous cookbooks, American Century Cookbook is my favorite reference book. (I wrote about Jean Anderson in January of 2011 and you can find a bibliography in that blog post).

#6 of my favorite cookbook authors is Myra Waldo, another prolific cookbook author who compiled dozens of books, most out of print and some only to be found in tattered condition.  I wrote about Myra Waldo originally for the Cookbook Collectors Exchange quite some time ago; I updated and wrote about her again in 2011 on my blog.  My favorite cookbook—and there are dozens from which to choose—is “COMPLETE MEALS IN ONE DISH” published in 1965.  The author and her husband traveled throughout Europe—Robert Schwartz never seems to be addressed by name, he was always referred to as “My husband”—and each chapter is introduced with a delightful short story of where they traveled and what they saw, and how they happened to discover this dish or that. I was so intrigued with the short stories that I leafed through the entire book and read them all first, before the recipes.

Like Ida Bailey Allen and Meta Given, Myra Waldo disappeared from the public eye—I’m not sure when—and for years (prior to the Internet), I was unable to find any trace of her. It broke my heart when I finally discovered, recently, while updating my information on her – she retired in Beverly Hills, California, and passed away just a few years ago. What I wouldn’t have given to talk to her!  (Please refer to my blog post “Where’s Waldo”, from January, 2011, for a bibliography of her cookbooks—and be forewarned! There are a lot of them!  Sometimes putting together a bibliography is as challenging as writing the article itself.

#7 which a lot of American cooks might think should have been #1 (but I have spent my entire life marching to the beat of an off-beat kitchen drummer) would have to be JOY OF COOKING. The Joy of Cooking is one of the United States’ most-published cookbooks, having been in print continuously since 1936 and with more than 18 million copies sold. It was privately published in 1931 by Irma Rombauer, a homemaker in St. Louis, Missouri, who was struggling emotionally and financially after her husband’s suicide the previous year. Rombauer had 3,000 copies printed by A.C. Clayton, a company which had printed labels for fancy St. Louis shoe companies and for Listerine, but never a book. In 1936, the book was picked up by a commercial printing house, the Bobbs-Merrill Company. Joy is the backbone of many home cooks’ libraries and is commonly found in commercial kitchens as well.

The book was illustrated by Rombauer’s daughter, Marion Rombauer Becker, who directed the art department at John Burroughs School.. Working on weekends during the winter of 1930-31, Marion designed the cover, which depicted St Martha of Bethany, the patron saint of cooking, slaying a dragon. She also produced silhouette cutouts to illustrate chapter headings. Much slimmer and more conversational than later editions, the original Depression-era edition included sections on canning, pickling, and instructions on how to use meats such as squirrel, possum and raccoon—all recipes that can be found in Meta Given’s cookbooks. Well-worn copies of the book from the library of Julia Child are on display at the National Museum of American History.

In 1962, a revised edition of Joy was published, the first since Irma Rombauer’s death. This edition was released without Marion Becker’s consent. Subsequent releases of the book in 1963 and 1964 were essentially massive corrections, and Becker was known to swap copies of the 1962 edition for later corrected versions.

This edition was published in paperback format (most notably, a two-volume  mass market paperback edition) . It is still widely available in used bookstores. The 1964 edition was also released as a single-volume comb-ring bound paperback mass-market edition starting in November 1973 and continuing into the early 1990s.  The 1975 edition was the last to be edited by Becker, and remains the most popular. More than 1,000 pages long, it became a staple in kitchens throughout the country. Though many of the sections may feel dated to the contemporary American palate, many home chefs still find it a useful reference and it is still widely consulted. The foreword to this edition explains that Becker’s favorite recipes include “Cockaigne” in the name, (e.g., “Fruit Cake Cockaigne”), after the name of her country home in Anderson Township, near Cincinnati, Ohio.  The 1975 edition remained in print, primarily in various inexpensive paperback editions, until the 75th Anniversary edition arrived in 2006.

After the 1975 edition, the project lay unchanged for about 20 years. In the mid-1990s, publishers Simon and Schuster, which owns the Joy copyrights, hired influential cookbook editor Maria Guarnaschelli (who I have never heard of), formerly of William Morrow, and editor of works by Jeff Smith and others. Guarnaschelli, under the supervision of Rombauer’s grandson Ethan Becker, oversaw the creation of the controversial 1997 edition. The new edition kept the concise style of its predecessors, but dropped the conversational first-person narration. Much of the book was ghostwritten by teams of expert chefs instead of the single dedicated amateur that Irma Rombauer had been when she created the book. The 1997 version is fairly comprehensive, covering a great deal of detail that is not traditionally part of^] American cooking; however, it deleted much information about ingredients and frozen desserts.

Originally sold with the title The All-New, All-Purpose Joy of Cooking, it was reissued in February 2008 with the title The 1997 Joy of Cooking after being sold for some time alongside the 2006 edition. In 2006, a 75th Anniversary edition was published, containing 4,500 recipes and returning Rombauer’s original voice to the book. The new version removes some of the professionalism of the 1997 edition and returns many simpler recipes and recipes assisted by ready-made products such as cream of mushroom soup and store-bought wontons. The 2006 edition also reinstates the cocktail section and the frozen desserts section, and restores much of the information that was deleted in the 1997 edition.

The new version includes a new index section called “Joy Classics” that contains 35 recipes from 1931-1975 and a new nutrition section.  So now you know the rest of THIS story (whew!)  I have several old and battered Joy of Cooking cookbooks in my collection as well as a copy of the facsimile edition of the first Joy. At least I think it’s the first. With so many editions, who can tell? (Quick aside – I first started thinking about JOY when I was visiting my brother Jim and his wife Bunny, in Michigan years ago. I think it was for their daughter/my goddaughter’s high school graduation and she is now married and the mother of two little boys. Bunny had the book out to make cream of asparagus soup and it was the most battered tattered cookbook of my acquaintance—held together with rubber bands.  **

Rombauer had no need to write a dozen or two other cookbooks; she made her fortune with just one. But thinking and writing about Irma Rombauer reminded me of another one of my favorite cookbook authors—Marion Cunningham who passed away not long ago. Marion wrote perhaps half a dozen cookbooks but may be most famous for her re-write of the Fannie Farmer cookbook.

So #8 on my list is a toss-up between Marion’s re-write of the famous Fannie Farmer Cookbook and another one that I simply love, Marion’s “LOST RECIPES” published by Alfred A.  Knopf in 2003. I love it for its title and for what it represents – recipes being lost to us, keepers of the flame, collectors of old recipes, old favorites connecting the past with the present.  Marion believed that families were becoming lost and disjointed, families not sitting down together at meal times. I wanted to tell Marion that I cooked meals throughout all the years my children were growing up—we sat down to eat at 6 pm and there were often several droppers-in who knew I made dinner every night and they also knew no one was ever turned away. And for almost all the years Bob and I shared a life together, I made dinner almost every night, until he got too sick to eat. I still cooked for him but a meal might consist of macaroni & cheese when he could no longer enjoy most foods. But it’s a pleasure to me to report that my youngest son and his family, at least, have dinner at the table, together, at 5:30 almost every night. The torch has been passed.  Discover LOST RECIPES for yourself.

And #9 is a companion cookbook, in my mind, to #8. Number 9 is “AMERICA’S BEST LOST RECIPES” published by Cook’s Country Magazine in 2007. I wrote a poem for my poetry group about this collection of Lost Recipes so I will share it with you:

The editors of Cooks Magazine/ published A cookbook that is titled/                  AMERICA’S BEST LOST RECIPES/

121 kitchen-tested heirloom recipes

too good to forget

and it is a beautifully bound book

with hidden wire ring binding

and filled with a some recipes

I have never heard of,

Although there are others

I am familiar with:

Nine Day Slaw,

24-hour Salad,

German Potato Soup,

Beefy Bean and Barley Soup,

Brunswick Stew,

Kolaches,

Monkey Bread,

Wacky Cake,

Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake,

Lazy Daisy Cake,

Hummingbird Cake,

Orange Kiss Me Cake

Nesselrode Pie,

lackberry Cobbler,

Peanut Blossom Cookies,

Brown Sugar Fudge and

Buttermilk Candy–

But I have to confess –

I never knew any of these recipes

Were lost–

 The people at Cooks Magazine

Had only to give me a call;

I could have told them none

Of the recipes were lost.

I have all of them in my

files,

Especially peanut blossom cookies–

I make those every

Christmas

For my son Kelly

ho loves them.

Maybe some people just

Didn’t know  where to

look For them.

**

#10 is a repeat of my 2011 list, “500 TREASURED COUNTRY RECIPES” from Martha Storey and Friends –from Storey Books in Vermont. Why do I like it so much?  Whenever I am searching for a recipe “500 Treasure Country Recipes” is probably the next book I will pluck off my shelves. Occasionally, I’ll be searching for something to include in an article on my blog – or I might be searching for something unusual, like Vinegar Candy – because someone wrote and asked me about it. I love the format of “500 Treasured Country Recipes” and I like that it includes many preserving recipes, whether it’s a canning recipe or drying or freezing the harvest. Published in 2000, it’s still very up-to-date eleven years later. It really is a TREASURE.

You may have noticed, there are a lot of famous cookbook authors whose cookbooks I have left out –that’s because I prefer to focus on the cookbooks I really do use and refer to often. So, what’s YOUR favorite cookbook? And why?  And be glad I only selected ten, not a hundred, of my favorites. Actually…the more I browse through my cookbook shelves, the more I find “favorite’ cookbooks”.

Happy Cooking and Happy New Year!

Sandy

CHRISTMAS IS COMING AND THE GOOSE IS GETTING FAT

(This was written originally for the Cookbook Collectors Exchange, about a decade ago)

Christmas is on the horizon (you may not want to think so, since Thanksgiving isn’t even here yet) but our household gears up for Christmas by September, which is days away as I write this. I have begun to stock up on dried fruit–and there are so many more to choose from these days; pineapple and mango and cherries and ginger–many ingredients which will make a fantastic fruitcake, even if you think you don’t really like fruitcake.

Cookbook author Edna Lewis recalled Christmas in Freetown, writing, “When I was a girl growing up in a small farming community of Freetown, Virginia, preparations for Christmas started in early September, when we children went out to gather black walnuts, hickory nuts, and hazelnuts….Whenever she saw a break of a day or two from the September harvest, Mother would set about making the fruitcake. It was a family affair that my older sister and I cheerfully participated in….”  I know I get my pecans and walnuts from a supermarket, but in my heart I am gathering black walnuts and hickory nuts somewhere.

I stock up on sugar and flour, watching for sales, and begin digging through my recipe files for all the favorite cookie recipes. I have four sons and six grandchildren and they all have different favorites. All of my friends beg for their favorites. We bake a lot of cookies starting in October. I also spend time making and decorating cookies with my grandchildren and my sister’s three children. This is something they all love to do.

You can make almost any cookie dough ahead of time and pack it in portions in the freezer–but you can also bake cookies in advance, if you want, and freeze them too.

Since our freezer is usually packed, I find it easier to freeze the cookie dough and then go on a baking frenzy with whoever wants to help.

We’ve already been canning little jars of jams and jellies, preserves and fruit butters – much of which comes from our own trees and vines, and these are earmarked as gifts for various friends and former co-workers. There was a time when I gave everyone in the office where I worked a jar of jelly for Christmas. There were less than 50 employees in the office at that time. Now there are over 200. I began limiting the gift-giving of jellies to my own department before I finally retired.

It’s almost as much fun going through my recipe collections and all of the Christmas cookbooks, looking for different holiday cookie or candy recipes to try. Sometimes they’re winners, sometimes not – but it’s always enjoyable, experimenting and trying something new. The reward is when someone asks for the recipe!

I have to admit, my techniques for baking and candy-making has changed considerably since I first started making cookies in my own kitchen in 1958. In fact, one of the first pamphlets I obtained that December is a now-tattered 4-page booklet titled “From our Kitchen to Yours  – 66 Wonderful Ways  to capture the warmth and Joy of an old-fashioned Christmas, BETTY CROCKER’S HOLIDAY ALMANAC, 1958, with many of the sweet treats made from products no longer available, such as Betty Crocker’s Meringue Mix to make kisses, or creamy fudge made with Betty Crocker Chocolate Fudge Frosting Mix. This was long before you could buy so many different ready-made frostings in a tub.  Betty Crocker has changed a great deal in 50 years but so have we.

And I don’t mind confessing that many of my cut-out sugar cookies start out with rolls of refrigerated cookie dough that can be tinkered with to make many different types of cookies.  In fact, you can buy cookbooks totally dedicated to showing you how to make

Dozens of cut-out, bar, and drop cookies – with refrigerated cookie dough.  I have to say, though – I never use ready-made frostings or icings of any kind; those are all made from scratch. This is just a personal preference and I make a really decadent deep chocolate  frosting.

We’ll be ready for Christmas 2012 although as I sit in front of a fan trying to stay cool, it’s hard to imagine Southern California cooling off enough by December!

And no, we won’t be having goose. Prime rib or pork roast, most likely.

–Happy Holidays!  Sandy