A New Favorite Quote

"I don't think you have time to waste not writing because you are afraid you won't be good enough at it, and I don't think you have time to waste on someone who does not respond to you with kindness and respect. You don't want to spend your time around people who make you hold your breath." -- Anne Lamott

Cookbook for Boys & Girls

My kids have had the 1950s Betty Crocker Cookbook for Boys & Girls for a few years now. I remember looking at the original with great fascination when I was a child; I think my mom had had one. Ours is a reissue with a few notes about the recipes involving raw eggs.

We just finished working our way through the whole thing.

I'm rather compulsive about cookbooks. (Maybe I need to go watch "Julie and Julia.") I like to work my way through them methodically, almost like I'm using them as a cooking class, trying recipes and techniques I haven't attempted before. Then I make marks next to them so I'll remember how much we liked them. In my cookbooks, I stick to recipes that look good and don't involve too many unusual or expensive ingredients. In the kids' cookbook, we made everything except the ones involving ingredients we couldn't get, which did happen with a cookbook written decades ago. Betty Crocker does not appear to make a cream puff mix anymore. Oh, and we skipped the recipes involving peanut butter and nuts. Some recipes are still good if you leave out the nuts, but some are just boring without them, so I mostly don't try those recipes.

It was really interesting seeing what 1950s ideas of food were. The best recipes were totally basic things, like beans & weiners, grilled cheese sandwiches, and butter frosting. I don't think we'll refer to it often for recipes, but it sure was fun to try things. Now the kids are moving on to the newest Betty Crocker kids' cookbook. The first recipe was good - blueberry pancakes!

Interesting Book

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is getting interesting. I've gotten past the introductory stuff on how they moved and how people nowadays don't understand where food comes from - all fine, but now the story is really beginning. I just finished the chapter on early spring when they began their year of eating locally.

First of all, I related to her when she talked about moving into their house before the doorknobs were put on! They renovated an old farmhouse, whereas we built new, but it's fun to be able to relate to an author's experience. They put in a small garden the first summer, but they were too busy with house-related stuff to really get going on food production. Been there, done that; we had a garden, but this year the fruit trees are going in, we're getting chickens, and we want to expand the garden.

Secondly, I'm enjoying her writing style. When she was saying that they were beginning their year in the early spring because their asparagus was ready to eat, but they were despairing of finding any locally-grown fresh fruit so early as they were heading to the farmer's market, I was thinking, "Rhubarb! She's going to find rhubarb!" I love it when a book makes me feel smart for figuring out a mystery.

She talked about how asparagus is only good the day it is picked. I have never in my life eaten truly fresh asparagus, so that intrigues me. Maybe it's like sweet corn. I wonder if people who don't live in an area where sweet corn grows have any idea how good it is. Sweet corn is not worth bothering with when you get it from the grocery store even the next day after picking, not to mention several days later. I have a vegetable gardening book that says that a developer of sweet corn varieties from the University of Illinois advised boiling your water first, then picking the corn and husking it as you run to the kitchen! I think my dad would agree with him.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

I've just started reading this book. The author and her family moved to a farm and endeavored to eat only food "whose provenance we really knew." They grew their own or bought things that were locally produced. It should be interesting to read.