Cookbooks

All right. Nobody cooks anymore, it seems. But for those of us who do, there are cookbooks. Whether we follow them religiously, or use them solely as a jumping-off point, we all have favorites. It might be The Joy of Cooking, the grande dame of cookbooks. It might be the old red-and-white-checked Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook, or the looseleaf Betty Crocker classic. My go-to is The Good Housekeeping Cookbook. Inside those covers, I found my beef stew, my grasshopper pie, my orange chiffon cake, and innumerable other favorites. It's easy to find the book on my shelf: the spine has been replaced by bands of white duct tape that hold the covers together. Southern Living's Best Recipes is equally ragged: think tuna casserole with cheese biscuits, or wilted lettuce salad.

If I were honest, however, I'd have to say that my tastes extend beyond one or two books. Mike Roy gave me teriyaki beef; Julia Child is my resource for chicken salad and lamb chops--and recently, for JC's grandmother's boiled custard, although Julia calls it creme anglaise. Chicken and dumplings calls for Betty Crocker--the ragged red book--and I can also find chocolate cake roll and seven-minute frosting in her collection. Erma Rombauer is the waffle lady, and the old Cooking for Two book is where I go for pancakes and stuffed peppers and meatloaf, for lemon souffles,  and the smallest scratch chocolate cake I know. I suppose that makes me eclectic, which is a 50-cent word for choosy.

Also in my collection are the multitude of "Can I have that recipe?"gleanings from family and friends. I regret to say that some of the recipes have outlived the friendships (though not all, by any means...) BUT whenever I make them, I have fond memories of the giver. I cannot make pepper relish without remembering my mother-in-law--or, for that matter, broccoli casserole, grits casserole, chocolate tarts, and many others. JC's aunt Ann has a place in my memory--and my box of recipes too: chess tarts and vegetable soup and easy chocolate mousse, and an asparagus casserole. Then, there's Ida Mae's dinner rolls, and I can still see JC's mom popping them into the oven in that little rectangular pan, blackened with the residue of years of use. (That pan is still in MY cupboard and still gets used..) Which shows that recipes feed memories as well as people. If I want to whip up my 1980 friends, there's the Wellesley Coffeecake from Marilyn Eastwood that conjures up that sewing group; my aunt Joan's funnel cakes, and Pauline Klunk's apple fritters do the same for visits to my Pennsylvania grandmother's house. Friends may come and go, but recipes are forever. Susan Hapgood, wherever you are, your strawberry pie lives on!

I have a recipe box. A gorgeous wooden box that was supposed to corral all my cards and slips of paper and be indexed properly so I could easily locate whatever I was inspired to make. I never completed the copying required to print all those neat little cards, but at least now, many of those recipes are on my computer--a few keystrokes away from a hard copy. I will always be lagging behind--every day, it seems, I see a new idea online and copy and paste it to my folder on GoogleDrive. Someday, I just may try it... if it doesn't get lost in my personal black hole of copied recipes.

I have compiled a cookbook that includes my favorites (with commentary), but having printed and distributed several to my family, I find (nearly every day) that I have omitted some. I religiously copy them into the book, in case I ever print a second edition, but it's really just to make my favorites easier to find. Also, others may not know that my waffles are from Irma Rombauer, and Betty Crocker has the ice cream cake roll, and the Dreamsicle frozen dessert came from that Better Homes & Gardens magazine that's crammed onto the shelf. And there are the little things--like I always sprinkle cinnamon sugar on my French toast before I flip it, so that it has a little crunch..maybe I should do an appendix.