Cookbooks
My Mom collects cookbooks she has many versions of the Better Homes and Gardens dating back decades she also has a large collection of Julia Child, Jaques Pepin and America's Test Kitchen.
One of the reasons I know so much about cooking at all is because of my Mom and her Mom and HER Mom; my great grandmother who was an AMAZING cook and had, I think, 11 or 13 children. Some did not live past childhood some died in various wars but boy just thinking about cooking for that many kids blows my MIND!
When I was around 8 years old we visited her in Kansas, my Mom had told me all these stories about how wonderful she was and what fun she had had growing up around her. Go to this blog to read about my visit:
French onion soup and family
Sadly she died not too many years later and I never got to see her again. The house she owned and my Grandmother and Mom had grown up knowing burned down a number of years after that. Mom made a wonderful tiny model of the house for a family reunion charity auction that people fought over like you would not believe to win!
Anyway what I am trying to say with all those generations of cooks I have learned a hell of a lot not just about cooking in general but also about cookbooks. Of course my Great Grandma never used a cookbook according to mom. There weren't very many cookbooks when she was young and she was busy raising a large family, my grandmother was one of her eldest born around 1912 or so. No Julia Child, Wolfgang Puck or Alton Brown to consult. So she either wrote down her own recipes or did them from memory.
Three years ago Mom made a fantastic cookbook of family recipes again for a reunion she collected some of my Grandma and Great Grandma's recipes as well as many recipes from other family members and created an amazing book with all kinds of photos, stories and scrapbook materials. And for Christmas last year she gave me a fun little make your own cookbook kit we had seen as Costco right before X-mas. I have not started it yet but I plan to take my recipes from this BLOG as well as other recipes I have used over the years and make my own Cybele's cook book it won't be as fancy as the one mom Made since hers was 100% from scratch but it will be nice to have it all in one place instead of having to remember it 100% or check on my blog or computer for the digital versions.
I have a number of cookbooks some from when I was Pampered Chef consultant but also a number I have collected myself since I started doing all my own cooking. Mom even gave me my own Better Homes and Gardens cookbook the first year I lived on my own. I do not however own any of Julia Child's and I think this needs to change. One of the fun things about Mom's collection of BH&G cookbooks and some of the other books she has found are the old photos and illustrations she has books from the 1940's that are really fun to look through. Also over the decades recipes have altered as cooking methods have changed and the availability of more varied ingredients have improved. Also in some cases recipes or ingredients or certain cooking methods have been altered or even removed because they are no longer considered safe.
We recently checked out a local church's annual rummage sale and found some very old pamphlet cookbooks Mom ended up buying some from 1940 and little older that had great photos and illustrations in them. I found a little souffle cook book published in 1977, written in 1969. Might try my hand at souffle making this weekend while mom is out of town. I also found a really neat cake cookbook from 1999 that looked like fun.
Keep checking back my next blog might be about blowing up a souffle!
One of the reasons I know so much about cooking at all is because of my Mom and her Mom and HER Mom; my great grandmother who was an AMAZING cook and had, I think, 11 or 13 children. Some did not live past childhood some died in various wars but boy just thinking about cooking for that many kids blows my MIND!
When I was around 8 years old we visited her in Kansas, my Mom had told me all these stories about how wonderful she was and what fun she had had growing up around her. Go to this blog to read about my visit:
French onion soup and family
Sadly she died not too many years later and I never got to see her again. The house she owned and my Grandmother and Mom had grown up knowing burned down a number of years after that. Mom made a wonderful tiny model of the house for a family reunion charity auction that people fought over like you would not believe to win!
Anyway what I am trying to say with all those generations of cooks I have learned a hell of a lot not just about cooking in general but also about cookbooks. Of course my Great Grandma never used a cookbook according to mom. There weren't very many cookbooks when she was young and she was busy raising a large family, my grandmother was one of her eldest born around 1912 or so. No Julia Child, Wolfgang Puck or Alton Brown to consult. So she either wrote down her own recipes or did them from memory.
Three years ago Mom made a fantastic cookbook of family recipes again for a reunion she collected some of my Grandma and Great Grandma's recipes as well as many recipes from other family members and created an amazing book with all kinds of photos, stories and scrapbook materials. And for Christmas last year she gave me a fun little make your own cookbook kit we had seen as Costco right before X-mas. I have not started it yet but I plan to take my recipes from this BLOG as well as other recipes I have used over the years and make my own Cybele's cook book it won't be as fancy as the one mom Made since hers was 100% from scratch but it will be nice to have it all in one place instead of having to remember it 100% or check on my blog or computer for the digital versions.
I have a number of cookbooks some from when I was Pampered Chef consultant but also a number I have collected myself since I started doing all my own cooking. Mom even gave me my own Better Homes and Gardens cookbook the first year I lived on my own. I do not however own any of Julia Child's and I think this needs to change. One of the fun things about Mom's collection of BH&G cookbooks and some of the other books she has found are the old photos and illustrations she has books from the 1940's that are really fun to look through. Also over the decades recipes have altered as cooking methods have changed and the availability of more varied ingredients have improved. Also in some cases recipes or ingredients or certain cooking methods have been altered or even removed because they are no longer considered safe.
We recently checked out a local church's annual rummage sale and found some very old pamphlet cookbooks Mom ended up buying some from 1940 and little older that had great photos and illustrations in them. I found a little souffle cook book published in 1977, written in 1969. Might try my hand at souffle making this weekend while mom is out of town. I also found a really neat cake cookbook from 1999 that looked like fun.
Keep checking back my next blog might be about blowing up a souffle!
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