Friday Favorite: Cookbooks Old and New
I love to cook, always have. When I was a little girl I dreamed of opening a bakery. I started cooking a lot of our family meals when I was in high school and never left the kitchen. The older I got, the more I started cooking from scratch, trying new ingredients and honing my cooking skills. I have to admit that I rarely use a cookbook, I’m fairly skilled at inventing recipes and in knowing what combinations taste great. This doesn’t stop me from buying and reading cookbooks. I do use recipes occasionally, but they never are followed to a T. Cookbooks inspire me to try to new things and give me ideas for dishes and combinations.
I do follow recipes when it comes to canning. Changing these recipes dramatically can affect the acidity which will affect the canning length and whether or not the item can be water bath canned or will need to be pressure canned. I have a lot of old canning cookbooks as I usually follow their canning length recommendations instead of the newer ones, since I think they’re overkill and cook things to death.
One of my favorite old canning cookbooks is the Preserving the Taste by Edon Waycott. It’s no longer in print and can be difficult to find. The recipes are fabulous, many of them mixing herbs with fruits and vegetables with wonderful results. Mr Chiot’s favorite preserve, Caramelized Apple Marmalade with Thyme is from it. One of my favorites, Yellow Tomato Preserves, is also from this little book. I also love the 1973 edition of Stocking Up: How to Preserve the Foods You Grow Naturally, this specific version uses honey as a sweetener in most of the recipes instead of sugar which I love. I also have the 1972 Farm Journal’s Country Cookbook that was given to me by Mr Chiot’s step mom (it was her mother’s). It’s my go-to book for pickling as all the recipes I’ve tried are really great!
I check a lot of cookbooks out of the library before buying them. If I find that the recipes sound interesting or I try a few that are really great I will purchase the book. Some books I buy for inspiration and ideas for food as well as photography. I keep a list of books that I’d like to buy. These books are currently on my to-buy list:
As my tastes change I try to get rid of older cookbooks I’m no longer using, especially if I get new ones (you know the rule if you buy something you have to get rid of something). I recently added The River Cottage Preserves Handbook and Rustic Fruit Desserts: Crumbles, Buckles, Cobblers, Pandowdies, and More to my collection.
This stack of books is getting the boot from my collection. I no longer use them and I figured they’d be better off in someone else’s kitchen where they’ll be used and enjoyed. If you’re interested in this stack of Cooking Light Annual Recipes cookbooks let me know, I’ll choose one person who comments that they want them below to adopt these cookbooks from my collection. Our winner is Brittany P, congrats.
What’s your favorite cookbook? Have you found any great new ones recently? Do you have any great vintage cookbooks?
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Long Winter Evenings
“It is most amazing how much literature you can cover during the long winter evenings. We read fairy tales and legends, historical novels and biographies, and the works of the great masters of prose and poetry.”
Maria Augusta Trapp The Story of the Trapp Family Singers
One of the things I do love about winter is that I have time for reading, not as much as I’d like since I’m pretty busy with my day job right now. I’ve always been a bit of a bookworm, and it doesn’t get better as you get older. I have a list a mile long of new books I want to read, and yet I find myself often flipping through old favorites that live on my bookshelf. This time of year I find myself often referencing gardening books while ordering seeds and planning my summer garden.
The Story of the Trapp Family Singers, the book quoted from above was one I read in December and I throughout enjoyed it and would highly recommend it. It’s a wonderful story of a thoughtful life. I also really enjoyed the The River Cottage Cookbook and the The Wild Table: Seasonal Foraged Food and Recipes both cookbook/stories. I’m now moving on to Growing a Farmer: How I Learned to Live Off the Land and a few photography books. I’m always on the lookout for great books to add to my list.
Read anything great lately that you can recommend to us?
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Hothouse Flower Review and Giveaway
A couple months ago I was contacted by Trish from TLC Book Tours to see if I would review Hothouse Flower: and the Nine Plants of Desire. I’m not much a modern novel reader, but figured since was a novel featuring plants, I would give it a shot.
I received my copy many weeks ago when I was super busy getting ready for vacation. I finally cracked it open last Wednesday when we arrived home. I have to admit when I read the back cover I was a bit nervous:
Lila Nova is a thirty-two-year-old advertising copywriter who lives alone in a plain white box of an apartment. Recovering from a heartbreaking divorce, Lila has a simple mantra: no pets, no plants, no people, no problems. But when Lila meets David Exley, a ruggedly handsome plant seller, her lonely life blossoms into something far more colorful. From the cold, harsh streets of Manhattan to the verdant jungles of the Yucatan Peninsula, Hothouse Flower is the story of a woman who must travel beyond the boundaries of sense and comfort to find what she truly wants.
I was happy that it wasn’t the romance novel I had feared, at least not much of one. There were a few romantic sections, but it definitely isn’t the main point of the book, thank goodness! It was a quick read, I finished it within 24 hours of starting. It only took me a couple sittings to get through the entire book, which I always enjoy. I hate books that are tedious to read and difficult to make yourself sit down to finish them. This book held my attention enough to make me want to sit down and read through it.
This book is a fluffy quick read, not an in depth book that includes lots of detail and history. You’ll find gaps in the story, perhaps questions about the mythology, storyline, the main character’s decisions and so many other things. But this book isn’t meant to be a John Steinbeck novel, it’s meant to be a quick summer read so you have to take that into consideration. If you go into it expecting something deep and meaningful you’ll be disappointed. I reminded me a lot of a Barbara Kingsolver novel, only shorter, less descriptive and a little less environmentally preachy. If you like her novels you’ll most likely enjoy this one.
The plant references were particularly interesting and I found myself wanting to look up all the plants mentioned in the book. Margot definitely has a wonderful imagination since she came up with an entire mythology about the nine plants of desire and the lore that surrounds them. The 9 Plants of Desire give the person who has all 9 of them power, insight and understanding. While reading through the book I found myself wanting to read more in depth about all of these 9 plants: gloxinia, mexican cycade, cacao, moonflower, sinsemilla, lily of the valley, mandrake, chicory and datura. There were also many other plants talked about in the book: bird of paradise, fire fern, orchids, a special nameless extinct plant, Chinese windmill palm, croton, Mexican fan palm, floribunda rose, and others.
I won’t go into much detail about the book, I don’t want to give anything away (I always hate that). Now that I’m finished with this book I’ll be giving away my copy of this book as well as a copy from the publisher. All you have to do is comment below and you’ll be entered into a drawing for the book.
Any great quick read novel recommendations? Do you know of any great books that feature botanical themes?
**WINNERS**
Kaytee from Gardening to Preserve
Peggy
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Something to Think About
Every now and then I feel like sitting down with a good book, not just any good book, a good classic. My favorite author is John Steinbeck, I have never read a book of his that I haven’t thoroughly enjoyed. He has such a wonderful way of writing that is perfectly descriptive, yet not too wordy. I like that his stories are true to life, not always ending happily and not every story works out neatly in the end. They are at times very harsh, but that’s what I love about them. I love that his endings have a way of making you think.
Yesterday I finally found some time to sit down with a cup of coffee and one of his books I haven’t read before, The Red Pony. I especially love the last last little short story in this book titled: Julias Maltby. It’s a wonderful story that makes you wonder about happiness and cultural norms and whether poverty has anything to do with money. This is why I love his books, they usually give me something great to think about and contemplate while I’m out working in the garden.
I have a few other books from the library on my “to read” pile and I can’t wait to find some time for them.
Who’s your favorite author? Do you love any of the classics?
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Free Copy of “Stay” by Allie Larkin
I first met Allie through her blog Allie’s Answers, which has become The Greenists. If I remember correctly I came across her blog when looking for ways to make homemade cat litter. I’ve been reading her blog every since, and if you’ve been reading here you know that she comments occasionally here as well.
This is Allie, author of ‘Stay’ (photo courtesy of Allie)
When she asked me about hosting a day in June to feature her new book Stay, I was more than happy to get involved. I’m always ready to help a friend, especially when it’s something as great as getting your book published!
I’m usually drawn to the classics, anything by John Steinbeck or Ernest Hemingway, so I don’t read a ton of new literature (besides gardening books and cookbooks). I received a copy in the book last week and finished it in two sittings, a sure sign that it’s a good book (at least for me). This book is entertaining; a story about a girl that buys a German Shepherd puppy from Slovakia on-line after a few too many drinks the night after her best girlfriend marries her best guy friend that she was in love with. Of course you can imagine the things that transpire when a huge puppy shows up at the airport a few days later. I won’t ruin the story for you, so I’ll stop with that description.
This is one of Allie’s dogs, a German Shepherd named Argo (photo courtesy of Allie)
I will be giving away a copy of the book to one lucky reader. Comment on this post and you’ll be entered in the contest to win a free copy of Stay by Allie Larkin. If you’d like to read an excerpt from the book head on over to her website and download the first chapter.
What’s your favorite book?
