The Friday Five

[siglinde99]

1. When was the last time you wrote a check at a store?

Maybe 15 years ago? Probably longer.

2. When was the last time you looked up something in a book?

Yesterday. I love my books, especially my rare and out-of-print cookbooks (which is what I was using yesterday).

3. When was the last time you used a rotary/dial phone?

I think it might have been just before we moved to Germany in 1977 and didn't have a phone for several years. By the time we got one, the world had moved to push buttons. I remember looking at one in early university, but I think they were retro even then, so I don't recall that I actually purchased one. If I did, it was certainly abandoned by the time I moved home with my parents in 1985.

4. When was the last time you played cards with actual paper cards?

At my old cottage, with my kids, I think. I have been divorced for 8 years, so some time before that.

5. When was the last time you talked to a stranger?

Yesterday, at the year-end dance show at my daughter's school. There were two very polite young men who came to sit beside me, then left to join friends. Their seats were then taken by a quiet couple about my age, who chatted briefly. On my other side was a lady with a purse as big as mine, who turned out to have a daughter in my daughter's class. We managed to keep an empty seat between us to store our purses.

Comments

[spikesgirl58.livejournal.com]

What's your favorite out of print cookbook? They are a passion of mine as well.

[siglinde99.livejournal.com]

My favourite for every day is the 1969 edition of Betty Crocker. It came to me from my mom, with it already grease-stained and falling open automatically to the chocolate chip cookie recipe. It was my first grown-up cookbook, after having started out with the Betty Crocker for Boys and Girls (which I still own).

I also do a lot of historical cooking, so I use quite a few academic books (transcriptions that sometimes have redacted recipes and sometimes just editing notes). Of those, probably my favourites are a 1956 translation of Apicius and a 1984 transcription of Menagier de Paris. I also have a 16th C Portugese cookbook transcribed in about 1959 that took me years to track down. It has never been translated, so I am slowly working my way through translating the recipes and testing them.

I also have a very big soft spot for community cookbooks - the kind that church groups and small towns used to put out. Of those, my absolute favourite is one from the 1960s from my own neighbourhood. It is a treasure trove of local society, with ads for businesses that are still here, and others I remember from when I first moved to the city, plus recipes from a future mayor (under her married name, which she didn't use in politics), the spouses of former prime ministers and ambassadors, and other well-known folks who endowed local streets with their names. I picked it up at the annual book sale held at the elementary school my children attended.

I love reading your what were they thinking posts - yesterdays, with the anchovies, was enough to give me nightmares!

[spikesgirl58.livejournal.com]

I actually have that BC cookbook (my m-i-l's) and one a bit newer (got it as a wedding gift).

One of my favorites is a Boston Cooking School from 1902. It was my grandmother's. I inherited my mom's and m-I-l's cookbooks when they passed).

I have two that might interest you. One is To the Queen's Taste (Elizabethan feasts and recipes) and To the King's Taste (Richard II book of feasts and recipes). Both are reproductions from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I've actually made some of the recipes and they are very interesting and more than a challenge in some cases. One of my favorites is artichoke pie.

There are so silly things that folks came up with in the 50's and 60's. It's fun to share them with everyone and thanks for letting me know! It keep me motivated.

[siglinde99.livejournal.com]

The Boston Cooking School is the Fannie Farmer book, right? I have a cheap reprint of it, but haven't really used it much. I may need to take another look. Another that I like a lot is my New York Times Cookbook. I find it's a nice compromise between BC and something too fancy to be bothered with.

Those two do interest me - they were already out of print before I got interested, but a few friends had them.

I really should post more in the vintage recipes group. It has gone far too quiet.

[spikesgirl58.livejournal.com]

It is and there's another called simply 'Good Cooking' by Helsetine and Dow (1933) - it was my mum's bible. I like to refer back to them now about again.

The one cookbook I never quite got was 'Joy of Cooking,' although I do use a couple soup recipes that I've adapted from it. It always seems overly fussy to me, much like America's Test Kitchen/Cook's Country, but perhaps it worked for some. I got one as a wedding gift and never used it until years later.

It really did go quiet there, didn't it?