I have a whole shelf in my kitchen of nothing but cookbooks. Some were given to us as wedding gifts, a few have been handed down from family, and many of them I have picked up at yard sales and thrift stores. I have bought very few brand new.
On quiet evenings when I have the whole house to myself, I love thumbing through the vintage cookbooks the most. I can always tell a good one when there are pages dog-eared and wrinkled from getting damp, or have bits of batter dried on them. These are the cookbooks that were at one time a woman's bible so to speak - full of her "go to" recipes. Maybe it was a cake recipe her daughter loved made year after year after year. Or a fancy veal recipe that wowed her husband's boss. A favorite cookie recipe that was similar to the one her mother made. Sometimes, if you are lucky there are even notes in the margins. And these are the same recipes I always try first.
There are several really wonderful blog reviews of Molly's new book, A Homemade Life floating around and I managed to get a copy of it from our library finally. I only made it to page 22 before I had to hand it back in. But I have to say, the way she gently weaves in the stories behind the recipes is just amazing. We all know there is so much more that goes into cooking than just throwing the ingredients together. But Molly explains it so perfectly. She even manages to make hot dogs sound like a gourmet meal. I found myself wanting to highlight whole sections of the introduction. I knew I needed to get a copy of my own.
Yesterday, we made the Chocolate Chip Banana Bread with Crystalized Ginger (minus the ginger). It was as yummy as she made it sound...thick and heavy and even more perfect the next morning.
I'm sorry Molly. I hope you don't mind. But we got a little flour on one page of your book.
Its a good one.
I hope someday my grand daughter turns to this very page.