Today's prompt is to talk about my favorite cookbook. I thought I had close to 200 when I shot this, but afterwards I did a quick count.... I stopped counting at 200. Holy bananas, that's a lot of cookbooks.
Looking back, mom had 1 cookbook (in the video) and a very small notebook totaling maybe 12 or so of her own recipes. Most of them were pressure cooker recipes. Hello, hello... 1974 is calling. I still use a pressure cooker (just for beans), but to this day they scare me. Thankfully mom had decent luck, we never had one explode back then (many others did).
My personal collection is full of vintage conventional cookbooks, with quite a decent smattering of vegan cookbooks thrown in. Most "modern" cookbooks aren't really what I call "cooks books." Unlike vintage books, you'd be hard pressed to find a current book that covers from grocery shopping, to kitchen preparation, through the food prep and cooking, and even etiquette for setting tables for different occasions (mom's book does!) Instead, too many of today's cookbooks are rushed to press thus have tons of typos, and far too often contain laundry lists of ridiculously difficult to find ingredients with recipes that will take half the day to prepare. Good luck with that. I'm not that girl.
These days I buy most of my "new" cookbooks at the thrifts. I find that cookbooks dating from the 60s/70s and earlier are very often gems, I've gotten pretty darn good at simplistic veganizing of those many books. I also don't have to break the bank finding crazy stupid ingredients, and when my company shows up I can actually sit down and enjoy tea and conversation, instead of being stuck in the kitchen, or just being the angry vegan from spending 8 hours preparing a meal that is gone in 60 seconds.
Boiling it down to just 1 book wasn't quite possible, I'll explain why in this short video. It's interesting though how with so many books in the house, I consistently reach for just a very few select ones.
I'm older now, and realize how mom really disliked cooking. I'm also remembering how very much she enjoyed baking. This baked apple didn't fall far from the tree. One thing though.... just don't ask me to bake you a pie.... I hate pie. And, mom must've too, for we never EVER made a pie together. (We sure made lots of cakes though!)
xo
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