Dec 13
We’ve had some scheduled items on this year’s trip. However, we’ve had plenty of chance encounters. On our first full day we went to the Church of St. Denis. This is a very old church that’s the burial place of much of French royalty, from Dagobert and Charlemagne to Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI. St. …
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2018/12/13/paris-promenades/
Oct 18
I learned a new word from a New York Times article this week. Tsundoku is a Japanese term for the stack of books that you’ve bought but have yet to read. I’m sure Julian would have a corollary term to tsundoku. So, in a pre-emptive strike, I’ll coin it for him. Tsuncooku is the shelves …
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2018/10/18/words-of-the-week/
Oct 06
The oak tree doesn’t fall far from the acorn. Several years ago my mother started collecting cookbooks “with the names in them”, i.e., fundraising cookbooks. Most of them are from churches, Junior Leagues, or ladies’ auxiliaries. However, one of them completely caught me off guard. It was from a group of British women in East …
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2018/10/06/another-collector/
Oct 04
Finding, buying, and taking delivery of our new bookcases were easy. The next tasks were as follows: Empty the old bookcases; Move said old bookcases to the upstairs storage room; Assemble the new bookcases; Move the new bookcases into place; Anchor both old and new bookcases against the walls (we do live in earthquake country); …
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2018/10/04/the-bookcase-build/
Sep 23
One of the biggest advantages of the house we rented in Seattle was the built-in bookcases in the living room that helped accommodate the cookbook collection. There are no built-ins here at Casa Sammamish, and I’ve run out of room. Thus, it was time to get more bookshelves. My current bookshelves were purchased when I …
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2018/09/23/housing-the-collection/
Feb 25
Sometimes recipes have a finite life span. Food that was popular back in your mother’s or grandmother’s youth are no longer in vogue. Some of it may be due to fashion or access to ingredients. Rationing during World War II required some ingenuity that wasn’t needed afterward. Then there are recipes that just fell out …
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2018/02/25/lost-recipes/
Dec 30
I got three cookbooks this year. One is a memoir with recipes, the other two are conventional cookbooks. Unforgettable: The Bold Flavors of Paula Wolfert’s Renegade Life, by Emily Kaiser Thelin. This is the memoir with recipes, and has a poignant story behind it. Thelin (along with Andrea Nguyen) decided that Wolfert’s story needed to …
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2017/12/30/the-christmas-cookbook-haul/
Dec 23
I was looking at the cookbook shelves this morning and thought about what I’d deem as the seminal cookbooks of each decade. Each choice had to sum up the food zeitgeist. Some decades were easier than others. Discussion is welcome. 1950’s: The Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook. My mother’s copy of this cookbook is in tatters, …
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2017/12/23/quintessential-cookbooks/
Jan 29
I was walking to the Womxn’s March last week when I got two texts from my friend, BG. He’s a family doctor turned AirBnB Superhost (6 quarters in a row!). The first text was that he had a couple of food questions for me. The second was “I have some cookbooks for you.” That got …
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2017/01/29/pleasant-surprises/
Jan 08
Even with the sheer number of cookbooks in my library, there are times when I gravitate to certain sources for recipes. The common characteristics are that the recipes are well edited and work in our hands. For weeknight cooking, it helps that I don’t need to make special trips to get obscure ingredients that I …
Permanent link to this article: http://ediblethoughts.com/2017/01/08/reliable-sources/
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