Well Hmm

  Who is included in this cookbook with more than 350 fellow cooks/gardeners from all fifty states?

Well, take a guess.  Alice Waters perhaps?  You'd be right. Maybe Thomas Keller too.  And moi?  My fifteen seconds of fame (I wish it had been a little more exciting than this, but then I'd be greedy, so never mind.) I did see it in the cookbook section of Barnes and Noble so that was a little kick.

A percentage of the sales of this cookbook went to benefit Second Harvest, the largest charitable organization against hunger in the U.S.

They selected my dill pickles.  I've written the recipe in a post before and these are the best you've ever tasted.  Funny thing was, when I got my copy of the book, the recipe was unrecognizable (is that literary license?).  And, they used my business name, Wild Child Designs, from my business card which had nothing to do with my pickles, for the title of the pickles.  A catchier recipe name perhaps?  Would they have been selected for inclusion if I called them Dull Pickles?  I guess they can do whatever they want in publishing.  Hmmm....

The amounts of ingredients were altered and instead of alum, they substituted grape leaves.  I've never done that.  I do grow the peppers, cukes, dill and garlic, but I have no idea how these pickles would turn out since the recipe is so different. Anyway.

My husband brought gallons of pickling cucumbers up to the city house on the fourth.  Problem is, all my jars, spices and canning equipment are at the farm plus I've been babysitting an 18 month old angel for the last couple of days.  Guess I'll be giving this bunch away.

So, come on now.  Tell me about your 15 seconds/minutes or days of fame.

Well, I Never

I am at the city house this week and perusing the aisles at my local Barnes and Noble bookstore, a stop I always make when coming to the city.  I spied this periodical because of the title and thumbed through it.  Wow.  A cookbook that starts out with the launch in 1977 of the time capsule aboard the Voyager spaceship into deep interstellar space in hopes that one day another civilization might find it and know of earth and its inhabitants.  Natural history, geology, space, oceans, pot-feuled trips to the tune of Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon to Stravinsky, origins of species, whew!  Sounds like the kind of cookbook I would write - unable to stick to topic and going from one thing to another.

How about a recipe for a Coconut Lychee Aquarium?  Gelatin, coconut milk with lychee juice and other ingredients; you use a syringe to add the things into the bowl shaped jello dish.  Gorgeous and tasty I am sure.

Beautiful; it just blows my mind.

How about an Encyclopedia of Nuts Bar with Chia Pudding for dessert.  Notice the snakeskin in the bottom righthand corner of the page.  I have them and vertebra from water moccasins.  So me.

Perhaps you'd like to try this bread which sounds and looks delicious.  It even has its own haiku.

Beauty, old as time.

Fossil's senior citizen,

Round and round it goes.

(Kind of like the recent post about Joni Mitchell's song The Circle Game.)

I put this in there because it is so me.  I have many nests like this.  They also have cocktail recipes like Quicksand Cocktail.

I added this picture because it is one of many gorgeous photos in the book; this one of crystals which I like to collect.  One of the recipes is Crystal Shrimp Dumplings which really are clear. From Lunar Pear Clafoutis (which does look like a pock-marked moon) to a Butterflied Chicken Diorama recipe, I kid you not, this book should have been aboard the Voyager.  So full of essays and the aforementioned topics and recipes.  On the last page of the book is a beautiful essay that begins:

Book Forgive Everything

First there's stellar wind.  A single star, like the pale hair of a girl.  The dim universe plucked with light...

This gorgeous, original book is out there.

Best of the Best

As Curator of Books for the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Barbara Haber developed one of the country's most important collections of cookbooks and books on food history - over 16,000 volumes - to accompany the papers of such food luminaries as M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Child and Elizabeth David.  When the Boston Globe asked her favorite book in the collection, she named Cleora's Kitchens.

Cleora's Kitchens is a rare treat.  Not just recipes, but a history, told by Cleora, of her life growing up and learning to cook.  

Born in 1901, Cleora, an ancestor of slaves, traveled by wagon train with her family, from Texas to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) for a promise of free land.  Cleora learned to cook on a wood stove at the age of ten and ended up being somewhat of a celebrity cook herself.  She worked in Tulsa for oil barons and wealthy businessmen; she catered and cooked sometimes for 300 people and served them on a sixty foot table.  

She had a joyful life and spirit, and on the last day of her life, she flew to Dallas with her publisher, to an affair at Neiman Marcus.  They were going to do a fete to launch Cleora's book.  That night, Cleora died, the same day her first book came from the printer.

The recipes are all so original.  Besides Burnt Sugar Ice Cream (Cleora's favorite), the following recipe was one of her most requested and loved.

BAKED FUDGE

4 eggs

2 cups sugar

1 cup butter

1 cup broken pecans

4 heaping tablespoons cocoa

4 rounded tablespoons flour

2 teaspoons vanilla

Beat eggs well; add sugar and butter and beat well again. Sift cocoa and flour together. Add broken pecans. Fold into sugar mixture.  Add vanilla.  Pour into 9x12 by 3inch pan. Set pan in a pan of hot water.  Bake in a 325 degree oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour.  Fudge will have the consistency of firm custard and will be crusty on top. Serve with a dollop of whipped cream.

The following recipe is for an appetizer.

BACONED OLIVES

Wrap giant stuffed olives with strips of bacon.  Secure with a toothpick and fry in fat.  Powder (while still hot) with pulverized roasted peanuts.

Whether making home brew or Possum Grape Wine (Possum grapes are a type of wild grape), or baking Popovers or Orange Biscuits, Cleora's recipes sound divine.  I could go on and on, but then you'd get tired of reading this post. You'll just have to get a copy of this wonderful cookbook.

Times Gone By

I found this old cookbook in the cabinet recently and looked through it.  Printed in 1932, some of the recipes are more than 100 years old.  I loved the recipes, two of which are Dimples and Nun's Sigh.  The author, Mary Moore Bremer, states in her forward, "The negro woman, who reigned in the kitchen, had inherited from her ancestors in Africa, as well as in America, a knowledge of cookery and herbs that made her skill look like magic."  In another section, she writes, "Many of these recipes were written before calorie counting became a world sport, but when a little colored delivery boy asked," "Missus, is dis reducin' or increasin' bread?" " I knew it was time to put in some whole wheat recipes for those who do reduce."  It is amazing to me that back in the early days of the 20th century, and in New Orleans, no less, people were dieting and counting calories. 

Another part of the book gives recipes for cocktails and spirits.  Seems drinking alcoholic beverages in New Orleans had rules which were to be strictly followed at mealtimes. Even the size and shape of glassware had to be correct for measuring amounts and just because (a pony is one ounce and a gill is four ounces.)   "Delmonico's chef, Charles Ranhoffer, believed wine was to be the intellectual part of the meal, which must be served in correct order and at the proper temperatures, though preference must be given to taste and the effect on health as he believes that certain tastes go with certain temperaments: The sanguine natures feel the want of light wines such as Champagne; the phlegmatic love the warm wines from Languedoc and Fontignon; gloomy dispositions crave sweet Spanish, Italian and Burgundy; while the billious require something stimplating like Bordeaux which is easily digested and leaves the mouth clear and the head free."  The rule for formal dinners was observed thusly: 
Sauterne or other white wine with the oysters.
Dry sherry with clear soup.
Sherry or Madeira with turtle soup.
Champagne with entrees.
Claret with salads.
Bordeau with game.
Claret with roast.
Burgundy with dessert.
Brandy, Liqueurs, Cognac or Pousse Cafe followed the coffee.

This book is charming and I wish I could have visited the New Orleans of long ago.  My mother left home at fifteen, and without shoes, walked to New Orleans, where she worked and lived until she met my father who was stationed there and in the Navy.  We never knew this story until after her death at forty when her sister told me. 

After seven weeks, my new knee is healing and I am finally able to get back to normal.  Glad to be back!