DO YOU LIKE TO COOK? DO YOU LIKE TO ENTERTAIN AT HOME? IF THE ANSWER IS YES, WHO ARE YOUR FAVORITE ENTERTAINMENT AND COOKBOOK AUTHORS?
I love to cook and eating, in my humble opinion, is a form of entertainment.
Some of the sweetest of life’s moments are when I’ve set a fine table. Family and friends are gathered round. Grace is given. Plates are passed. Then, there is that fleeting moment when I can taste the quiet and all are content in their meal.
Second helpings? I purr like a kitten.
May I have this recipe? A friend for life.
Yes. I like to cook. I often read cookbooks as a bedtime stories .
When Tom’s great-aunt Ethel needed to move into a senior facility from the house her parents built on their homestead, she wrote asking me if I would like anything. I wrote back my appreciation of the offer and wondered if I could have one of her cookbooks.
Ethel gave me all of her recipes; many written in her own hand, others cut from local newspapers or magazines, small little cookbooks from advertisers and notebook pages with bold penmanship. There is an original Nestles chocolate wrapper with the recipe for chocolate chip cookies and directions on how to score and cut the chocolate for chips. Dandelion wine. Meatloaf for the threshers.
Among these treasures is a “receipt” book from the local church, dated 1883. Inside, on pages of printed recipes, are other recipes on slips of paper, sewn onto the pages with a few well placed stitches. I imagine Ethel’s mother, at day’s end, sewing them in by the light of a kerosene lantern, securing their place in the time-honored ritual of feeding one’s family. A farmer’s wife of one hundred years past would not have had the money for paper clips. Straight pins were needed for patterns and hems. There would have been just needle and thread and tired hands basting page onto page of “receipts”.
My favorite cookbook authors of today?
Ina Garten of The Barefoot Contessa. Her recipes never disappoint. I have and use her cookbooks. I had the pleasure of meeting her with my friend Cindy. We both came home with signed books and smiles.
Alton Brown. He’s goofy and silly, I know, but he makes cooking seem like a fun chemistry project. I enjoy watching him and made his recipe for corned beef hash with the leftovers from our St. Patrick’s Day dinner. It was delicious.
I also enjoy watching Lidia’s Italy. She inspires me to experiment with simple ingredients. Her love of family hits home with me.
I also enjoy reading Dana Treat. You might like to check her blog and her many vegetarian recipes.
My favorite cookbooks are what I fondly refer to as the “church lady cookbooks”. They are the ones compiled from the PTAs, booster clubs, the Junior League or local fire stations. They have the best recipes, even though you may make only one from the book you bought for $10, spiral bound, a local artist’s rendering on the cover. No woman I know would submit a flawed recipe and every woman I know plumps with pride when told you cooked her recipe with great success.
Do you like to cook or entertain? Do you have a favorite cook or cookbook?
Hallo Penny. It’s a long time since I visited, and I have been scrolling down.
My attempts at cookery are limited. I can do eggs (coddled), and beans on toast, but my reading of cookery is usually from Mrs Beeton or Delia Smith.
I do a passable curry, an individual risotto (I don’t care for sticky rice!),
and a fair stir fry. And I have a fair Paella also. now I am at the end of my list!
I also loved your spring pics. It’s so nice when the world starts to wake up.
I will try to visit a little more often, Penny, and thanks for your comments re my Jack Phillips poem.
John
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It is always nice when you visit here, John. Your poem was excellent and you are so very welcome.
I’m impressed with all you cook, especially Paella – which I’ve never attempted to make. Looks like at least a week’s worth or meals there. Good for you.
Thank you. It is nice, though it is happening a bit fast and early here in the midwest. We are used to blizzard in March here, but, I’m enjoying the blossoms with something new everyday.
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What wonderful dinner parties you must have Penny. One of the funnist things I’ve ever done was the Cooking School in Marakech, with kiwi celebrity chef Peta Mathias, and I do enjoy cooking Moroccan dinners, just for fun. I have a small collection of cookery books. Some I just love looking through and dreaming. One I love leafing through and reading is FALLING CLOUDBERRIES by Tessa Kiros. Tessa has a Finnish mother and a Greek-Cypriot father.. born in London, lived in Sth Africa…and married an Italian and she shares her family’s recipes and stories. However my most used recipe book would be The Edmonds Cook Book.. a kiwi basic that is iconic kiwiana, and been around for generations in NZ. Send me your address to jmibrowning@gmail.com and I’ll send you a copy!
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What fun that must have been, Joan. I’ve not heard of Peta Mathias, but will look him up. You have my mouth watering. Falling Cloudberries sounds so absorbing and Tessa Kiros quite interesting in her background. I love those kinds of cookbooks where the recipes and family stories mix. My dinners are pretty casual affairs, but I love to cook and feed (the Greek in me) and I would love to take you up on your offer of The Edmonds Cook Book. How kind of you, Joan. Thank you.
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Ah, Joan, you’ve whet my appetite for Falling Cloudberris and Tessa. I found this “googling” around and am adding this cookbook/memoir to my Amazon wishlist.
Thank you! Penny
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I agree with you about the “Church lady” books, or those collections of recipes sold for charity. One of my favourites is a collection put together by our local Women’s Ovarian Cancer support group. It is wonderful.
Favourite “famous” peoples’ book is Nigella Lawson’s “How to be a Domestic Goddess”. I do love the recipes, but just the title had me completely hooked. Then another of my all time favourites is a tatty “Be – Ro” Home recipes book full of really old fashioned and very basic recipes for scones and tarts and pies. It belonged to my grandmother in the early 1960s and has several clipped magazine recipes carefully folded in the back, and has her handwritten notes alongside some of the recipes… things like “add more baking powder” and “give it 5 mins longer”. It has 1/6d on the cover, so the equivalent of 7and a half p UK money… whats that…about 10c think. Whatever, it was a great investment.
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That sounds like a wonderful cookbook, Janice, and for such a very worthy cause. Do you have a favorite recipe from it?
What a great title. I do know of Nigella Lawson but haven’t seen her cookbooks. Uh, oh – I may be in even more trouble when this post is over. To have your grandmother’s book with her handwritten notes and clippings is such a gift to have. Don’t you just love to hold it and feel her coming through the pages and onto your palate.
Indeed, a great investment.
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I enjoy cooking, Penny, though we don’t do much entertaining except in France. Interestingly there just isn’t the dinner-party or even lunch-party habit among my friends in Wales and Scotland. We’re much more likely to have people round for coffee or afternoon tea.
I don’t have a favourite cookery author as I buy cookery books by the subject rather than the author. Like you my real favourites are the church lady / charity compilations of favourite recipes, as they all work every time. 🙂 I even compiled one myself to raise money for church funds and still use it a lot.
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Our entertaining is more in the line of family meals, suppers and such. I love teas and coffees with perhaps a small plate of cookies or breads to eat.
Aren’t they the best cookery books? They are a bit of work to sort and compile, but so worth the effort and extra funds raised. They are the books that have bits of stains where they have been opened to make this or that.
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My entertainment is usually of the very casual variety. You know, outside using the grill. Our FishinPals events are all pot luck with us providing the main course. Fish-on-a-stick is a favorite, but we don’t have it often. I have one of those cookbooks from my home church which was published in the early 70s. Many of those women have passed away and it is wonderful that their memories live on. I also have a little wooden file box just stuffed full of my Grandmother Anne’s recipes. I love it.
Today, I am having a birthday party for a four year old….Ethan. Yay! That is the best entertainment.
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I’m pretty casual as well, Janet, but love to feed folks. I enjoy hearing about your FishinPals events and pot lucks are so often the best of meals. I still get “hits” on the post about FishinPals. I keep meaning to tell you that. I especially like to see what younger adults bring as they begin to participate. You are so fortunate to have the cookbook filled with recipes and memories, but I’m sure you treasure Grandmother Anne’s wooden box beyond measure.
Yea! Nothing like a birthday party for a four year old birthday boy. Enjoy.
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Your love of all things cooking and entertaining has shone through in previous posts, Penny, and thank heaven for folks like you…it’d be a dull world if someone didn’t enjoy being a hostess!
I must admit, however, that these are not near the top of my list of favorite things to do. Although I enjoyed cooking as a very young woman, most of my adult life included full-time employment outside the home, and I’ve always felt that (and other, more compelling interests) contributed greatly to the demise of my domestic streak.
I do enjoy putting together an occasional contribution for a family gathering or the like; especially something along the lines of a sinfully rich dessert that I would otherwise never make, ’cause eating ALL of it would be disastrous! 🙂 I think I mentioned to you once before that my favorite cookbook (though I’ve probably never used a recipe from it) is the Crisco Cookbook that belonged to my maternal grandmother and bears her handwritten comments as to a couple of the recipes; a treasure to me solely for that reason.
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That’s so sweet of you to say, Karen. Thank you. I’d rather be the hostess than the guest, though I am as grateful as can be when folks help clean up. I’m a very messy cook, as my family will tell you.
It is a challenge to put together a big meal when working full-time. I know that feeling well.
Some of the best meals are when everyone contributes something, especially is that something is a rich dessert. Best to eat one piece than the whole pie. I remember you mentioning the Crisco Cookbook of your grandmother’s and I can hear the warmth it gives you in your written word, Karen. Such a treasure.
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Penny, I had to laugh when you said you often read cookbooks as bedtime stories. I do this also! I was just talking to my mother about that. I love to read the text of the cookbook, not just the recipes. Some of my favorite cookbook authors write wonderful stories about their philosophies of homemaking and cooking. Three of my favorites are Laurie Colwin, Nigella Lawson, and Ina Garten. Not only do we get their recipes from their cookbooks, but we get an lovely glimpse into their lives and their homes. I am so inspired by these three women!
Sunday
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Something told me you might, Sunday. I, too, love to look into the authors’ homes as well as their cooking. A good friend snapped a picture of Ina’s house in the Hamptons and gave it to me. I use it as a bookmark in The Barefoot Contessa at Home. Don’t tell Ina.I don’t know Laurie Colwin and will look her up later. Your question on cooks and cookbooks is costing me calories and money as I’m amassing a list of books – see what you started?
I’m inspired as well by you, Sunday. Thank you.
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I really like Ina and Alton…but I only really follow them through the Cooking Channel; I don’t have their cook books. I do a lot of very informal entertaining and I am good at feeding a crowd! But that usually means very simple fare…soups, stews, one pot dishes…I often think I’d like to step it up, but then when we have house guests, which is frequently, I’m too busy with the other roles associated with hospitality!
I did join a Vegetarian Cookbook Club this year, and I’ve enjoyed it immensely. The best book for me this year has been
“Appetite for Reduction” by Isa Chandra Moscowicz, and this books as well as the others we’re working through are stretching my skills. We also then take pictures and share them with the other members, so I’m thinking more about presentation!
I do enjoy sharing a meal with others, though, and reading some of the wonderful cooking blogs that I do, I really am interested in stretching my skills a bit! I like your idea that eating is a form of entertainment!
I thought I’d include a picture of the cookbook, but I couldn’t figure out how to do that 🙂 And oh yes! I do have dozens of those “church lady” cookbooks. I don’t think I’d part with them! Debra
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I have Ina’s, Debra, but not Alton’s. It is so easy to get recipes online. I love one pot meals. A loaf of crusty bread. A salad, perhaps. I often have soup waiting when Katy and crew come down from Minnesota. Stews and such can be made the day before, especially with guests coming and other things to do. I did make Ina’s Beef Bourgon (sp?) at Christmas. Made it the day before and heated it. I love doing that sort of meal.
What a fascinating book club to be in. See? You are in a book club. You will find with this very special birthday you are celebrating that this is a wonderful time of life for really stretching one’s skills. Perhaps you’ll post one of your presentations? Please do sometime.
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Good Morning Penny:
Love your energy and idea of “You’re It” I must share my very favorite cookbook author, Ina Garten. I started buying her cookbooks when she first started creating them. I love her recipes and NEVER has one ever failed to produce wonderful if not, outstanding results! In fact I will often use one of her selected recipes, first time tried, for guests knowing I could count on the results to be perfect!! (and delicious!) She has written 6 cookbooks and I have them all. Then I started following her series that were in each issue of HOUSE BEAUTIFUL magazine. They had never been published before, so I collected those as well.. Her contract with HB is over and no longer will you find them in there.
Her Connecticut home has been published in magazines as well as her h9ome in Paris. She is an amazingly creative woman in her design acumen as well.
Penny as you may know, I am the mother of a chef and have always loved trying new recipes in my wonderful kitchen. I am always hoping that when he is here for dinner, that my recipe search will always unveil something that he will love. I have found a few of these new recipes in the Chicago Tribune Food Section. So many of these are ‘keepers’ w/o a doubt.
Gale Gand is another one of my favorite authors and her cookbook entitled BRUNCH very worthwhile to have in the kitchen library. I have met her and she is terrific! I will be doing an event with her in the fall for garden club.
Love this series that you are doing Penny. Great job!
P.S. The magazine called WHERE WOMEN COOK, has produced some great stories with recipes of these women who are sometimes well known to women who I have never heard about!! Great reading with great photos. Recipes have been great and the stories so entertaining.
M.A. ox
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I hope your morning was a good one, Mary Anne.
Thank you. Ina Garten has never let me down either. I missed all those House Beautiful articles and would imagine those who have them are holding on to them. I love what Ina Garten “brings to the table”.
I do know that and what a delightful challenge it must be to cook for him. You are absolutely right about the Trib’s food section. My Irish Soda Bread recipe came from there at least thirty years ago and I make a tasty Chicken Vesuvio that has stood the test of time.
I will look for Gale Gand’s Brunch. Let me know about your fall garden club event. It sounds interesting. Has Gale Gand worked with Trudi Temple on some events? The name sounds familiar. Hears hoping I can remember it when I’m looking for something to make for a brunch.
Where Women Cook. I don’t think I’ve come across the magazine, but, another thing to be on the lookout for. These posts on food and books are making my lists longer and longer. Life is grand.
Have a good weekend. Hope your husband continues to heal.
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Hello Penny,
I am having such fun with the “it” topics that I hope you don’t run out soon. It is interesting to read what comments are written as they give us a glimpse into the lives of those who read your blog.
We don’t entertain these days but of course we eat so have our favorites. My recipes are very unsophisticated such as cornbread, beef stew, yellow squash casserole, potatoes au gratin, etc. The favorite dessert is red velvet cake and ooey-gooey cake that is a killer. Southern cooking is my style/method.
I like to read cookbooks too such as The Joy of Cooking since it is a great go-to cookbook for everything. One of my favorites is The Les Halles Cookbook by Anthony Bourdain who is such a baaad boy.
Have a special weekend!
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I’m thrilled to hear that, Marilyn. I think there are seven questions left. It has been more fun that I imagined and I’ve been so appreciative of all the comments.
Red velvet cake. When our daughter Jennifer reads this she will be wanting a slice. She loves red velvet cake. Southern cooking is so delectable, isn’t it? I used to get Southern Living, reading and re-reading every issue, especially for the recipes.
Hmmm. Les Halles Cookbook. I must look up Anthony Bourdain and see how bad he is. I’ve gotten so many good books, cooking and otherwise, from all of you and am hoping these have inspired you all as well. It is fun.
Thank you and I hope you do as well.
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Nice to lift my eyes from the ms and think about a different kind of book. I have my mother’s cookbook, which is packed with favourite recipes and memories of delectable food, such as her rich Xmas cake and her lemon meringue pie. Ethel’s cook book sounds a real treasure trove.
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Good to hear, Juliet. Such a treasure for you to have in your mother’s cookbook. These books and recipes and such feel a bit like reaching back and holding loved ones’ hands to me.
Good wishes to you as you work on your book, Juliet.
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Penny, MTM and I are the dinner party duo. We even started a blog called “Dress for Dinner” and had elaborate dinner parties for a while, until it became clear that we couldn’t keep up the pace. (Google it if you want to see some of the meals we did.)
MTM is the cook in our household, and I am his sous chef. We have a bazillion cookbooks, and still end up on Epicurious all the time for recipes. Usually, I make the salads for our dinner, and MTM does everything else. Lately, I’ve mastered making stock and doing risotto, and I enjoy the lazy stirring it involves.
I’d love to try dinner at your house. It sounds like it would be a gorgeous, tasty affair.
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Wow! I will have to check “Dress for Dinner” out, Andra. What fun (and work) that must have been.
It sounds like a perfect team, you and MTM. I do too, and then google when I can’t find which recipe is in which book. Our daughter Jennifer makes very excellent risotto and I count on her making it for us soon. Salads take a lot of time to compose. I often ask someone to bring the salad if I’m having a lot of people. Don’t underestimate it.
I’d love to have you and MTM. If you’re ever up around Chicago, let me know. We’re not fancy, but our meals are pretty good.
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Dear Penny, . . . yes, I like to cook and to entertain although I’ve done little of that in the past six years because of health issues. But gathering with friends round a table–be it in my home or a restaurant–is a special grace.
As to cookbooks: I’ ve been a vegetarian for over 31 years and so I have several cookbooks by Molly Katzen.
I so enjoyed your taking us back to 1883 and describing the scene for us of the kerosene lamp and the stitching of recipes. A powerful scene. I look forward one day to reading a book you’ve written in your own inimitable style. There is such a deep-felt tenderness for life in your writing.
Peace.
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My favorite cookbook ever was given to me by my Uncle Bud (the uncle who recently passed away) when I was just married. It was as you described them, a “Church Lady Cookbook” and I haven’t the foggiest idea where he got it from but it had the best recipes. Alas, it was falling apart and in one of my clearing out moods I got rid of it. I don’t think I knew that it was my favorite until so many times through the years I wished I had it again. The recipe I miss the most was a very simple dumpling recipe – I haven’t found one to match it. The recipe was easy and they turned out perfectly every time!
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Oh, Janet, that reminds me of the Joni Mitchell song, “You Don’t Know What You’ve Got ‘Til its Gone”. I know that feeling of missing something long after I get rid of it. Keep your eyes open. Sometimes they show up at garage sales or in thrift shops. My mouth is now watering for good dumplings.
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I forgot to mention that your story about Ethel’s 1883 cookbook was wonderful. Her gift of recipes to you was a treasure and I’m sure she knew you really appreciated them.
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It was, and is, a treasure Janet. I’d like to think she knew I would appreciate them. She was a sweet lady and we got along so well.
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