So here is cookbook post number 2.
I was given several cookbooks at a kitchen shower nearly nineteen years ago as a bride to be. I got the classic Better Homes and Gardens, and the classic Betty Crocker, circa 1989/1990. (I also got 2 homemade cookbooks, recipes compiled by the invitees of the shower. Very enjoyable!) Over the years I have turned to these cookbooks for the basics… and I have jotted down notes and amendments in them as I learned to do from my mother and grandmother.
Classic Better Homes and Gardens
Above you can see my newlywed copy way off to the right. THen next to it I have a copy that was my grandmothers, and another copy gifted to me by an aunt who runs an antiques stall. At the top is a copy of a junior version of the cookbook that my grandmother had. It was either my mom’s, or my grandma picked it up for my sister and I when we visited from a yard sale. Either way, we enjoyed it. And I cherish them all now. They have notations in the margins about what worked and did not, what recipes were favorites… favorite banana bread and favorite biscuit recipes. And often there are other recipes from other sources stuffed in here and there.
Here is my newlywed Betty Crocker and my grandmother’s version. She always used a piece of plastic wrap to cover the pages from splashes in later years, and that is something I have kept in the book. Need a recipe for pancakes? All of them have excellent versions. Need one that doesn’t call for butter, because you are out? Turn to the older cookbooks!
And I love my grandmother’s Joy of Cooking… which I use quite a bit. And another kids version, which was either purchased for my mom, or purchased later at a yard sale and used by my sister and I.
My great grandmother did not use cookbooks as a rule.. she did everything by eye. I only have a few of her recipes that my grandmother wrote out for me, as she did for my mother, when we were newly married. Lazy Day Cake was a favorite.. must post the recipe sometime if I haven’t done so before.
