Cookbookaholic

Nigella Times Three

Spring has definitely sprung. I’ve got eleven sales on my list for this morning. Now I know that I won’t be able to hit all of them, but I’m hoping I get the good cookbooks! Plus, Dunc has asked to tag along with me—so I’ll have my travel buddy with me.

Our first stop is a sale at 7am, and it’s already open for business as well roll up a few minutes early. I spy a table of books and head over, I see a cookbook or two in a pile on top of a bookbag and confirm my worst fear, there’s someone already at the table and they’ve grabbed two cookbooks. I get to work quickly and scoop up some great finds and try not to get distracted by the Bill Neal cookbook that is going home with someone else. Ugh!

Around the Southern Table (Sarah Belk), Damon Lee Fowler’s New Southern Kitchen and The Olives Table (Todd English and Sally Sampson).

A Tuscan in the Kitchen (Pino Luongo with Barbara Raives & Angela Hederman), Private Collection (Junior League of Palo Alto, CA), Cooking Seafood & Stuff with Chef Dirt & Kids from the Outer Banks (Jerry G. Smith) and Good Old Grits Cookbook (Bill Neal & David Perry).

Now, I understand that I that have the Bill Neal grits cookbook but there was another cookbook there that I would’ve liked to have as well. Oh well, on to the next sale.

It was a bust and Dunc asks to go back to the first sale because he saw some Nerf toys and some t-shirts. I usually frown on going backwards, but I give in. The sale I’m waiting on doesn’t start until 8am on the dot.

After picking up a few t-shirts and some shorts for Dunc, we head over to the 8am sale. It has started to drizzle, but they’ve got items in the garage and under a tent. This sale is the last garage sale before Suzanne, The Tiny Chef, packs up and heads off to Italy. I met Suzanne at another sale several years ago. Since then, she’s been super busy catering and appearing on The Food Network’s Extreme Chef. I’ve picked up some great cookbooks at her other sale—so I’m really excited about this one!

When we get the go-ahead to come down the driveway, I make a beeline straight to Suzanne in the garage. I don’t find a ton of cookbooks but here’s what I found:

Professional Cooking (Wayne Gisslen), Favorite Restaurant Recipes (Bon Appetit), Gates, Gaits & Golden Plates (Camden Junior Welfare League) and First Lady Cookbook 1983: South Carolina It’s Best (American Cancer Society, SC Chapter).

Plus, I found a rolling pin, copper biscuit cutter and this fancy set of Godinger Silver Plated Cheese Picks! The picks look like they have tiny Ritz crackers on them and the cheese has some sparkly crystals on them….fancy!

On the way out, I stopped by a tent and found these two cookbooks:

Carolina Sunshine Then & Now (Charity League of Charlotte) and Charleston Receipts (Junior League of Charleston, SC).  

I’ve got other sales that started at 8am and they are probably well underway by now, so I decide to head on to the 8:30am sale. It’s a moving sale and cookbooks are mentioned so we’re off!

It’s a small house off of a main road, so I have to park on a side street and hoof it. As I ask about the cookbooks, I’m pointed towards the kitchen. There is a very long shelf filled with some really great cookbooks. And, it’s got already got someone looking through them. He’s on one side, so I start looking at the selection from the other side.

He’s gives me the side-eye but I see a few really good ones right off the bat. There’s someone with him and they make a remark about how there were more good ones at another sale. So they actually leave.

That was interesting. But now, I’m alone with the cookbooks so I start going through the entire shelf and get a really nice stack. I pay for the cookbooks and ask why the lady is selling so many great cookbooks. She tells me that she’s getting ready to move…to Portland. Wow! Now, that’s not exactly across town, is it?

I see other cookbooks on a shelf in the living room—but there’s a gauntlet of chairs stacked in front of them. She tells me that those are the ones she’ll take with her as she moves across the country. There must be some great ones over there—because I can’t believe that I was able to scoop up these:

Williams-Sonoma New Orleans (Constance Snow), Julia Child & More Company (Julia Child in collaboration with E.S. Yntema), Lee Bailey’s City Food, Lee Bailey’s Country Weekends and Forever Summer (Nigella Lawson).

How to be a Domestic Goddess (Nigella Lawson), Nigella Bites (Nigella Lawson), Fannie Flagg’s Original Whistle Stop Café Cookbook (Fannie Flagg with recipes from The Irondale Café), The Paris Cookbook (Patricia Wells) and Lost Recipes: Meals to Share with Friends and Family (Marion Cunningham).

Out of Our League (Jr. League of Greensboro, NC), Savannah Style (Jr. League of Savannah, GA) and Party Receipts from the Charleston Junior League (edited by Linda Glick Conway).  

Well, hello Nigella. By my count, I’ve got Nigella times three! That probably equals some fancy foodie equation. And that has got to be some sort of record!

My GPS tells me I’m really close to another sale that I had penciled in (literally). We make it to the sale and it looks like it has been open for a while. I walk around the garage and don’t see anything that thrills me. I go through the house and ask the crew that’s working here on the inside if there are any cookbooks. They look at each other and say, “Oh, were there!” Just from their tone, I could sense there must have been a ton of them. And this must’ve been the other sale that the couple talked about a few minutes ago. I’m guessing that this sale had a lot of them, but now they’re all gone. Oh well…

Wish I could…but I can’t be at all them right when they open!

I’ve got some truly fantastic cookbooks and I’m not going to let this missed sale bum me out….well, not for too long, anyway. Time to get my Dunc to breakfast and then back home!

Catch Up: Middle of Nowhere Estate Sale

I have only one sale on my list today! Fellow cookbookaholic, Beryl, who also handles estate sales is holding one in a very small, rural town about thirty minutes Northwest of my house. She had cookbooks listed, so you know I’m going to be there. And by gosh, I’m heading out early and will attempt to be first in line.

I show up about an hour early and I see a car already there. They have their brake lights on and then they move on. I guess they didn’t want to wait? That’s good for me, so I park and head up to the front door…and wait.

Another car parks and a lady walks up to the front porch. She asks when the sale begins and I tell her at 8am. She backs up and says she’ll return in a few minutes.

Time creeps by really, really slowly. And by the time Beryl opens up the door at 8am on the dot, I’m still the only one there for the sale. Looks like it’s gonna be a private sale, just for me!

Beryl points me to the kitchen where I find a bookshelf with some cookbooks. I don’t want to say they’ve been picked over, but…..it looks like there used to be more on those two shelves.

I grab the good of what’s left. Here’s what I found:

Cajun-Creole Cooking (Terry Thompson), Market to Market (The Service League of Hickory, NC), The Peach Sampler(compiled by Eliza Mears Horton) andLancaster County Amish Cookbook (collected and received by Sallie Y. Lapp and Sylvia Y. Miller). I’m most excited about the Market to Market cookbook because this one is a first printing. Other copies I’ve found have been third printing. Good score!

Sweet Tooth: Down-Home Meals & Blue Ribbon Desserts (Sarah Ann Spaugh), Waldensian Cookery (???) and Betty Crocker’s Cook Book for Boys and Girls.

A few more people have trickled in and I look around the rest of the house. I find a couple pieces of framed art and a nice candy dish on a pedestal. I dig through a box of old issues of Southern Living and grab a few.

It looks like I’m ready to check out but I take one more swing through the kitchen. I never went through the kitchen gadgets. I find a clear plastic circular thingamadoogie that claims to be a no-mess pie crust maker. Sold!

And what luck..I find the most awesome chips and dip tray ever. It even plays a festive tune! 

 

This will come in handy next Cinco de Mayo!

What are the Odds?

What a terrible morning for sales. I’m coming up empty and ready to give this one last sale a shot.

I see some bookshelves with glass vases and some other knick-knacks but then I looked more closely. A box on the driveway actually had some cookbooks! And these were some nice ones, too.

I grabbed a few and then looked around some more. Those shelves with the glass vases? As I’m looking from the top and scanning down, on the shelf right at my eye level is a kitchen torch kit! What are the odds? Last week, I got the crème brulee cookbook and a bunch of ramekins. Now, I’ve got a real professional looking torch, plus—a butane torch and what looks to be a refill taped to the side. At least, I think that’s a refill?

As I tell the lady running the sale about how amazing it is to find the mini-torch, we begin talking. Her name is Betty and she’s a chef, fellow cookbookaholic and a vegetarian. She works locally for a company called the Compass Group and has worked at several cafes over the years. She’s originally from Los Angeles and told me a story of how she spent a few hours waiting in line at a bookstore in Glendale to get an autograph from Julia Child. How awesome is that?! Somewhere in that house, she’s got an autographed Julia Child cookbook. Jealous!

Then we get to talking about other autographed cookbooks and I told her about the autographed Edna Lewis cookbook I found a few weeks back. She thought she might have Edna’s first cookbook in her collection. Nice!! I hope she remembers me if she ever decides to sell it.

What a fantastic way to end my morning. And seriously, what are the odds that I’d find the mini-torch for the crème brulee the very next Saturday?

Wanna see the cookbooks?

The Tra Vigne Cookbook: Seasons in the California Wine Country (Michael Chiarello with Penelope Wisner) and Gourmet LA (Junior League of Los Angeles, CA).

Recipes of All Nations (Countess Morphy) and Creole Feast: 15 Master Chefs of New Orleans Reveal Their Secrets (Nathaniel Burton and Rudy Lombard). 

Mother’s Day Present, Father’s Day Return

What a nice Mother’s Day present! I treated myself to a nice Paula Deen sauce pan to replace my old one. It was so nice and fancy that it took a while before I was brave enough to remove the packaging and actually use it.

I had to bring a dessert to a picnic and Dunc requested a pecan pie. I agreed and opened up the sauce pan to make the filling. Melted butter, Karo syrup and sugar were gently heated and I used a wooden spoon to stir the mixture together. After mixing the ingredients, I poured the filling into a pie pan. As the pan emptied into the shell, I noticed something so incredibly disappointing.

The non-stick coating on the bottom of the pan was scratched with the circles of stirring! What? My fancy sauce pan can’t handle Karo syrup, sugar and butter? Oh boy….back to the store. And now I’m without a sauce pan!

 

Friday Preview!

Friday sales are pretty tough for me. I rarely think to look in advance to see if there are any good estate sales going on. Besides, if there were any, they usually start at 8am and I have to be at work at 8:30. It’s hard enough to get the boys up and dressed and then out the door to the bustop! Can you imagine me booking out at 6am to go stand in line for a number? If I did, I doubt if anyone to make it to school at all on Fridays.

If I do happen to catch a glimpse of a sale that looks good, I’ll try to swing by during my lunch break. By then, it’s been picked over…but still, you never know.

On this particular Friday, I took a chance on a lunchtime getaway and came away with a few finds. The selection had definitely been picked over but here’s a few that I found:

The Plank Grilling Cookbook (Guillen, Lowrey, Everly, Bernsdorff), Every Last Crumb (Providence UMC, Charlotte, NC) and Paraclete Pantry (Church of the Holy Comforter, Vienna, VA). This last cookbook is personalized and autographed on the title page. It reads: “Autographed for Mildred Andrews by Rosemary Pollard May 13, 1959”

When I came back to the office after lunch, I had an email from my co-worker and fellow yard saler, Ramona Holloway. Her friend, Janet, was going to have a yard sale and she forwarded the information to me. And yep, she listed cookbooks! I worked up some confidence and emailed Janet directly to ask about the cookbooks. She was super nice and offered to let me come by later that evening to take a look.

Wow! Can you imagine? I’ve never been given exclusive “preview” access before the crowd! How can I get this inside track on more yard sales?

When I arrive at Janet’s home, she shows me into the living room where everything priced and ready to go. I make my way over to the cookbooks and grab these:

The Complete Barbecue Cookbook, The Essential Mexican Cookbook, Good Friends, Great Dinners (Susan Costner), The Tess Mallos Fillo Pastry Cookbook, Tropical Seasons: A Taste of Life in South Florida (Beaux Arts of the Lowe Art Museum of the University of Miami) and 30 Classic Mexican Menus (Idella Purnell Stone).

I’m going to search these Mexican cookbooks until I find a specific recipe. Or, I find the proper way to cook the meat in this certain recipe. I know that sounds odd and cryptic, but I’ll definitely let you know if and when I find it.

As I’m going through the cookbooks, Janet and I talk and get to know each other. She’s super cool. Plus, we were both at the recent PRSA luncheon on social networking. Turns out, she’s the current President of the Charlotte Public Relations Society chapter—no wonder she looked familiar!

We both have aspirations of cooking more often but don’t always have the luxury of time. It was nice to know I’m not the only one who wishes they could try new recipes and cook more often!

As I finished making my selections, she showed me some unique salt and pepper shakers in another box. I’m already the proud owner of Pepsi bottle S&P shakers but I just had to have these:

Royal Crown shakers! These were really heavy and had a metal screw top. They just looked and felt antique—I liked these and just had to get them!

Plus, I found a hairdryer! I’ve been borrowing the hubby’s lately and he’s been encouraging me to buy one that I come across at a yard sale. I brought it home and as soon as I show off my new find—guess what happens next—yep, he offers to trade his for Janet’s hairdryer.

Oh well, I can give up the hairdryer. I’ve still got some great finds and I’m really glad to have met Janet. Not a bad Friday after all! Who knows what Saturday morning will bring?

Recognition Finally Pays Off

I guess if you go to yard sales long enough and only buy cookbooks, you’re bound to be associated with them. My first yard sale of the morning was supposed to be promising, I pulled up to a house with a bunch of cars but I see people leaving empty-handed. Uh oh…not a good sign.

I quickly look through the items and find one cookbook. Only one, but I grab it.

Seasons of the Heart from Presbyterian Cardiovasular Institute’s Center for Preventitive Cardiology. It features a Mediterranean American Diet…I guess that means no baklava?

Oh well…I check off this address on my list and then notice something odd. The house numbers don’t match. I’m at the wrong yard sale! The one on my list is still  two houses down the street. I was tricked by another person trying to glom onto the advertised yard sale.

I walk over to the real yard sale and the lady running it is wearing the most awesome pair of glasses. If I can ever afford to go back to Lens Crafters, I want a pair just like hers. But anyway, she sees me and says, “You collect cookbooks, don’t you? I recognize you from yard sales.” 

Wow! This lady just become “awesome” in my book! Her name is Cynthia and she says she has a cookbook that I might like. She takes me inside her home and pulls this off the bookshelf in the living room:

The New James Beard. Nice!

Then we start talking about collecting cookbooks and she shows me her shelves of cookbooks back in the kitchen. She points out a few that she doesn’t use anymore and I offer to buy them. Here are the ones I snagged:

Favorite Brand Name Casseroles, Winter Soups (Ray L. Overton) and The Lady & Sons Savannah Country Cookbook (Paula Deen). She also pointed out one her favorite cookbooks. The front and back covers were gone but it had lots of the thick (almost cardstock) papers that were in different colors. I thought it might be the Junior League of Chicago’s Soupcon? But she says it’s probably a Junior League of Grand Rapids and it has the very best Banana Bread recipe in the world. I believe her because right next to the recipe is a handwritten note that says “Excellent!”

And we all know…those handwritten notes don’t lie.

Do I have a Junior League of Grand Rapids already? I can’t remember off the top of my head. Cynthia also mentions that I should look up a Susan Spicer cookbook from New Orleans called Crescent City Cooking. I will definitely add that one to my list. Plus, she gives high marks for anything from Lee Bailey.

Now THAT’s a great way to start off my morning! My list is short again so that stop really made the morning worthwhile!

My next stop proves elusive. It’s on one of those streets that curves and has an offshoot. I’ve mistakenly taken the offshoot and end up at the right house number but on the wrong street. I’ve wasted time looking for the house and now I’ve got to backtrack to get back onto the correct street. It’s also well after the time the yard sale was scheduled to start…so whatever items were there have had a good half hour to get picked over. If they opened early, then I’m even further behind the good stuff.

And I’m right. When I finally arrive I see a ton of kitchen gadgetry. And there’s a box of cookbooks that are now more than half empty. Now I’m jumpy and nervous that this is my jackpot yard sale and I’ve missed out on the mother lode. I nervously scan the tables of gadgets and sift through what’s left in the cookbook box. I come out with these:

Mediterranean Desserts (Cindy Mushet), The New American Chefs (Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page) and Cheese Primer (Steven Jenkins).

Now these are very nice cookbooks and I’m looking around at some pretty spiffy kitchen gadgets. What’s up with all this? It turns out that Robert, the husband in this family, is also an instructing chef at Johnson & Wales. He gets cookbooks left and right from publishers looking for him to use them in his classes. Are you kidding me? I’m at a yard sale of a Johnson & Wales instructor who is selling off cookbooks and gadgets! I wish I’d made it to this sale earlier, but I’m really happy with the cookbooks I snagged.

Know what else I snagged? This never, ever used Mandoline…still in the box.

He was super cool and took a little less than the asking price. Now I’ve got a fancy schmancy slicer! I also meant to pick up this cool-looking rotating cake decorating stand but between the nerves and chatting with Robert, I forgot. Man! I wish I’d made it to this yard sale earlier…

Does This Happen to Other People, Too?

Please tell me this happens to other people, too. I think I’m the worst at keeping my pots and pans in pristine shape. I’m not talking about the Teflon coating at the bottom. I’m literally talking about the shape.

It seems like my favorite pots, pans and skillets all fall victim to the same horrible fate. After washing and being rinsed in hot water, I put them on the drying rack. And that’s when one magically falls off the rack and onto the floor. Wherever they land, they flatten an edge and warp.

Here’s my trusted 3-quart pot after a recent fall.

Now the lid won’t fit at all.

And here’s a really cool two-handled skillet that I use for literally everything:

Ugh! Warped!

Ever just want to start over with a whole new set? I’ve never done that. I think all my pots and pans were handed down to me from my mom. She’d buy a new set of the latest and greatest on QVC and I’d get a pot here and a pan there. Over the years, I’ve had my cookware pieced together from her overflow.

When I look around for new sets, anything from a fancy store will run you several hundred bucks. Maybe I should just seek out replacement pieces? What do you do? Replace a piece or start over?

Does This Happen to Other People, Too?

Please tell me this happens to other people, too. I think I’m the worst at keeping my pots and pans in pristine shape. I’m not talking about the Teflon coating at the bottom. I’m literally talking about the shape.

It seems like my favorite pots, pans and skillets all fall victim to the same horrible fate. After washing and being rinsed in hot water, I put them on the drying rack. And that’s when one magically falls off the rack and onto the floor. Wherever they land, they flatten an edge and warp.

Here’s my trusted 3-quart pot after a recent fall.

Now the lid won’t fit at all.

And here’s a really cool two-handled skillet that I use for literally everything:

Ugh! Warped!

Ever just want to start over with a whole new set? I’ve never done that. I think all my pots and pans were handed down to me from my mom. She’d buy a new set of the latest and greatest on QVC and I’d get a pot here and a pan there. Over the years, I’ve had my cookware pieced together from her overflow.

When I look around for new sets, anything from a fancy store will run you several hundred bucks. Maybe I should just seek out replacement pieces? What do you do? Replace a piece or start over?

Back to the Cutting Board!

A few weeks back, I came home to find out that my trusty mini cutting mat had finally seen one too many knife cuts. One of the boys had used it to slice up something and went all the way through cutting it in half. Argh….oh well. It had seen its fair share of slicing and dicing adventures and didn’t owe me anything.

This particular one had been my favorite because the size was convenient to whip out when some veggies or meat needed cutting. I really liked the design as well. When these Magic Slice cutting mats first burst onto the scene, this design with the olive oil labels were hard to find.

The store where I originally bought them is no longer in business. So I finally got around to re-ordering one online through Amazon. When I clicked through to the exact one I wanted, it said that only three were left in stock. Yikes! Better order one quick!

A few days later my box arrived!

Now it looks like I’m back in business!