Cookbookaholic

Jackie’s Gift Bag

My mom loves to stamp and make her own greeting cards. It’s been her main hobby for over ten years now. She has one particular friend named Jackie who drives from Myrtle Beach and visits with her almost every week. They have a blast together and make an unbelievable amount of cards with every visit.

During their last visit, Jackie mentioned that she had started reading my blog. Thank you Jackie! And—drumroll please….she dropped off a bag of cookbooks for me! From her very own kitchen, here are Jackie’s cookbooks:

Gooseberry Patch: From Grandma’s Kitchen, Fix & Forget (Current), Duncan Hines Bake Your Best), Hershey’s Chocolate Classics, Pillsbury Lotsa Pasta, Pillsbury Easy Holiday Recipes, Pillsbury Classic Cookbooks Bake-Off: Grand Prize Winners, Pillsbury Christmas Baking, Pillsbury Pasta, Pillsbury Casseroles & Slow Cooker Meals, Duncan Hines Celebrates Baking, Duncan Hines Bake It Easy, Betty Crocker Good & Easy Cooking, Eagle Brand Holiday Treasures, Gold Medal The Best of Holiday Baking, The Pampered Chef Season’s Best Recipe Collection (Spring/Summer 2006), Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book (11^th Edition) and Prego Easy Italian Recipes.

Whew! That’s a lot! I spied that Prego cookbook right off the bat. I’ve always loved Prego Fresh Mushroom sauce. Love it! That’s definitely my go-to spaghetti sauce—and I’ll just add in ground beef or meatballs for an amazing pasta dish. (side note: do you remember when Prego made frozen lasagna dinners? Whatever happened to those?) And there’s that Pillsbury Bake-Off Winner cookbook. It’s filled with the Grand Prize winning recipes going all the way back to 1949! I think deep, deep in a pile on a table somewhere, I just might have a really old bake-off contest cookbook.

I’m thrilled that Jackie thought about me and dropped off this amazing gift of her cookbooks. And I’m so glad she and my mom have such great adventures with their cards. Now I get to have my own adventures with these cookbooks! Thanks Jackie!

 

A Rambo By Any Other Name…

Another great Saturday morning with Mr. Duncan tagging along! I’ll be looking for cookbooks while he’s scoping out Nerf guns and footballs.

The first sale is at 7am but we’re out the door a little late. As we arrive, I see some people already leaving…empty handed. Sometimes that’s not a good sign. Either the goods are odd or the goods are too highly priced.

After making it down the driveway, I find these:

Hidden Manna (Windsor Assembly of God Women’s Ministries, Windsor, NC), A Cupboard Full of Love (Chantilly Baptist Church, Charlotte, NC), Treasured Recipes (First Assembly of God, Raleigh, NC), Cookie Cookbook, Recipes to Remember (First Assembly of God, Reidsville, NC), and The Dottie Rambo Cookbook.

I have to be completely honest, when I saw someone named Dottie Rambo…I had to get the cookbook. I had visions of a long lost Stallone cousin who takes no prisoners in the kitchen. Perhaps she chops vegetables with a Bowie knife? Or, she grills steaks over a Molotov cocktail? Nope, it turns out that Dottie is America’s most prolific Gospel songwriter and I’m now going to hell. For Pete’s sake…she’s got June Carter Cash’s Sausage Ball recipe in here. And it’s autographed to boot..

For the next sale, it’s at a house where I’ve been several times before. Their last sale got a snazzy electric keyboard for give buckaroos. This time, I found a Sony PSP for Mr. Colin for only ten bucks. The lady running the sale didn’t have any cookbooks, but her neighbor was there and she said she had a cookbook. The only thing was that it was in a box of other books on her front porch next door. She had plans to consign the box of books but told me  to walk up on her porch and she’d sell me the cookbook.

It felt weird going up the steps onto her porch. What if her husband saw me up there and thought I was robbing them? I look in the box and quickly find the old cookbook she mentioned. And then I hightailed it out of there!

The Settlement Cook Book (Mrs. Simon Kander). Notice the prominent saying at the top of the cover? “The way to a man’s heart…”

Our next sale was small and I was only able to find one cookbook…and it’s Spine-tastic!

Spinetastic Recipes (DePuy AcroMed, Raynham, MA).

My list is finished but on the way home, I spot a sign for an estate sale. It starts at 9am and we’ll arrive a few minutes early. When we arrive at the house, Dunc does not like what he sees. It’s not a bad neighborhood but I understand The door is open and the sale has already started. I tell him I’ll make it quick and he stays put in the car. I walk in and find a stack of cookbooks in the small dining room.

Our Best to You (Idlewild A.R.P. Church, Charlotte), Feeding the Flock (Newell Baptist Church), Recipes from our Kitchen (First Pentecostal Holiness Church, Wilmington, NC), Our Recipes for the “Long Term Care” of Your Appetite (Chesterfield Convalescent Center, Cheraw, SC), Our “Beary” Best Recipes (Newell Baptist Church) and unknown cookbook (Itta Bena, MS).

Beth Merriman’s Cookbook…From Soup to Nuts, Molasses Flavor for Modern Cooks (American Molasses Company), Our Best Cooky Recipes (Martha Logan/Swift Company), Baking Made Easy (Occident Flour, Russel-Miller Milling Co.) and Ronrico Rum’s Break Tradition Party & Drink Guide.

Back to the car and now on our way back home! 

 

eBay Bonanza!

As I was doing a recent eBay search, I came across three amazing cookbook auctions. I say amazing because they were “lots,” which means they are selling a bunch grouped together. Both “lots” had more than ten cookbooks in each sale! And I’ve got my eye on several cookbooks in each auction.

Both auctions already had bidders but they ended very early in the morning so I needed to get up early and try to snipe them. Luckily, I was able to get them! And since both auctions were from the same seller, they shipped all of them in one box.

Here are the ones I was hoping to get and a few that I’m glad to have found:

Friedberg Cook Book (Friedberg Moravian Church, Winston-Salem, NC), Friedberg Cook Book (Friedberg Moravian Church, Winston-Salem, NC), Beth Tartan’s Cook Book (Elizabeth Hedgecock Sparks), Receipts of Yesteryear 1976-1976 (Forsyth County Extension Homemakers) and What’s Cookin’? (The Woman’s Club, Winston-Salem, NC First Edition, 1948).

And these….

The Cook’s Book (Telephone Pioneers of America, Old North State Chapter No. 79), Your Cook Book (Telephone Pioneers of America Hobby Committee), Coastal Carolina Cooking (Women’s Auxiliary to the Ocean View Memorial Hospital, Myrtle Beach, SC), Favorite Recipes (Fraternity Church of the Brethren, Winston-Salem, NC) and Fine Foods from Fraternity (Young Adult Class, Fraternity Church of the Brethren, Winston-Salem, NC).

And then this looked interesting…

 

The Hand-Me-Down Cookbook (Cherry Parker, Frances Bradsher) And look, it’s autographed!

And then this one…

Pages from Old Salem Cook Book (The Dorcas Co-Workers of The Salem Home)

As you can see, I got some great old Moravian cookbooks to add to my collection. Plus, I got a copy of Beth Tartan’s Cook Book. I haven’t seen too many of those, so I’m glad I was able to snag it. (As an interesting side note, I was going through the Receipts of Yesteryear cookbook and I see that they thank Beth Tartan for reviewing the recipes.) Very exciting! Looks like my early morning sniping brought me an eBay bonanza! 

 

Busy Start to February

It may be February, but I’ve got six sales on my list. Can you believe I even crossed off three other sales? One sale is even just across the border in South Carolina! Most of them are at 9am…including the one in S.C. This is going to one busy morning.

My 7am sale is open early—and it’s a bust. Hmmmm….wonder if one of the 8am sales is open early? Oh boy! The one over in Matthews is already open!!! And as soon as I see all the stuff, it’s gets overwhelming quickly. There is an unending line of tables in the driveway that begins in the garage. I walk by a table and spot a silver cookbook and pick it up. But then I see boxes and boxes of books. And yes, there are cookbooks in several of them.

I’m trying to look quickly and as thoroughly as possible because the garage already has quite a few people digging through the items. I see a lot of hardback books but every once in a while I find a plastic spiral spine sticking out. I grab what I can and here’s what I found:

 Blue Ribbon Recipes: Favorite Recipes from Southern Kitchens, Silver Anniversary Cookbook (Hickory Grove Presbyterian Church (Charlotte, NC), Charleston Receipts (Junior League of Charleston, 1965 printing), and Gather ‘round Our Table: Recipes and Memories from the Doughtie Family and Friends.

 As I’m checking out, the lady handling the money asks if I cook a lot. I tell her that I’m a collector and we get to talking. This sale is from her parent’s home and she lives right next door. She tells me that she had donated a lot of her cookbooks but that she would run over to her house and bring out a few more.

Here’s what she brought out:

Cooking with Class (Charlotte Latin Schools) and Sixth Grade Delights (Clemmons Middle School Sixth Grade, Winston-Salem, NC). She tells me that a student at this school became ill and this cookbook was a fundraiser. I hope it helped.

The next 8am sale is literally so well-hidden that I can’t find it. I drive up and down the street and then give up. Fantastic—I’ve driven all the way from Matthews back into Charlotte for a wild goose chase. That’s probably a good ten minutes of drive time wasted. I decide to just go ahead try the 9am sale down in South Carolina. I’ll arrive just in time but I’ll blow any chances at the other two sales and show up late to those. I’m banking on this one because the ad says they’re “selling Mother’s estate.” That should be good for some cookbooks, right? (sounds of crickets in the distance)

Just as I’m on my way, the low gas light comes one. Great—this’ll add another five minutes or more to the arrival time. Yikes! When I do finally make it to the sale, I see a line of people already waiting…and did I mention it’s raining?

As I walk up to take my place in line, the door opens and people start to file in. We’re all trying to get into what must be the smallest house in the world. I honestly don’t think we’ll all fit in! I slowly follow the line into the kitchen. I spot a stack of books on a shelf, but, of course, the woman in front of me stops right in front of the books. I’m able to lean over, push the top books out of the way and grab these two:

Favorite Recipes (St. Mary’s County Humane Society) and Favorite Recipes (St. Paul UMC). I think I’ve blown any chance for finding any more cookbooks this morning. I took a chance on this sale and royally blew it. I’ll give the other two sale a try…but I’m not holding out much hope.

When I arrive at the next sale, I notice the sign says 8am. I had it on my list for 9am—so I’m more than an hour late! It’s drizzling now but everything is inside a covered garage. It’s an estate sale and there are a ton of really nice decorative items but no cookbooks. I spot this crab (is it brass?) and he looks like a perfect companion to a pewter crab I found at a sale last year. Plus, this one has movable claws and his shell lifts up! There’s even a lovely feather tucked in there.

I’m ready to pay for the brass crab but decide to ask about cookbooks. I’m so glad I did. A few minutes after going inside the house, a lady emerges with a stack of cookbooks. My heart skips a beat when I see the selection! Here they are:

Spartanburg Secrets II (Junior League of Spartanburg, SC), The Asheboro Cook Book (First Methodist Church, Asheboro, NC), A Cook’s Tour of Quantico (Officers’ Wives Garden Club, Marine Corps Schools, Quantico, VA), Recipes (Gretna High School Band, Tea Time in Old Pendleton (The Foundation for Historic Restoration, Pendleton, SC).  

I’m first introduced to Susan, the daughter who tells me about her mother Kit. She tells me that Kit was the consummate Southern lady from Gretna, Virginia who loved everybody and knew no stranger. She was one of eleven children and a product of the Depression. As a result, she usually overbought (buying four heads of lettuce) and made huge casseroles for dinner. Susan said that while cleaning out the house, they found 43 bibles! Now that’s giving The Gideons a run for their money! (Kit had passed away this past June at the age of 85.)

Susan then introduces me to her brother, Ray. He sees the stack of cookbooks and then tells me that their dad was actually the cook for the family—and pretty good at it. His nickname was Desi but they pronounced it "Dee-Zee." The more I hear, the more Kit is sounding like one smart lady to me—let the husband do all the cookingI On the way out, I asked Ray if he had inherited any of his father’s cooking skills but apparently, he hasn’t. Oh well!

What a nice treat for me to learn some family history about Kit and her cookbooks. I’m especially honored that they went inside and brought them out for me. I literally had no hopes for this sale but I ended up with a lovely collection from Kit and Desi.

The last sale of the day catches my eye with a sign on the side of the road. I take a chance and find a garage lined with books and books. They’re not cheap and I’m low on cash so I’m carefully looking through the lines for cookbooks…and interesting ones at that.

Here’s what I find:

The Margaret Rudkin Pepperidge Farm Cook Book, Brennan’s New Orleans Cookbook (Hermann B. Deutsch) and Come for Cocktails, Stay for Supper (Marian Burros and Lois Levine. What’s with that last one? Are you too sloshed from the booze that you have to stick around and eat enough Swedish Meatballs, chicken wings and casserole to sober up? Classy....

The sad thing about this sale was that he had a ton of books. Some were still piled (or dumped?) in boxes out in the driveway—and got thoroughly drenched in the rain. I looked through a couple of boxes and thankfully, no cookbooks were harmed! Only a lot of 70s paperback novels…

 

Oscar’s Menu Has Come a LONG Way

Love the Oscars! When I lived and worked in NYC many moons ago, I worked in the film publicity business. I worked on two films that went on to win the Best Foreign Language Film award. I even got to walk around midtown with an Oscar—remember that story?! LOL!!!

About this time in all the build-up, we start getting bombarded with stories of the fancy meals that famous chefs are cooking up for the Governor’s Ball following the ceremony. Lots of expensive, exotic food served in small, well-presented portions. This coverage has always baffled me. Why do you cover the food that none of the skinny actresses will eat? It seems like no one in Hollywood ever bothers to eat regularly anymore…they’re all so super stick-thin skinny. I wonder if they honestly believe they look attractive?

Oh well. I picked up a copy of the Assistance League of Southern California’s Add a Pinch of Pizzaz at one of my favorite used book stores last year. I was too busy looking at the recipes on the pages that I completely overlooked the very interesting artwork on the inside front cover.

It’s the dinner menu for the awards banquet for the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences on May 16, 1929.

It reads:

Hors d’oeuvres Varie

Celery Olives Nuts Rolls

Consomme Celestine

Filet of Sole Saute au Buerre

Half Broiled Chicken on Toast

New String Beans   Long Branch Potatoes

Lettuce and Tomatoes with French Dressing

Vanilla and Chocolate Ice Cream

Cakes

Demi Tasse

Quite a difference between that menu and the Wolfgang Puck extravaganza of today, huh? How do you even pull off a half-broiled chicken on toast anyway? This is dangerously close to what the hubby calls a “peanuts and mint” reception! Doesn’t it seem so basic? I wonder how many millions they spend on chefs and food for the ones now?

Do you care about the stories on what they're serving at the Oscars? Do you bother with a big food spread to rival the Big Game extravaganza? Or, do you pop up a huge bag of popcorn for everyone--wait a minute, that seems like a good idea! Then I can throw the popcorn at the screen if the "interpretative dance" for each Best Song nominee returns this year.

 

Surprise Hit at the Big Game Celebration

We had a surprise hit during our Big Game celebration. As Mr. Colin is on a strict no-gristle diet, his usual meal plan includes grilled cheese, nachos & cheese and cheese pizza. All perfectly normal choices for a picky young man.

For the Big Game spread, Mr. Colin only asked for Papa John’s Breadsticks and the garlic butter dipping sauce. As I did my shopping at Food Lion, I found this in the frozen section.

Breadsticks with a garlic butter already on it. Plus, the price was super low at $2.49. I decided to give them a try. After scooting by Papa John’s and snagging a couple of garlic butter tubs, I heated the breadsticks in the oven and served them up on a platter with the dipping sauce. Very tasty and gone by the time halftime rolled around!  

 

Now is the Winter of My Discontent

Okay, that’s going too far. Today started out a little on the chilly side but ended up being a warm and beautiful day. Here’s how the morning played out: not a cookbook in sight. Seriously, not even one. I went to two estate sales and a moving sale…nothing. 

I did end up with a lot of art and some jewelry. Wanna see?

The first sale was a moving sale and they were open early. This small framed painting caught my eye. It’s a beautiful combination of colors. I asked the lady having the sale if she was the artist of the painting. She said no, but that I was making a good investment as she had purchased it at a gallery.   

Here’s the painting:

 

My next two sales were both at 8am. One started yesterday and the other is an estate sale. I choose to go to the estate sale. I’m there with about fifteen minutes to spare. But it looks like I’m about the seventh person in line—I guess the chill in the air has kept the line down? Or, if this is the sale I remember from an email, there is a collection of Grandma Moses prints inside. And that looked to be highlight of the sale. I bet someone up at the front of the line will make a beeline straight to those prints.

The door opens and I walk around the front of the living room, the upstairs bedrooms and downstairs. Nothing. Even in the kitchen, I didn’t see anything. I rounded the corner out of the kitchen and into the back of the living room. Hidden in the corner are the Grandma Moses prints. In fact, there’s a stack that includes a boxed collection of Andrew Wyeth prints as well.

So, should I sink some dough into these? Why not. Here they are:

Hubby and I both loved the one titled “Teel's Island.” But there are so many in that collection. My friend Janet just had a birthday on Friday and she loves Andrew Wyeth. I think she may get her pick of the box!!! 

The last stop is another estate sale—but by a very high end company. I’ve never been able to afford anything at one of their estate sales. Sure enough, I walk around the house and there’s nothing in my price range. I can honestly say that I’ve never had a spare $695 for an antique chest of drawers.

On the way out the door, I notice a tabletop filled with jewelry boxes and small trinket boxes. Those small trinket boxes are $45. There’s a plain wooden box that catches my eye but no price tag—and when I opened the lid, it was filled with buttons. There’s another box under a $145 Wedgewood Leaf. The tag says it’s an antique leather jewelry box and when I lift the lid, it’s filled with jewelry. Do they know jewelry is in there?

I sift through and find two pieces that interest me. One is a rhinestone studded leaf that looks like a bookmark or broach. The other is a glass cameo pin surrounded by an oval of rhinestones and pearls at the top and bottom. I buy them and bring them home for a little cleaning.

Let's hope that next week will get me back on track with at least one cookbook.

Gimme Shelter...Cause It's Drizzling

It’s supposed to be a rainy weekend. And there’s nothing like a little falling rain for someone to cancel their yard sale—without any notice. If it’s not an indoor or a literal “in the garage” sale, there’s a good chance that rain will cancel most of this weekend’s sales. I wonder if I’ll get any sales or just drive by darkened homes and empty driveways.

The morning starts off very overcast but nothing worth worrying about. Then, my car wouldn’t start. Back to bed? Nah, I’ll just grab the keys to hubby’s car and head off to sale number one. It’s nearby and they did mention cookbooks, but it’s in an apartment.

When I arrive, I find a box of cookbooks and the ladies say they are a quarter each. Say hey, that’s a nice price!  I find a few but as I’m checking out the rest of the apartment; I hear them say they had another sale a few weeks earlier. Great, now I’m picking over the leftovers. Here’s what I ended up getting:

Southern Living 30 Years of Our Best Recipes, Fondue Magic: Fun, Flame and Saucery Around the World (Anita Prichard), Cooking with Sour Cream and Buttermilk (Culinary Arts Institute) and Something’s Cooking at American Savings (Elsye Wexler).

Can you imagine the time when Cooking with Sour Cream and Buttermilk was considered a recipe resource? This one is dated 1956! I have to admit, one of the best cakes I’ve ever made used buttermilk as an ingredient. I may have to focus more on the buttermilk recipes.

I actually spent more time at the apartment sale than I should have. Add to that, the hubby’s GPS took me on a large circle to get me around taking a left on a divided highway. By the time I figured out what it was trying to do, I’d lost a good five minutes of drive time. The next two sales were at 8am and I decided to head over to the one that said “no early birds.” If they hold the entry until 8am, I think I’ll have a better shot of getting there before it gets picked over.

As I walk up the driveway, I see a closed gate and three people already there. No worries, I’m familiar with these three and none of us are after the same items. Just as we’re standing there, the very slight drizzle becomes a bit heavier. Luckily, all the items are protected under a wide, covered garage. When they finally open up the gate, I see a lot of books on fat-free cooking. Not interested. I round a corner and find a basket of more cookbooks. Here’s what I find:

Top Secret Recipes: Classics (Todd Wilbur), Top Secret Recipes: More Classics (Todd Wilbur) and Maida Heatter’s Book of Great Cookies.

Plus, I find a Pyrex 2-cup measuring to replace one that was broken a few months back. Woo-hoo!! Only a dollar!!!

Last stop on the list is an estate sale that started yesterday. Picked over? Probably. Plus, it’s in a part of town that I don’t usually put on my list. Turns out there’s not a lot in my price range. Lots of furniture with hefty price tags. I venture around to the living room and see a box of hardback cookbooks. I’m not looking to bring any of those home. I spot a lady in the kitchen behind some yellow ropes. I think she’s a family member. I ask her if there are any more cookbooks and she goes to the shelf and brings me back this one:

Weeping Willow African Methodist Episcopal Lutheran Zion Church (Charlotte, NC) Wow—it’s what, three or four denominations rolled into one?! That’s impressive! I never knew what A.M.E. stood for…now I know!

Plus, now I know a little more about this part of town. This house was nice and as I wind my way back to more familiar territory, I see a lot of nice, well-kept homes. I wonder what I've missed by not coming to this part of town before?

How fortunate that all the sales were inside or in a garage? The rainy weather didn’t keep me from any of the sales on the list. Now I’ve just got to cross my fingers that we can get my car to start so I can go to work Monday morning.

 

Just Calm the Bleep Down!

It seems the world around Paula Deen exploded this week with her recent—or actually, not so recent—diabetes diagnosis. I’m so torn on this whole controversy. I really enjoy her personality, her backstory and her food. Granted, I haven’t watched any of her shows in a couple of years. I can say that I did book her as a guest on Bob & Sheri a couple of times. She’s just this vibrant personality that makes you feel happy.

So much has been thrown at her this week and I wanted to put some of my thoughts down. Hope you don’t get offended or disappointed, it’s just my opinion.

First off, calm the bleep down. It’s not like she’s the Dalai Lama. She’s a southern cook who loves to cook with butter, flour and sugar. Are you actually surprised she has diabetes? I’m sure there has been an oddsmaker in Las Vegas taking bets on when she’d have a health crisis for years now.

Second of all, she’s a person. Let’s all remember that she’s a fellow human being that was given a life-altering diagnosis. She has a right to keep it private as long as she needs in order to deal with the long-term implications for her health. She can make her own decision as to whether or not she will make dietary changes, take medication or both. Any criticism that she needed to immediately jump up and proclaim herself a diabetic needs to simmer down. That is, unless you want to volunteer to get on your Facebook page and shout to the world every one of your ailments. It’s none of our beeswax. What was that? I thought so.

Then you have to keep in mind that she’s not just Paula Deen. She’s also the brand "Paula Deen" with a big ole “incorporated” behind it. Millions of dollars run through that brand and “she” probably had to carefully think through how that diagnosis would affect her brand on both a short-term and ongoing, long-term basis. “She” may even be a committee—butting in and putting in their two cents worth. Heaven help her, but that’s what companies with big money do—they sit, they think, they strategize, they run test scenarios, they consult focus groups, they analyze—and only then do they chose the option with the least amount of risk/fallout with optimal profit potential.

But then again, I don’t reach for a Paula Deen recipe for something health conscious, that’s not her field. I go to a Paula Deen recipe for something that tastes amazing, regardless of calories. Again, we’re going back to the “brand” Paula Deen. I don’t really know if I would want a healthy version of her cooking. Who knows, maybe that’s what she’s been doing these past few years but pushing it out through the son’s “Not My Momma’s Cooking” show? (She did add in salads, didn’t she? Back when her husband had a heart attack, I think?) Would her brand withstand a colossal, 180 degree change in direction? I’m not so sure it would.

Many have taken the stance about her responsibility to inform her fans and change her way of cooking. Did New Orleans chef Paul Prudhomme stop being so popular and respected when he was scooting around on his Little Rascal? The man could barely walk because of his weight, but did the world rise up and demand that he change his recipes? They might have…but still, I think he pretty much decided for himself to lose the weight and get his health back on track. And if I want a Cajun red snapper recipe—I reach for one of his…from his fat phase!

On the other hand, ouch—she is a public figure who did decide to share her condition. And boy, it really did take her a long time to come out with the news. Three years is a huge swath of time. That’s an extended period to figure out where you’re going and map out a strategy to get there. 

Should she have taken the money from the pharmaceutical company? If the long-range outlook for her brand is not positive, then this drug company money will be what keeps her and the brand going a little bit longer. That huge payout does one of two things. It either buys her some time to bow out of public life gradually and graciously; or, it gives her the cash to keep everyone employed until the controversy blows over and she finds a way back to the limelight.

Who knows? Maybe she’s found that the drug has really helped manage her diabetes. Has it occurred to any of us that perhaps she’s actually the one pulling the strings? Maybe she convinced that drug company to give her oodles of cash to wave their product in front of her fans? I honestly don’t know. But I do know that it’s not easy to get an endorsement deal out of those big drug companies—that kind of money is a game-changer and you have to work for every penny. I’ve seen someone attempt that process…it was like watching them jump through never-ending hoops for an unbending, unimpressed taskmaster. Have no doubts, she’ll be working her bohonkus off day and night until that contract runs out. 

Here’s what I take away from all this. I still think she’s a great lady, a great cook and an inspiration. She’s dealing with a life-changing diagnosis and now she’s dealing with a possible career-ending public relations nightmare on a public stage. I wouldn’t wish either one of those on anyone. Given the right forum, she’s got the right ingredients (and sass!) to potentially turn this all around and back in her favor. She’s a strong, smart lady and I think she’ll be just fine. I wish her well.

 

Baby, It's Cold Outside!

Who are we kidding? The first yard sale on my list starts at 6am. You know I’m not going to make that! The hubby and boys are on a weekend trip so I’ve got the house to myself! I’m looking forward to a quiet weekend and I’m wondering if I should just sleep in.

As luck would have it, I have four sales on my list and there’s one for every hour. There’s the too early sale at 6am and then I can take a leisurely pace all the way until an estate sale (which is probably already picked over) at 9am.

It is beyond cold and pitch dark out there! I’m out the door too late for the 6am sale, but plenty early for the 7am sale. It’s an apartment but it’s a moving sale. I’m the first to arrive and the apartment is thick with the smell of cigarette smoke. I find one cookbook and grab it quick. The lady running the sale tells me that her sister had already taken the cookbook their mother used when they were growing up. Don’t tell me that…ugh! I go into the kitchen and find a deep cast iron skillet for five bucks! I usually don’t buy cast iron items, but it's been kept in great shape and I can’t pass up the low price.

Here’s the cookbook I got:

Because We Care (Ladies of the Shrine, Hickory, NC). This one is from the mid 1980s and it’s stuffed! There are many recipe cards, multiple Green Bean Casserole recipes and several newspaper clippings focusing on roasting a Thanksgiving turkey and other holiday side dishes.

Well, now I have a dilemma. It’s just a few minutes past 7am. Should I head over to the earlier one from 6am? Or, should I try to be an early bird for the next one?

The 8am sale is on the same street as last year’s super mega-jackpot sale. I can’t remember the exact house number, could it be the same house? Sadly, no. I soon realize that as I drive toward the jackpot house…and then keep on going. Oh well…the sale turns out to be a bust as well.

Now’s the time to head back to the 6am sale. That estate sale isn’t going to open up early so I might as well check out the 6am sale and whatever is left of it. When I arrive, it still looks packed. I wonder what has been sold? Tons of baby stuff and old board games. I see an older man with a stack of books. Right there at the bottom is Southern Living Secrets of the South’s Best Barbecue. Wow—if only I’d been here a few minutes earlier. Then I look around. There seems to be another stack of books on the other side of the table. And there’s another copy of the BBQ book…still in the plastic wrapper!

Looks like this is a yard sale for someone who was a rep for Southern Living at Home. Glad I found the last copy of this cookbook!

Now, it’s over to the estate sale at 9am. It started yesterday, so I’m not expecting great things. Plus, these things almost never open early. By the time I pull up at 8:30am, I’m the only one waiting outside. Oh boy it’s cold! The line starts to form behind me and at 9am, the door opens.

I find my way to the kitchen and a little desk alcove filled with cookbooks! I even hear one of the workers say something like "the cookbooks had been hidden in a closet yesterday." So this was the first time they were put out for sale! Oh wait, it’s filled with a lot of low fat, diabetic cookbooks. Oh well…

I look a little more closely and find these two:

How to Beat Those Cordon Bleus (Rita Leinwand & Lois Peyser) and Betty Crocker’s Bisquick Cookbook.

Not bad, a total of three for a cold day in January. I had the rest of the day to myself so I decide to check out my favorite used book stores.

My first stop finds a first edition, first printing of Puttin’ on the Peachtree from the Junior League of DeKalb County, GA. Score!

I’m getting excited about the next stop! And with good reason, here’s what I find:

Nigella Bites (Nigella Lawson), A Third Course: More Cooking with Class (Charlotte Latin School), Charity League Cook Book (Charity League, Charlotte, NC), Louisiana’s Fabulous Foods (Lady Helen Henriques Hardy and Raymond J. Martinez) and The Hooters Cookbook. Wait, a Hooters cookbook?

Yes, there’s actually a Hooters cookbook. And yes, there’s an entire chapter devoted exclusively to wings. We’ve got Beer-Battered Wings, Buffalo Wings and Waikiki Wings, and Wings of Fire among others. I originally bought this as a hoot, but there’s a section on drinks and lots of tailgating ideas. There’s a big football game coming up in a few weeks. This Hooters cookbook may come in handy after all.