Soul mates, Tater Tots, and Joy

The Cookbook Issue

“Probably one of the most private things in the world is an egg until it is broken.” - M.F.K. Fisher, “How Not To Boil an Egg” from “How to Cook A Wolf” in The Art of Eating, 50th Anniversary Edition

In this issue:

• So much good stuff that most email services won’t show it all. That means if you are coming upon this in your inbox, you need to click on the title/headline above now to go right on through to the website. Then sit back, grab a cup of coffee, put your feet up, take your time. We’ve got:

• Stories about soul mates, tater tots, a grandmother’s legacy, chili that grew fangs, and more from eight Sparkers who show and tell us about cookbooks and or that are not just about the food

• Julia, James, and Fanny

• Piquant reads, short and long, from writers who are cooks and cooks who are writers

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The Cookbooks I Love Are A Mess

When I married for the first time, I received that sturdy standby, The Joy of Cooking, which I ended up using in the summers to keep my bedroom window open. I was eighteen, a mother, and a full-time student on a very limited income. I had ideas about nutrition and enjoyed eating but no time and even less aptitude. I developed a taste for my infant son’s rice cereal and strained applesauce.

The idea of joyful cooking was a long way off for me so I never fully appreciated that a cookbook is more than the sum of its recipes. I never understood that a good cookbook is one part history, one part adventure, one part survival manual. I did not have any idea, for example, that the Joy of Cooking explained how to skin and butcher a porcupine until Mike Sakasegawa wrote about how he used his copy of the book just before Thanksgiving (see below). I vaguely recall something about instructions for setting the table but not instructions for using chopsticks, as Sandra DeHelen highlights below. This is too bad; even now, I struggle with chopsticks.

I could not imagine having a relationship with a cookbook. I regarded them the way I used to regard my high school algebra textbook, full of formulas designed to make me feel incompetent. 

So my mother started with index cards. Over the years, she copied recipes for foods I loved onto 3X5-inch cards and tucked them into envelopes for me to try in the privacy of my own ill-equipped kitchen. Inspired by a few successes, I clipped madly from magazines and newspapers to save for that day I’d get around to making them. They found their way into envelopes large and small and, eventually, into messy binders that are in no way organized. I like the idea of all those ideas mingling while I’m busy doing something else. I like the surprise of opening the binder and seeing a yellowed envelope containing the recipe for my mother’s “Chocolate Mousse” or, more accurately, “Charlotte Russe” which she made for special occasions and my birthday. I can taste it as I write these words.

When I married for the second time, I found myself in a family of cooks. I was intimidated until my stepdaughter presented us with her own, much more organized binder, full of recipes she had grown up with, some of which she inherited from my husband’s grandmother. Each page has photos, a story, recommendations and tips. And each one is protected from the drips and dribbles of our efforts by plastic sleeves. It is a thing of beauty and love which I have still, somehow, managed to convert into a holder for yet more stray clippings and notes. 

Today, although we are sitting on a pile of cookbooks given over the years that are beautiful to look at, the only ones I keep nearby for ready use are these two binders and, of course, David Leibovitz’ The Perfect Scoop which is now secured with a rubber band to keep the inevitable stray pages and modifications I’ve added over the years. 

They have become trusted friends, these three books. I go to them when I am hungry, angry, lonely, and tired. I go to them when I want to surprise someone I love with something I know they like. I open them with the same anticipation I feel when I sit down to write. I have no idea if it will come out alright but the only way I will find out is if I start.

That brings us to the heart and soul of this edition of Spark: the cookbooks or recipes on your own shelves. When I asked you all for photos and stories of the cookbooks or recipes that spark a special feeling for you, you responded with some beauties. Here they are! If reading these stirs you to share your own favorites, please share them with us. You can do it here in the comments. If you haven’t commented before, you may have to hit the “subscribe” button below and register so the site knows you are not a spammer.

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Sparkers Share Theirs

Rae Francoeur: Soul Mates and Memories

This cookbook came with my house. I bought the house from my landlady, Lura Hall Phillips. I loved her and admired her. She was 94 when I moved in downstairs from her. When I looked through the book, I saw that her favorite things — hermits and apple cake — were also my favorite things. We were soul mates to the end! She made the hermits many times, by the way. The tiny newspaper clipping of the recipe that was stuck in the cookbook is stiff with flour—almost like papier-mâché. Thanks for asking. Holding this book is definitely a happy moment.

A gift from a soulmate

Patty F: The Highs and Lows of Nostalgic Cooking

My dad's Saturday morning joy was making pancakes for the family. This is the coffee splattered recipe in his own handwriting (with unfortunately my note in the upper right).

Recipe for “Poppa’s Pancakes” in his own handwriting with years of coffee splatters - Patty F.

Sometimes, though, nostalgia doesn’t taste as good. I'm trying to brighten our days with something fun to eat. So remembering my husband Rusty talk about a childhood favorite of tater tots in a hamburger casserole I was excited when I found a recipe in a Little Free Library cookbook. Anticipation was greater than the taste! It would have probably been better had we both been 10 years old but it was fun finding the recipe and shopping for tater tots. I don't have the cookbook anymore (it got returned to another Little Free Library), but here's the recipe:

PJ Colando: Dog-eared, discolored, and woebegone

Here’s my beloved cookbook. Dog-eared, discolored, and woebegone. It used to have a red sister, but she got lost in a move. Oh well, this one - she persists.

Her beloved Silver Palate Cookbook dog-eared, discolored, woebegone but still loved

I began using her with good intentions to run through all of the recipes, serving them to couples we cooked invited into our home. You know, the meals one served on china plates flanked by silverware and tricked-out napkins. We’d light the tapers and lift wine glasses to toast our friendships and then feast. My husband and I would annotate each recipe with the date, who we served, and guest comments.

That habit fell by the wayside long ago, but one recipe has prevailed: Banana nut bread. The page, which happens to be near the middle, has nearly fallen out. It has a royal blue sticky note to mark its place, but I could likely find it blind-folded. I have the ingredients and how-to memorized as well, but I turn to the page of the cookbook deferentially. My husband doesn’t like ripe bananas, so I make banana nut bread a lot.

Mike Sakasegawa: The Joy of Cooking

When I was a kid, I used to leaf through my mom’s copy of Joy, which was always either out or close to hand in the kitchen. I particularly liked the section where it described how to dress small game, including butchering a porcupine. Both J and I were given copies of Joy by our respective mothers—she the Christmas after she graduated high school and I as a housewarming present when I got my first apartment after graduating college—so when we moved in together we had two. We ended up keeping hers because it was in good condition and had an inscription from her mom in it, whereas mine was beat up and not personalized. Eighteen years later, the dust jacket on our copy is getting frayed around the edges, and some of the pages are warped from having gotten wet. Sometimes I forget that it isn’t the one my mom gave me. Read the rest of his story, here: Not if, But When.

Receiving The Joy of Cooking from his mother was a rite of passage but what to do when he marries someone with her own copy?

Sandra deHelen: More Joy

This is hands down my favorite cookbook. It explains everything you need to know in order to cook and enjoy your recipes, including how to hold chopsticks and set a table. My most-used recipe from the book is the New York Cheesecake. It brings me compliments every time I make it.

Three photos showing the cover, the recipe, and how to hold chopsticks:

Cynthia Newberry Martin: Lilli’s Legacy

My grandmother Lilli was known for her cooking—pimento cheese, divinity, fudge, devil’s food cake with seven-minute icing... One Christmas when I was little, our family arrived at their house in Mobile, Alabama, at what seemed like the middle-of-the-night, and the entire sideboard in their dining room was covered with homemade goodies. Before she died, she gave me two cardboard boxes full of recipes—handwritten by her, by her mother, by my grandfather (who was also a good cook—he made the best crabmeat omelet), recipes cut from newspapers and magazines, and recipe cards given to her by friends. After she died, I sorted through the boxes, throwing away anything that wasn’t personal, saving everything in her handwriting, and collecting them all into a cookbook. My daughter, who was fifteen at the time, did the illustrations. For Christmas 1996, we gave everyone in the family his or her own copy. I make Lilli's pimento cheese all the time. Cass, the main character in my novel Tidal Flats, also makes her grandmother’s pimento cheese, adding a few ingredients of her own. You can find that recipe here. 

A grandmother’s recipes live on

Note: In the photo of the page from the book, the pimento cheese recipe is in my handwriting. I don’t have one in hers. But you can see Lilli's schoolteacher handwriting in the recipe for the Cheese Ball.

Mary K.: Coming of Age With Julia

I discovered Julia Child in my 20’s when I was living in Boston with my roommate. We were both in our first jobs out of college. On lazy Sundays we used to curl up and watch re-runs of Julia on WGBH. We were newbies in the kitchen and in life. Whether it was our lack of experience or hunger for a taste of home, we were enthralled by the way Julia sliced and diced her way through a dish, with fresh ingredients and the inevitable unmeasured splash of wine, and then presented it all with a flair I later learned came from her adventurous spirit.

Cut to my 40’s. Mother of two, a New Englander transplanted to the south, a long way from home. Betty Crocker and the basics I learned in Home Economics got me through many meals. One day a book-rate envelope arrived in the mail. In it was a used copy of Mastering The Art of French Cooking with a note from my mother: “I found this old book in a thrift shop. I had a copy for years and marked the recipes I use.” Marked in pen are her adaptations and advice for Beouf Bourgignon and Veau Marengo. I leave my book out at all times, its tattered spine for all to see. Not only is it good reading, it has taught me to braise, appreciate the delicacy of using real butter, and brought the best of what the farmer’s market offers in the spring — fresh garlic soup.

A mother’s gift

I moved to Florida a year ago with my soon-to-be retired husband I took Julia with me. I wrapped up my copy of “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” which still contains all my mother’s notes. They were precious cargo!

Precious cargo

David Abrams: this chili started out tame and grew its fangs over time

Growing up, my three children were notoriously picky eaters and no matter what I prepared, at least one of them invariably balked and pouted.  This led to some very painful civil wars around the dinner table with both parent and child firmly entrenched in their camps.  Remind me to tell you about the Great Salisbury Steak Standoff of 1998 sometime.  One thing my beloved offspring agreed upon, however, was my home-brewed recipe for chili.  I've adapted the ingredients and increased the pepper level as we've grown older and strengthened our intestinal fortitudes; this chili started out tame and grew its fangs over time… Read the rest and get the recipe HERE.

David Abram’s this chili started out tame and grew its fangs over time Chili: he wasn’t really trying to kill his children

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The Early Entertainers: James, Julia, And Fanny

Today there is The Food Network but first there was James Beard. Then came Julia. Over in England, Fanny Cradock — a serial self-re-inventor with no real credentials — was cooking omelets in evening gowns for early television audiences. I actually met James Beard although his genius was wasted on me. I was a 22-year-old reporter from the local paper interviewing him while he vacationed at a friend’s house. At the time, my go-to supper was spaghetti sauce on top of cottage cheese on top of toast. I”m sure I never mentioned that to Beard who, like the others are gone now. If you’d like to be introduced, or refresh your memory, here are some fun links for you. If you only click one, make it the “Best of Julia Child” which gives you 90-seconds of clips set to Guns ‘N Roses’s Sweet Child of Mine." (Note the copy of The Joy of Cooking on her bookshelf!)

Julia Child Presents… The Chicken Sisters!

James Beard, the Man Who Brought Food to T.V.

Fanny Cradock - Don’t Try This At Home

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The First Great Food Writer…

M.F.K. Fisher

There are the cooks who write and the writers who make art with words to celebrate food and its role in our lives. Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher only wrote one cookbook in her life and one novel. Both were written under duress. She was, first and foremost, a person who was passionate about food and wanted to explore it in essays at a time in American history when cooks were women and chefs were men. Cooks, along with the mundane food they prepared, were dismissed and food itself was often considered unimportant in the larger scheme of things. That is difficult to imagine now.

You can learn a lot about her quickly in this lovely essay by Ruth Reichl. I have long cherished my copy of her compilation, The Art of Eating, given to me by a friend who knew I loved food but most of all would love sentences like this one: “An oyster leads a dreadful but exciting life.”

When asked why she chose to write about food, she responded:

“Like most humans, I am hungry...our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others. So it happens that when I write of hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it and warmth, and the love of it…”

But not the last…

Spark subscriber and novelist Cynthia Newberry Martin (of Lilli’s pimento cheese balls above), introduced me to Rage Baking by Kathy Gunst. Cynthia says she doesn’t think of herself as a cook but she “read Rage Baking hungrily from cover to cover, wishing I baked.” Many women contributed to this wonderful book that is part recipes, part essays, and part gorgeous photos and where each recipe has a story to tell, Cynthia writes. “As you read through the essays you will get a glimpse into the way women use the kitchen as a place of refuge, healing, love, anger, sadness, and activism.” Here’s a short essay by Dunst herself in Catching Days, Cynthia’s website and well-read literary blog.

For serious cookbook nerds: Stained Page News

The world of cookbook literature is vast and Paula Forbes has dedicated herself to helping us navigate it with great reviews, wonderful commentary, and curated lists and links. She loves cookbooks. She knows cookbooks because she’s been a professional cookbook critic for over ten years with her review appearing on Eater, Epicurious, Lucky Peach, and Food 52. Paula is where you can geek out about cookbooks with no shame. Check out the Stained Page News.

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Okay, that’ll just about do it. This was a long one, I know. There is something about this time of year and perhaps also the way we’ve all hunkered down these past months that turned my attention to the books we reach for when we are comforting ourselves and others with food. I loved the personal stories that came in and I would love to hear from you. Let me know what you’ve been thinking, what you’ve been reading and what you’ve been cooking or eating lately. Anything. It’s always wonderful to hear from you in the comments or in my inbox.

As you know, you can find most of the books mentioned here at our page on bookshop.org: Spark Community Recommendations. Each sale supports local bookstores and helps us to raise money for literacy projects.

See you next week. Stay safe.

Betsy

P.S. And now, your moment of Zen…

“Cookbooks, it should be stressed, do not belong in the kitchen at all. We keep them there for the sake of appearances; occasionally, we smear their pages together with vibrant green glazes or crimson compotes, in order to delude ourselves, and any passing browsers, that we are practicing cooks; but in all honesty, a cookbook is something you read in the living room, or in the bathroom, or in bed.”

― Anthony Lane, Nobody's Perfect: Writings from The New Yorker

And this lovely, serene photo from Sparker Beth K.

Calling for Your Contribution to “Moment of Zen”

What is YOUR moment of Zen? Send me your photos, a video, a drawing, a song, a poem, or anything with a visual that moved you, thrilled you, calmed you. Or just cracked you up. This feature is wide open for your own personal interpretation.

Come on, go through your photos, your memories or just keep your eyes and ears to the ground and then share. Send your photos/links, etc. to me by replying to this email or simply by sending to: elizabethmarro@substack.com. The main guidelines are probably already obvious: don’t hurt anyone  -- don’t send anything that violates the privacy of someone you love or even someone you hate, don’t send anything divisive, or aimed at disparaging others. Our Zen moments are to help us connect, to bond, to learn, to wonder, to share -- to escape the world for a little bit and return refreshed. 

I can’t wait to see what you send!