“Oh, look at that,” Ruth remarked as she hefted a gigantic container of powdered coffee creamer to read the ingredients on the label. “Wow, the first thing on the list is corn syrup solids, and then partially hydrogenated coconut oil…”

As she droned on and on about the odd-sounding ingredients that seemed more chemical than food, my mind wandered (it often does when Ruth begins one of her “investigative reports”). I began thinking about how to stretch the dollar in lean times.  Here we were in one of those bulk food warehouse stores being dazzled by 60-ounce containers of coffee creamer for less than $6.00, and all I could think of was how expensive everything seemed to be. Read the rest of this entry »

When I have friends over for an afternoon tea or such, you might think we all sit around a linen-clad table with our gloves on, daintily testing the tepidness of the tea before we drink. NOT.

When I have friends over for afternoon tea or such, they all bring their Wi-Fi laptops and other “connected” devices.

When I have friends over for afternoon tea or such, we sit around my kitchen table and chat about the week’s events, check emails and/or texts, and search out more information about topics we are discussing. Often we find ourselves talking about arts and crafts, scrapbooking, sewing, home decorating, and recipes. We always talk about recipes, recipe books, recipe cards and other ways to store those precious memories of good food we have with our families. Read the rest of this entry »

My dear friend, Ruth, and I are positively girlie giddish about watching the 82nd Academy Awards show on Sunday, March 7 (and every year).  We watch all the movies we can during the 12 months prior (thank you, Netflix), so we are usually very familiar with all of the Best Picture and Best Actor/Actress nominees.

We plan our own festive Academy Awards affair with friends and neighbors (mostly the ladies) so we can relax and ogle all the beautiful outfits, jewelry, hairstyles and make-up of the silver screen’s glitterati.  Read the rest of this entry »

Just as heirloom roses and other older plants in a garden may play a somewhat invisible role in a family’s history, so do heirloom recipes.

In spite of the fact that many heirloom recipes are lost each year (due to lack of family interest, downsizing a home, or sadly, a family member’s death), these precious links to the past are becoming increasingly valued and valuable. Many collectors seek heirloom cookbooks at estate sales, in old book stores, and in thrift shops whenever possible. Read the rest of this entry »

Members of the local historical society came to me recently to ask about making a cookbook to help support an old pioneer cemetery the group oversees. The request of these polite ladies seemed a bit odd to me; so many of our customers are lively churches, schools, civic groups, and individuals wishing to preserve their family recipes and traditions.

The group wants to make a cookbook and sell it to help support the old pioneer cemetery, which is run entirely by volunteers and has not been actively used since 1939. The more I thought about the idea, the more I liked it.  I surmised that the only thing they needed was a little encouragement, and a copy of my Matilda’s Fantastic Cookbook Software. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the holidays, I noticed that several new kitchen tools had crept into my kitchen cupboards and drawers. They began to nag at my subconscious; the instinctive one that prefers minimalist or basic kitchen tools instead of fancy doo-dad gadgets that do little more than one task.

I just had to cull all those extra kitchen tools down into my regular set of basic kitchen tools.  In the process, I determined that there are only 10 basic kitchen tools worth having, so here is my list of the Top 10 Basic Kitchen Tools: Read the rest of this entry »

Have you noticed that some of the most delightfully unusual foods to be sampled nowadays have slight flower flavors? These flower flavored foods range from entrees to desserts, and offer a wide range of choices that even the picky American palate might love.

Here are some of the flower flavored foods that I have enjoyed: Read the rest of this entry »

Is it possible that the age-old wisdoms of our foremothers are really all we need to be eating healthy? Seems like every year or two scientific reports tell us that our previous food choices for eating healthy are now bad for us, or marginal at best. 

Eating healthy in a world of ambiguity can be very frustrating. Read the rest of this entry »

What a great “stretch” weekend we just had!
From Friday until Tuesday, there were so many unrelated things to celebrate that it was hard to concentrate on which one would most influence my weekly dinner menu planning.

I had to juggle what to buy at the supermarket and other local food resources to ensure my successful dinner menu planning for the following must-acknowledge events/observances: Read the rest of this entry »

Today was the day I trimmed my fresh rosemary plant.  Not that trimming a fresh rosemary plant is all that difficult or monumental an act.  However, this fresh rosemary plant regularly ranges in the neighborhood of five or six feet square, now scaled back through diligent effort on my part to about four feet square. Read the rest of this entry »

In honor of the New Orleans Saints well-deserved win at the Superbowl yesterday, I am going to reveal for the first time my secret Big Easy Barbecue Shrimp recipe (just in time for Mardi Gras celebrations, too).

Barbecue Shrimp has nothing to do with a barbecue pit or grill: there are no flames or skewers, and there is no traditional barbecue sauce. Well, not the kind most people think of anyway.

If you “Google” Barbecue Shrimp on the Internet, you’ll get all kinds of recipe variations. Most are centered around cooking the dish on a stovetop in a frying pan (because frankly, most restaurants want to make it quick and dirty). Barbecue Shrimp was devised in a famous New Orleans restaurant (Pasqual Manale’s restaurant to be exact), and has been copied umpteen times. Read the rest of this entry »

If you are anything like me, you prefer to keep your kitchen counters free of extra “stuff” while cooking. I’m constantly clearing, tossing, and wiping counters when creating a dish. That is why I really enjoy using our new Under Cabinet Cookbook Holder, a new product now in our stockroom that helps keep the counter open while allowing me to read the recipe quickly and easily.

Great thing is, I can just push up the Under Cabinet Cookbook Holder and my favorite cookbook is hidden away ready for creating my next gastronomic extravaganza. Read the rest of this entry »

How many recipes for rotten food are in your family cookbook?  Or, how many recipes in your family cookbook include ingredients classified as rotten food? I bet you have quite a few!

Consider that some of the most beloved rotten food tastes from the Americas and Europe (especially France) are based on some form of decomposition, decay, or the result of deliberately drying, fermenting, spicing, or injecting foods with “good” bacteria. Read the rest of this entry »

In mid-January I had the pleasure of attending the 35th Winter Fancy Food Show in San Francisco. This fancy food show is one of the largest marketplaces for specialty food and beverages. This year the show had 80,000 products on display from the United States and more than 32 countries, according to the press kit. Read the rest of this entry »

Hot wings, Buffalo wings, chicken wings, or just wings — whatever you call ‘em, they are an original American snacking phenomenon that has taken “wing” across the country. An estimated 1.2 billion of ‘em are served on Super Bowl Sunday for game day grub, according to people who track that sort of thing.

Back in 1964, chicken wings were basically throwaway parts until inspiration hit Teressa Belissimo, who owned a small restaurant in Buffalo, New York. She created Buffalo wings by deep frying trimmed, non-breaded chicken wings, adding a mixture of melted butter and Frank’s® RedHot® Original Cayenne Pepper Sauce, and serving them up with bleu cheese dressing and celery sticks. (The dressing and celery sticks helped curtail the burn.) Read the rest of this entry »

If you are one to join in the observance of Groundhog Day (as a national holiday of sorts) on February 2, then you may also want to join the fun with a Groundhog Day Party.  We always look forward to the prognostication of Punxsutawney Phil, the famous resident weather predictor groundhog of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.

Punxsutawney Phil’s job is to let us know if winter will continue, or if it will end soon. This prediction is based on whether or not he sees his shadow (I’m told if he sees his shadow, we’ll have winter weather another six weeks). Read the rest of this entry »

The other day I was trying to think of some clever dish for dinner. I had several ingredients that by themselves were probably very adequate, but a bit boring. I thumbed through my family cookbook, and didn’t find anything inspiring that would suit the ingredients I had available. The weather didn’t permit a trip to the supermarket, so I started surfing the internet for inspiration. 

That’s when I discovered Supercook.com. It is a recipe search engine that finds recipes on other websites and makes recipe suggestions based on the ingredients you have on hand.  Read the rest of this entry »

If one of your New Year’s resolutions is to get organized, or more specifically, to get your recipe collection organized, then we have a great way to help you reach your goals. We have a new Expandable Accordion Recipe File that will get you on track for getting your recipe collection under control.

The expandable accordion recipe file measures approximately 10 inches wide by 12 inches high, and has eight reinforced file pockets with index tabs. You can customize the index tabs with your own handwriting or print-at-home labels. Or, you can use the nine transparent adhesive labels that come pre-printed with “appetizers/soups, salads/vegetables, pasta/grains, fish/seafood, meats, poultry, main dishes, dessert/breads, cake/cookies.” Read the rest of this entry »

My oh my, tea parties have a whole new meaning these days, don’t they? Today my friend, Ruth, and I were discussing the Tea Party movement that seems to be gaining ground with the “mad as Hell, and not going to take it any more” crowd. (She told me she’s thinking of becoming a member, although she might not appreciate my publicizing her neo-political point of view).

Hmm. As for me, I prefer the old-fashioned traditional tea parties that “civilization” has enjoyed for centuries. Nice finger sandwiches, brewed tea in a pot, small milk pitchers and sugar bowls, delicate China cups and saucers, doilies,…. and good manners. Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve got several new cooking-related gift items to share with you this month. The first of these new cooking-related gift items that I’ll blog about is our new series of cute ceramic recipe card holders.

The ceramic recipe card holders are made of a beautifully-glazed pottery, and are available from us, The CookbookPeople.com, in three different kitchen-friendly designs: Olive Collage, Botanicals, and Classic Fruits (shown above).  They measure a bit over five inches in length and only about 1-1/4” wide, so they can be easily stored in a drawer or cupboard (or large recipe box) when not in use. Read the rest of this entry »

How interesting that several major magazines featured “comfort foods” as the theme of the month for their January cover stories. Maybe it’s the cold weather that brings out the desire to cocoon, or maybe it’s just the wish for a better year ahead.

Classic comfort foods are typically homemade and are as personal as the clothes we wear. Comfort food can be rich and creamy, warm or cold, hearty or delectable, or just remind us of family, Mom, Grandma or Grandpa, or childhood memories.

For sure, classic comfort food became a “thing” after the challenging times of late 2001, and it still reigns supreme as the power of classic comfort food continues to help us feel better, change our mood, or boost our energy in times of stress. Read the rest of this entry »

My dear friend, Ruth, and I were perusing our local bookstore a few days ago (truthfully, we were there for a bit of diversion from the frightful weather) and wandered into our favorite aisle — the one that showcases cookbooks.

Ruth said she’d heard that cookbooks were becoming obsolete. That cookbooks are no longer desired or needed any more, what with the ease and convenience of plucking a recipe for just about any dish off the World Wide Web in a matter of minutes. Read the rest of this entry »

Wow, here we are nearing the ides of January. Have you started your New Year’s diet yet? If not, you are not alone. Many others haven’t quite gotten off the couch to walk on that treadmill, or change eating habits (adhering to their New Year’s Diet Resolutions) to shed a few of those “holiday pounds.”

Some years ago I came up with this Lo-Cal Applesauce Muffin recipe to replace the very tempting cakelike and calorie-laden cupcakes (err, muffins) that were available seemingly everywhere. All it took was reading the label on one giant muffin to convince me to try making my own Lo-Cal Applesauce Muffins (and practice portion control). Read the rest of this entry »

We decided to add a lovely recipe keeper to our selection of cookbook-related gift items after several customers requested an “almost-ready-made” solution for their family cookbook.

This recipe keeper option comes from Campbell’s with some warm nostalgic graphics of the Campbell’s kids displayed throughout the nicely-designed D-ring notebook (the D-ring is a great invention; it eliminates recipe pages getting all snagged up when you turn them).

The recipe keeper also has 50 pre-formatted recipe pages that are ready to add your own family recipes — either by handwriting them onto the pretty lined pages, or inserting the recipe pages that you printed using my Matilda’s Fantastic Cookbook Software. Read the rest of this entry »