Is there a section in your family cookbook devoted to the age-old fundraiser known as a bake sale? If not, you might want to add these 5 tips for bake sale success into a new section devoted to such events, along with recipes for your favorite easy-to-make bake sale goodies.

With schools and churches having bake sales for fundraising, now is also a good time to review what makes a successful bake sale. Following are my 5 tips for bake sale success:

TIP 1. LOCATION & SET UP
Just as in the real estate world, bake sale success is all about location, location, location. There is no substitute for a highly visible location for your bake sale table. Being seen is the one major secret to bake sale success.  A busy pharmacy next to a supermarket may be a great place because you won’t compete with the store’s bakery.  Use tables to display the baked goods attractively (with a festive tablecover), and have chairs for helpers to sit down. Be sure to arrive early on the day of your bake sale to set up and get organized.

TIP 2. SIGNAGE & PROMOTION
Promote your bake sale in advance by putting up flyers around your community and in local businesses that agree to help your promotion. Make signs of yellow or white poster board. Print large letters on your computer or use a fat black marker to write BAKE SALE in big capital letters. Hang signs on three sides of the table. If allowed, attach some balloons. Also make your sales sail by using festive paper, ribbons, or stickers to add some creative packaging and pizzazz. Bake sale success is as much about marketing as great baked goods!

TIP 3. PRODUCT VARIETY
Ensure bake sale success by asking friends, family, and neighbors to contribute freshly baked items. Also ask for donations of bakery goods from the local supermarket to fill in the gaps not covered by the homemade goodies. A good product mix is to have brownies, small cakes, cupcakes, cookies, sweet and savory bread loaves, and whole cakes. You can sell some easy-to-eat individual items at premium prices, or pre-package baked items into an economical dozen assortment. Be careful about selling baked goods that will run up expenses. For example, a slice of pie requires a plate, napkin and fork. A whole pie requires nothing more than the plastic wrap over the top. Another good product option is to have sugarless, low-fat, or organic baked items for the more health conscious.

TIP 4. PRICING
Pricing items effectively is the other major secret to bake sale success.  Some people like to make price tags for each item.  Personally, it is much less work to group baked items for sale on the table according to a set price, and tape just one small sign on the tablecover, such as ”Whole Cakes $4.95.”  (Smart bake sale sellers won”t have that nickel change available to encourage folks to donate the extra nickel. This technique works great at yard sales, too.)

TIP 5. TIME MANAGEMENT
Ask members of your group to sign up for 2 hour shifts. Most everyone can spare 2 hours, even during a busy weekend. I”ve found that those who do come have such a good time chatting with customers that they often stay longer.  Make sure volunteers have water to drink, paper towels, and moist wipes or hand sanitizer.  Also be sure to have such supplies as Saran Wrap, plastic bags, and paper bags. And, always after the limelight of your bake sale success, be sure to send thank you letters to everyone who helped, from store manager right on down to the kid in the stroller who bobbed the balloon to get attention!

Weve had many bake sale fundraising triumphs in our town using these 5 tips for bake sale success.  Feel free adapt them to your next bake sale.

Good cookbooking,

Erin

Do you love researching your family genealogy?

You’ll be delighted to know that some states have designated October as “Family History Month.”

The month-long observance brings families together to remember loved ones, tell their stories, and celebrate family traditions.Continue reading→

A loud pounding sound radiating from the kitchen captured my attention and curiosity. Upon arrival, I caught my husband using my best French chef’s knife to jab frozen mango Tang out of my favorite clear plastic Kool Aid-style pitcher. I wasn’t too happy about the potentials of his act: breaking the knife; breaking the pitcher, cutting himself.

My husband is known for using kitchen objects to do the jobs of other tools. I’ve found steel whisks coated with cement, boning knives used as letter openers, egg turners as wallpaper scrapers, and butter knives bent from their stint as screwdrivers. (I try to credit these transgressions to his inventive, creative mind rather than his laziness to go to his workbench.)

My chef’s knife was fine, much to the credit of the manufacturer. I attribute its survival to the fact that it was made of high carbon stainless steel, the tang (blade steel) ran all the way through the whole handle, and it was the best chef’s knife I could afford (the three basic rules of buying kitchen knives).

My thoughts turned toward ways to protect my knives from future misuse. I could always downsize. I read somewhere that a cook really only needs to buy three kitchen knives:

Paring Knife
Blade between 2”-4” long.  Used for cutting fruits or vegetables and for making small or decorative cuts.

Serrated Utility Knife
Blade between 6”- 9” long.  Used for cutting larger vegetables, slicing larger foods, trimming/cutting meat. Note: A longer 9”-12” serrated blade bread knife will easily cut a crusty baguette or tomatoes.

Chef’s Knife
Blade between 6”-12” long that curves to a pointed tip. Used for chopping, dicing and mincing meat, vegetables, and anything else.

Of course, buying kitchen knives is okay for specialty purposes, too, such as boning, filleting, and carving. And then there is the meat cleaver.  I can’t imagine needing a meat cleaver any more, though, since butchers do the work for us quite nicely. Meat cleavers can be heavy and quite awkward. (The most important rule of thumb for buying kitchen knives is to buy what is comfortable in your hand.)

Maybe I should put my knives out of my husband’s sight!  I currently keep my knives on a wall-mounted magnetic strip. They don’t get banged around (unless you-know-who is looking for another tool), and I don’t waste valuable counter space using an ugly wooden knife block.

So that’s my new plan. Instead of buying kitchen knives to replace the broken ones, I will downsize my collection of kitchen knives to the three basics and hide them away. (Out of sight, out of mind, they say.)  But first I have to go to my husband’s workbench and take inventory of what kitchen knives I don’t need or use any more.

By the way, in the process of cracking up the frozen mango Tang, my husband broke the pitcher’s handle completely off and poked a hole in the bottom of the pitcher.  He repaired both with some miraculous glue stuff, and (you guessed it) a paring knife!

Happy cookbooking,

Erin

I remember the time President George Bush the Elder made a snide comment about a certain green vegetable that he did not — would not — eat. The resulting fluff in the media was nothing short of a scandal as I recall. The broccoli lobby and every broccoli farmer in America claimed insult.

Funny, why George didn’t like broccoli? It has quite a nice earthy green flavor, and my favorite use is steamed with salt and drizzled with melted butter (sorry, I haven’t quite got the hang of drizzling olive oil on everything).  Broccoli, along with its cousins cauliflower and brussels sprouts, are all DNA derivatives of cabbage, I’m told, so it stands to reason if you like one of these vegetables, you might like them all.  Not sure what George’s stance was on the cousins to broccoli, but we defended his right to dislike it.

During the coming fall season, a lovely way to use fresh (or even leftover broccoli) is in Cream of Broccoli Soup. I use the whole stem and florets of the broccoli rather than trimming it down to just the broccoli crowns.

Cream of Broccoli Soup

1-1/2 pounds of broccoli
1 cup minced onion
1/2 cup grated carrot
1/2 cup minced celery
2 teaspoons stick butter or margarine
2 tablespoons flour
2 cups water
1 cup chicken broth
1 cup evaporated milk
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper

To make Cream of Broccoli Soup, cook washed broccoli in salted water until a fork easily pierces the stem. Drain and cool. While broccoli cools, sauté the onion, carrot and celery in butter until onion is translucent. Add the flour to the vegetables and stir to make a roux.  Set aside.  Puree the cooked broccoli with a little water in a food processer until smooth.

Heat broth, the rest of the water, and evaporated milk until warm.  Stir broccoli, onion, carrot and celery mixture into the heated broth.  Add salt and pepper seasonings to taste, and cook until flour roux begins to thicken the soup (add a bit more flour if necessary). Heat Cream of Broccoli Soup again if necessary and serve with toasted cheese or ham sandwiches.

Believe it or not, I found this recipe for Cream of Broccoli Soup in one my grandmother’s old recipe card boxes. It was hand-printed on a well-worn recipe card. She used to make this soup during the first days of fall. The Cream of Broccoli Soup carries through well during winter, and even if you use frozen broccoli instead of fresh (or leftovers) it is a good result.

Happy Cookbooking,

Erin

Sometimes I scare myself. Does that ever happen to you?

Sometimes I will come up with an idea that I think is absolutely brilliant.

Like my little brilliant thought for today.  I was preparing a nice Chef’s Salad for lunch, expecting Ruth to drop by a touch early as she usually does.  I had boiled and peeled my eggs, and was just about to slice them with a small knife when I remembered an old kitchen gadget I acquired years ago.  It was an egg slicer, which cuts thin, even slices of egg using taut wires that easily slide through the cooked egg without making a mess or squishing the yolk.  It is very handy if you eat a lot of sliced boiled eggs.

Then I turned my attention to the meats and cheeses for the Chef’s Salad. I always hate to slice up the meats and cheeses. They never behave as neatly as I like, always moving around on the cutting board while I’m trying to create matchsticks (properly called julienne strips) of them.

As I was putting away the egg slicer (hand-washed and towel-dried, mind you), I spied my pizza cutter and said, “Why Not?”  So I took the pizza cutter in hand, and proceeded to slice through the meats and cheeses so effortlessly that it was astonishing.  The blade on my pizza cutter is about 3-1/2″ in diameter, so in less than 30 seconds I had enough ham, turkey, Swiss and Cheddar to generously serve us both.  Brilliant!

It scares me to think what I might have done if I had applied myself. Not that having a cookbook software company is small potatoes. It is really brilliant, too. But who knows, I may have invented some kitchen gadget that was really useful. (Maybe more useful even than my spice rack?)

Now, what did I do with that plastic radish garnisher?

When one of our sons started playing with our spice rack as a toy shelf, well, we thought maybe there’s a new market for it! So here’s the video he helped us make.

Back in the 1960s, Alfred Hitchcock had a famous dinner party for an intimate gathering of his Hollywood friends.  As an experiment (and most likely a joke), he asked his chef to prepare all blue foods: blue martinis, blue meat, blue mashed potatoes, and blue peas.

He was fascinated with human psychology, and the fact that blue is not a natural color for food. He wanted to see if blue food would turn people off.  It did. Many of his guests became a bit queasy and some couldn’t even eat, if I remember the story right.

Hitchcock loved to entertain, and guests never knew when a “blue dye” dinner party would strike his fancy.  While a blue food party may be a bit inhospitable to spring upon guests unexpectedly, if you have them involved beforehand, it can be quite a lot of fun and a clever conversation starter, too. I have a party like this once in a blue moon. I use either all white or blue themed plates, napkins and cups, and ask everyone to wear something blue.

Of course, you can do any other color theme, such as red, yellow or orange. Here are food ideas for a blue food party, purple food party or green food party to get you started:

“BLUE” THEME PARTY FOODS
Blue food coloring added to any dish (note: can be repulsive)
Blue corn chips
Blue potato chips
Boo Berries cereal
Blue crab
Bluefish pate
Bluefin tuna sushi
Blue cheese
Concord grapes
Blueberries
Blue Jell-O
Blueberry muffins
Blue food coloring frosted cupcakes
Blueberry juice
Gatorade
Jones’ Soda
Kool-Aid
Blue Hawaiian Punch
Blueberry flavored bubblegum
Charm’s Blowpops
Blue M&M’s

“PURPLE” THEME PARTY FOODS
Purple food coloring added to any dish (note: can be repulsive)
Grape juice
Kool-Aid
Blueberry juice
Grape jelly/jam and peanut butter sandwiches
Eggplant
Purple potatoes
Purple onions
Purple cabbage
Purple wax beans or peppers
Concord grapes
Blackberries
Plums
Prunes
Grape Jell-O
Blueberry-Pomegranate sherbet

“GREEN” THEME PARTY FOODS
Green food coloring added to any dish (note: can be repulsive)
Artichokes
Guacamole (with tortilla chips)
Avocado slices
Celery sticks
Lettuce
Stuffed green bell peppers
Green bean casserole
Green pasta
Asparagus
Broccoli
Brussels sprouts
Cabbage
Cucumbers
Green beans
Green peppers, other peppers,
Peas
Spinach
Zucchini
Gatorade
Limeade
Green grapes
Green apples
Pears
Kiwi
Honeydew melon
Lime Jell-O
Mint chocolate chip ice cream
Key Lime pie

Once you’ve had a color-food party like this, don’t forget to record all the fun recipes and ideas into your family cookbook using the cookbook templates in my cookbook software!

Have fun!

Erin

Without a doubt, cheese is one of my favorite foods. Not just for recipes in family cookbooks, mind you; how about just eating it straight, with maybe a little cracker or two?

Yes, I love cheese. That may not be politically correct to admit in this allegedly fat-free conscious society (where zero body fat is an absurd goal for tweens and teens alike), but I bet there are many closet cheese eaters out there looking for the perfect hit of creamy Brie, sharp cheddar, or a pungent hard white.

One of my life’s dreams has always been to have enough money to try one of every type of cheese in the world. When I was visiting the famous Harrods department store last year in London, I nearly swooned at the sight of the stunning fromagerie cheese counter in the ground level food hall. Ahem, the cheese AISLE, that is. You can try many cheese samples, or you can sit and taste a variety of cheeses, carefully measured and portioned according to whatever your pocketbook can stand. With the rate of exchange on the U.S. dollar being so cringingly unfavorable, I opted to watch other cheese lovers instead of indulging in what most certainly would have been a most expensive cheese-filled afternoon.

Back at home, however, there are marvelous wonders of the world in our own well-appointed cheese cases, according to the American Dairy Association.  Yet, I am always uncertain exactly what I am buying in terms of portion, and especially when I need a type of cheese converted for a recipe, or serving to guests.  I do know that most soft cheeses are shredded, hard cheeses are grated, and the blues and feta are crumbled, but I still don’t automatically know how much shredded cheese I will net out of a whole brick of ungrated cheese. With the help of The Recipe Writer’s Handbook, my dilemma has been resolved for most cheese types:

 ‘I LOVE CHEESE’ CHART

Source: The Recipe Writer’s Handbook, Page 235
By Barbara Gibbs Ostmann & Jane L. Baker
© 2001, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.Â

I carry this little chart with me when grocery shopping, as it helps me visualize what I am buying. I try to buy only natural cheeses, not the process cheeses (have you ever made the mistake of buying that awful shredded artificial cheese? Yuck!).

Yes, I do love cheese. Oh look, there is that blue Brie I was coveting at Harrods’¦ Whoops, what cheese?

Your cheese-loving, cookbook-making friend,

Erin

Have you had your catfish today? Apparently August is National Catfish Month. Didn’t you get the memo?

National Catfish Month seems to be the only ”national month” designation for the month of August. (There are rumors that August is National Peach Month, National Watermelon Month, and National Sandwich Month, but I couldn’t confirm them.)

Other months have several ”national” titles, such as September being designated National Mushroom Month, National Rice Month, National Biscuit Month, National Chicken Month, AND National Honey Month.

Such national observations are helpful for the particular industry they promote, and some even raise awareness.  However, a true national holiday requires an act of Congress to make it official.  So, if any of these commemorative days and months are actually government-sanctioned, the food industry must have some very busy lobbyists.

Below is a list of just-past ”national” days in August.  Most of the days seem to appeal to those with sweet tooth’s, all except the mustard celebration on August 5.  (Note to President Obama’s critics, Grey Poupon Mustard is made by Kraft Foods , so it is American!).

To be fair, here are the celebration ”days” we have already observed for the month of August:

August 1  National Raspberry Cream Pie Day
August 2  National Ice Cream Sandwich Day
August 2  National Ice Cream Soda Day
August 3  National Watermelon Day
August 4  National Chocolate Chip Day
August 5  National Mustard Day
August 6  National Root Beer Float Day
August 7  Raspberries ‘n Cream Day
August 8  National Frozen Custard Day
August 9  National Rice Pudding Day
August 10  National S’mores Day
August 11  National Raspberry Bombe Day
August 14  National Creamsicle Day
August 15  National Lemon Meringue Pie Day
August 17  National Vanilla Custard Day
August 18  National Ice Cream Pie Day
August 19  National Soft Ice Cream Day
August 20  National Chocolate Pecan Pie Day
August 21  National Spumoni Day
August 22  National Pecan Torte Day
August 23  National Spongecake Day
August 24  National Peach Pie Day
August 25  National Banana Split Day
August 26  National Cherry Popsicle Day
August 27  National Pots de Créme Day
August 28  National Cherry Turnovers Day

Just so we don’t lose out on the rest of the celebrations, here are the remaining designated “days” for the month of August:

August 29  More Herbs Less Salt Day
August 30  National Toasted Marshmallow Day
August 31  National Trail Mix Day

So looking forward to National Chocolate Milkshake Day on Saturday, September 12. My dear friend Ruth and I will make it a point to enjoy a favorite indulgence. Now if I can only remember where I put my appointment calendar to jot it down. Perhaps I tucked it in my family cookbook.

Happy cookbooking,

Erin

You don’t have to suffer the elevated prices and short shelf-life of fresh herbs from the grocery store in winter. With a little preparation, you can freeze your lovely summer herbs for use all year long.

Instructions for Freezing Herbs

Freezing herbs in water causes them to crystalize, damaging the flavor so the key to preserving herbs is to use olive oil.

Olive oil preserves the herbs by preventing contact with the air.

• Finely chop your herbs
• Sprinkle the herbs into an ice-cube tray
• Fill the compartments of the tray with olive oil
• Freeze

You can make an entire tray of one herb or create a herb mix such as rosemary, basil and oregano – perfect for Italian dishes.

When you’re ready to use the herbs, just add one or two cubes to your frying pan or favourite sauce.

The frozen olive oil will have a similar consistency to butter and will easily reconstitute when melted without loss of flavor.

Sometimes I have senior moments that can be embarrassing when I am making recipes from a family cookbook. Like yesterday, when I wanted to double a recipe, I wasn’t sure how many pints there are in a quart. Isn’t that silly?

Yet, unless you do conversion math every day, you can find yourself in such a recipe pickle where you have to really sit down and do the math. (I readily admit I am no good at metric measurements. I just think of liters as big quarts to make it easy on my old brain – sorry all you metric lovers out there). But even the simple stuff is harder to remember if you don’t pay attention when you cook.

To refresh my memory, I reviewed our fantastic Kitchen Conversion Chart, a marvelously useful kitchen tool (that I printed out and now keep folded up in my purse), and extracted a few fluid measurement equivalents from it in the little cheat chart below.

When you make your own family cookbook, this little bit of information might be handy to include as a reference (or cheat chart, really, as in my case).

CHEAT CHART

Liquid Measure Equivalents

If you want the whole two-page Kitchen Conversion Chart to include when you make your own cookbook, you can download it from our website by clicking this link to the Kitchen Conversion Chart and adding it when you print your family cookbook from our cookbook software.

Now I can put away my trusty little pocket calculator!

Happy Cookbooking,

Erin

Every so often I like to use applesauce instead of butter or margarine (or oil) when making baked goods such as cookies or muffins. In addition to cutting down on my fat intake, the texture of the cookies or muffins made with applesauce tend to be no different than those made with butter or margarine.

Also, I found there really is no appreciable taste difference between cookies or muffins made with applesauce vs. cookies or muffins made with butter or margarine (or oil). To my mind, opening a can or jar of applesauce is easier than melting butter or margarine (no oily mess in the measuring cup to clean up).

I’ve experimented with substituting applesauce for butter or margarine (or oil) in other recipes, too. They all seem to come out palatable and presentable.

So if you have other no fat/oil free recipes for cookies or muffins in your family cookbook, you might want to add this recipe for no fat/oil free cookies alongside.

Here’s the basic recipe I used to bake these no fat/oil free cookies made with applesauce:

No Fat/Oil Free Cookies Made with Applesauce

Moisture
3 egg whites
1 cup unsweetened apple sauce

Binders
1-2/3 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup oatmeal

Leavening Agents
1 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt

Sweeteners (or sugar substitutes to taste are okay)
1 cup white sugar
½ cup brown sugar

Flavorings
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla
½ cup chopped walnuts
2 tsp cinnamon
½ cup raisins

Mix all ingredients well until dry ingredients are moist. Add more applesauce if mixture appears to be too dry. Drop by tablespoonfuls on oil-sprayed cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degree for approximately 15 minutes until slightly brown around the edges. Makes about 20 substantial cookies.

Try these soft, not-too-sweet, semi-healthy cocoa-flavored oatmeal cookies for breakfast with a cup of coffee or tea. They can really satisfy you for most of the day (which can really help if you are trying to take off a few pounds to wiggle into that summer swimsuit).

Happy cookbooking,

Erin

A special recipe binder devoted to allergy-safe recipes can make cooking for others a lot simpler – and safer!

If you have children or work with children, or if you enjoy entertaining with meals that you lovingly prepare, it’s a good idea to create a recipe binder that contains helpful hints and recipes for allergy sufferers.

With more than one in 12 children in the United States suffering from food allergies, it’s a safe bet that many of the favorite treats that you meant to share with your child’s class will be banned from the classroom.  After all, no one wants to risk an allergic reaction in any child – or any adult, either.

On the other hand, no one wants to deprive them of the treats and socializing that come with parties both inside and outside of classroom either.

One way to avoid this dilemma is to build a recipe binder that contains helpful medical information and tried and true recipes for the goodies that you want to be able to enjoy and share with friends.

The following 8 foods are responsible for more than 90 percent of allergic reactions:

• Milk
• Eggs
• Peanuts
• Tree Nuts
• Fish
• Shellfish
• Soy
• Wheat

In your recipe binder, keep a list of these allergens and include with them the symptoms and treatments for each, along with emergency medical procedures and contacts.

Also, include safe food substitutes that will work in favorite recipes.

You can find safe recipes at the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network at http://www.foodallergy.org/recipes.

Pick out a few favorites that you can make to ensure that everyone who visits your home – or any event where you have a hand in the food – can feel welcome and safe.

For more information, contact us.

A fascinating item in The Recipe Writer’s Handbook inspired this writing about the evolution of cookbooks and cookbook authors. As can be guessed, most of the few early cookbooks were written by men (from the late 4th to 14th centuries).

Around 1390, for example, a chef of King Richard II is credited with writing the first English cookbook (cookery book) called Forme of Cury. This book was actually a vellum scroll of recipes that included how to use exotic spices in everyday cooking. (The word cury is the Middle English word for cookery, and not a spice blend, I’m told.)

As literacy grew in the upper classes, women starting writing cookbooks and other running-the-household instructional books. These served to record the rich variety of food, tastes, cooking methods, eating habits, and even the local dialects. Some of the notable women cookbook authors through modern times have included:

Hannah Wolley (c. 1622-1674)
In 1661, she became the first female author to try and make money from writing and publishing a cookbook with her The Queen-Like Closet, or Rich Cabinet, which included easy-to-follow recipes.

Hannah Glasse (1708-1770)
Her The Art of Cookery was published in 1747 to assist the lower classes in cooking for their employers. Hannah wrote the book to help support her family, but ended up in debtor’s prison for a time. In 2006, she was the subject of a BBC documentary that called her the “mother of the modern dinner party.”

Elizabeth Raffald (1733-1781)
In her 1769 book, The Experienced English Housekeeper, Elizabeth’s 800 recipes have such clear directions and quantities, that you can still cook from them today.

Amelia Simmons (an American orphan)
American Cookery was published in 1796, and was the first cookbook to feature all-American ingredients (e.g. turkey, cranberries, cornmeal), and included recipes for hoecakes, cookies, and pumpkin pie. Her original work was often plagiarized relentlessly by less ethical cookbook writers.

Maria Rundell (1745-1829)
Publishing A New System of Domestic Cookery in 1806 was in response to a need for a domestic family cookbook (instead of one for large households or taverns).

Eliza Acton (1799-1859)
Her Modern Cookery for Private Families was aimed at the domestic reader instead of cooking professionals. She introduced the now common practice of listing ingredients and cooking times with each recipe.

Isabella Beeton (1836-1865)
The bestselling Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management in 1861 (aka Mrs Beeton’s Cookbook,) was a compilation about running a Victorian household and included recipes in a format still used today.

Fannie Farmer (1857-1915)
Her Boston Cooking School Cook Book of 1896 was the first cookbook to emphasize accuracy in measurements to obtain uniform results, which helped standardize the system of measurements used in cooking in America.

Irma Rombauer (1877-1962)
The Joy of Cooking, published in 1931, has become an American institution and one of the most influential cookbooks of the 20th century. It is an outstanding reference for preparing traditional American food.

Julia Child (1912-2004)

In 1961, her Mastering the Art of French Cooking became a best seller and one of the most revered cookbooks ever written by an American author. She became a television icon beginning in 1963 and paved the way for today’s popular food-oriented programing.

What I learned from this brief glimpse into cooking and cookbook history, is that cookbooks written by women have played an extremely important role in capturing the essence of a society at a particular era in time.

For an excellent commentary about this subject, read “Understanding Women’s Lives through Their Cookbooks” by Jean Robbins, from Virginia Culinary Thymes, Winter 2005.

A passage from Robbins’ narrative: “The cookbook heir and subsequent reader not only inherits a domain of cultural knowledge about cooking and household recipes, but receives a token of her female kin. A bond is created by possessing a kin’s physical artifact and is the means by which members of different generations become entwined with one another.”

When making your own cookbook, keep this concept in mind. You are preserving heritage not just for your own family, but for generations of others (perhaps non-relatives) who may one day see your cookbook as a window to life in the early 21st century.

Creating a cookbook is really recording history in the living of it!

Happy cookbooking!

Erin

My dear friend, Ruth, and I are positively girlie giddish about watching the Academy Awards show on Sunday (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.

Because my husband thinks the Academy Awards are irrelevant, he has never joined us to watch one of the red carpet pre-pre shows, pre-show, show, and post show festivities. But he always hangs around to eat with us. And for good reason. This year I’m going to pick from:

Academy Awards Dinner Appetizers
Buffet-style Kobe beef mini-cheeseburgers
Baby Sirloin Burgers with Cheddar Cheese & Remoulade
Vegetable Spring Rolls with Chinese Hot Mustard
Pizza with Smoked Salmon & Caviar

Academy Awards Dinner First Course
Crispy potato galette, smoked salmon, dill cream and baby greens.

Academy Awards Dinner Main Course
Organic chicken pot pie with black truffles and root vegetables.

Academy Awards Dinner Dessert
24-carat gold wrapped chocolate Oscar statuettes. (Or maybe just some ice cream? I’m stuck on this one.)

Academy Awards Dinner Glamour Cocktail
¼ ounce vanilla liqueur
1-1/2 ounce passion fruit juice
4 oz Chandon Imperial champagne
Mint sprig, for garnish

Not bad. Ruth and I and our friends will have a wonderful time at our Academy Awards party (sans the dress-up glamour; we’re strictly casual with no high heels allowed). I hope you will take a moment to enjoy the frivolity of the moment. For no matter what my husband thinks, we still do need escapism.

Happy Cookbooking,

Erin

“Honey, you don’t want to get feathers in the salsa,” I shouted to Ruth over the song “It’s Raining Men.”

It was a Red Hat party, and Ruth was drinking a daiquiri. It was virgin, but the grandmother of seven still seemed a little dizzy. Maybe it was the Chippendale dancer beefcake strutting on the stage in front of her. She pulled her red feather boa away from the dip. “It could only improve it,” she giggled. “Honestly, Sharon makes a much better salsa. Her trick is to use fresh pineapple.”

This wasn’t exactly a Red Hat party, to be honest. There were only ten of us. The real Red Hat party was in three weeks. We were supposed to be the Red Hat Party Planning Committee, but as is often the case we were easily distracted.

Sharon set a folded dollar bill on the stage and smiled smugly. I think it was about the salsa compliment, but it might have had something to do with the blond hunk with the rock hard abs who’d just wiggled in front of her. She was the one who convinced us “The Official Red Hat Party” Organizing Party of the Red Hat Party Planning Committee had to happen in front of male strippers.

“You know,” she said, “we ought to use Matilda’s software to make a cookbook for the upcoming party.”

I was stunned. I hadn’t thought we’d actually get around to talking about the “real” party. But I was also ready. “Well,” I said, “I’ve got a template designed with lots of red hats in it. Nice and red and purple. It’s not officially endorsed by The Red Hat Society or anything–”

“Neither is Butch over there!” Ruth blurted, her eyes fixed on a very uncomfortable-looking thong.

“–but,” I continued, “I think it’d be perfect. We’ll ask everybody to email each other their favorite recipes, and we can vote on which ones we’ll put in our Unofficial Completely Unauthorized Underground Illegal Red Hat Party Cookbook at the party. I’ll take the recipes we decide on there and get a cookbook done in a week or two.”

Ruth looked at me for the first time in an hour. She mumbled something I couldn’t quite hear about pineapple and feathers. I mouthed “What?”, and the music cut suddenly as she shouted, “I want that man dipped in salsa!”

Needless to say, the business portion of “The Official Red Hat Party” Organizing Party of the Red Hat Party Planning Committee adjourned in shrieks of grandmotherly cackles.

Grandma

If your Red Hat group is interested in making it’s own Unofficial Completely Unauthorized Underground Illegal Red Hat Party Cookbook, click here for the template.

I think he’d look a lot happier in one of our bread boxes.…

How do you decide whether to use sour cream or cream cheese to top a baked potato? Well, I don’t decide. I use both to make my baked potato toppers. I make a basic baked potato topper recipe by beating together an 8 ounce package of regular cream cheese (that’s been softened), and an 8 ounce carton of dairy sour cream. All the lumps should be gone and the remaining mixture should be on the fluffy side.

Then, depending upon my mood or taste craving for the moment, I use the basic mixture to create several flavorful baked potato toppers.  Baked potatoes are always great to eat, whether baked in traditional oven or microwave (a good summer alternative).

If I’m in the mood for something garden fresh on my baked potato, I will add chopped cucumber, diced up tomatoes, salt and chopped fresh cilantro to the basic mixture. A little jack cheese shredded over the top is nice, too.

For a quick curry-flavored baked potato topper, I often stir in chopped up smoked almonds, chopped dried fruit pieces, curry powder, and garlic salt. An entree baked potato like this could also handle bits of chopped chicken or beef in the baked potato topper.

If you have a few boiled eggs, a deviled egg baked potato topper can be made by blending diced hard-cooked egg, chopped fresh parsley, salt, Tabasco sauce, and lemon pepper.

Sometimes I just grab a random spice off my spice rack (yes, I’m plugging my spice rack!) and see what happens! Not a fan of the cardamom one, but the paprika was MADNESS!

With summer officially coming soon, having some quick and tasty recipes as a staple in your summer menu-planning arsenal is a great way to enjoy all those outdoor activities on the agenda much faster.

Baked potato toppers, using the ideas above and many of your own creation, are so simple and inexpensive, yet the results can be quite satisfying.  Best of all, they are easy additions to your family cookbook.

Happy cookbooking,

Erin