cook pot stories

Some time ago I posted about my problem with cookbooks. I have too many of them I don't use often enough. In that post I said I would try to use them more often and would blog about the results. Well, it's been awhile, but finally I have something to report - an exciting failure. I think we need to talk more about our failures because we learn as much from experimentation and failure (stretching our boundaries) as we do from our successes. I'm putting my money where my mouth is. And where my cake went. I needed to make a dessert for dinner with friends. Rather than go to any of my tried and true recipes or the store, I decided to try something from one of my old cookbooks. After some pleasant reading I settled on this one, The New Pennsylvania Dutch Cook Book by Ruth Hutchinson, (c) 1948 and 1958. Each chapter begins with some homely advice, the recipes themselves are straightforward and largely attributed to various wives - Mrs. Donald Hellferich, Mrs. Thomas B. Keck - w...

For dinner tonight I made a quick pesto for boneless chicken thighs on the grill. I used to be afraid of pesto, always measuring out all the ingredients, but have finally realized it's just a matter of throwing a green herb, garlic and olive oil into the processor.The photos are terrible, so you just get the recipe. I expect the pesto would be great on potatoes too. In a food processor or mortar and pestle smush together: a lot of garlic (I used an entire head of cloves) at least 10 good sized sage leaves, fresh from the garden enough olive oil to encourage emulsion salt and pepper to taste Smear it on your chicken, potatoes, whatever and grill. Don't breath on anyone afterwards, this is a lot of garlic. Enjoy! (c) 2010 Laura S. Packer

Some ingredients seem magical and unreachable. Their very names, even in translation, evoke distance, time, an immigrant's longing for home, the stories we tell to remind ourselves we are not lost to those we love. My list is undoubtedly different than yours (these may be everyday ingredients to you!) but here are a scant few: Szechuan peppercorn Black mustard seed Durian fruit Cashew fruit Zahtar Dried limes Now, I've used or eaten most of the things on this list at one time or another. I fell in love with cashew fruit in Brazil, I love the pop of black mustard seed when I make Indian food, szechuan peppercorn thrills and then numbs my taste buds (though I don't cook well with it) and I've gotten past the initial shock of durian fruit to taste its subtle sweetness. But dried limes have long eluded me. I could see them in Middle Eastern grocery stores and wonder how on earth would I use them? Then I'd be distracted by the halvah and olives, forgetting to get drie...

Thank you for stopping by cookpot stories! Please explore all this blog has to offer, then jog on over to www.cruisebugchatter.com . If you would like to visit a different blog in the jog, go to http://blogjogday.blogspot.com. If you leave a comment with a link to your own page, one lucky winner chosen at random will receive a vintage cooking pamphlet from me!

Have you noticed that you can get fresh summer squash in the winter? Asparagus in the fall? Tomatoes year round? Sure, they may not be at their most flavorful, but many of the fruits and vegetables that we used to think of as seasonal delicacies are now available throughout much of the year, thanks to international shipping and modern growing techniques. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, asparagus is one of my passions, but I'm finding I miss the rhythm of seasonal foods. Now, when I find items that are only available in their own time, I embrace them, savor them, remember what it must have been like to be in awe of an orange in the toe of your stocking on Christmas morning. I was reminded of this recently on a trip to Boston's Haymarket, our year-round open air produce and fish market. It's changed dramatically in the 20 years I've been shopping there (and I'm sure you can find essays that extoll it's glorious past and reduced present) but I love it. E...

In 2005 Peter Menzel published a book called  What the World Eats  that captured families and their intake for one day. It's an amazing look at culture, economy, family and health. You can see some of the pictures from the book here . Every time I look at this I am struck by how wealthy, lucky and unhealthy Americans are. What do you eat in a day? (c) 2010 Laura S. Packer

I love cookbooks. As you can see, I buy far more cookbooks than my life realistically needs. I read them, ponder the recipes and commentary and consider their cultural context with great joy; when I find scribbled notes beside recipes or scraps of paper in used volumes it thrills me. What I don't tend to do is cook from them. This strikes me as kind of silly, a waste of paper and space. It's time to change that. I'm going to explore some of these volumes, especially the older, odder ones, and record my adventures here. I look forward to some gloriously unpleasant dishes (because our gastronomic sensibilities in 2010 are not the same as they were in the 1940s - who boils broccoli for 30 minutes anymore?) and some gems. I hope you'll keep me company on the journey and let me know what you think. I'd like to thank my step-daughter, Cara , for the off-handed remark that led to this idea. To start, let's take a look at my bookshelves. For a librarian's daught...