Old Cookbooks are like old friends

I love old books and cookbooks are a favorite and I found several.  One I found was the Better Homes and Garden  New Cookbook printed in 1953.   It has some really wonderful vintage pages, I can just sit and thumb through these books for hours.  This one was really great because it has notes in the margins of some of the recipes and some old handwritten recipes on cards and loose leaf paper. The ones on the loose leaf paper are all tattered and torn, which implies to me was used quite a bit over the years.  Might have to try it myself. 

I also ran across another book that I picked up and looks like I will enjoy it immensely.  It was published in the 1940's by Emily Post.  I am sure I have been doing everything all wrong.   This is what the excerpt had to say "Post was born into a wealthy family and began her literary career as a novelist. Her best-known book Etiquette, first published in 1922, is a practical guide to proper social behavior written in a lively style. Post viewed etiquette not as a collection of details, but as a way of living: "Manners are made up of trivialities of deportment which can be easily learned if one does not happen to know them; manner is personality-the outward manifestation of one's innate character and attitude toward life."

 

I also grabbed another book I have been watching for awhile but didn't want to pay full price for it.  I ended up getting it for $4 and I was thrilled.   

How to Use This Book: An Excerpt
When the first issue of Martha Stewart Living was published in 1990, I could not have begun to anticipate how wide-ranging our readers' homekeeping concerns would be. Since then, we have discovered new solutions to age-old problems, brought in experts to advise us on very specific questions about very specific?c concerns, and experimented with all the new (and not so new) home-care products. Over the years, I've brought these lessons home with me, too, which has made me more organized and made my homes better cared for and maintained.
Households are busy places, works in progress where there is always something needing immediate attention and always something more that can be done. With that in mind, I have organized this book to address the tasks at hand and also to address the "more that can be done" for when you have the time and the inclination go beyond the essentials.
It starts with the big picture--an examination of every room and everything you will find within each. The eleven chapters in the "Room by Room" section take you on a tour through the house, focusing on the surfaces and furnishings you might find in any room, and offering strategies for their care and maintenance. Starting with the kitchen, the central staging area in any home, these chapters open with practical space-planning advice, followed by the golden rules of organizing. This information is intended to help contain your belongings and make each room clutter-free and functional. Relevant homekeeping concerns particular to each room are explored in depth--so stain-removal basics appear in "Laundry Room," the best way to clean grout in "Bathroom," and easy sewing repairs in "Utility Spaces." The equipment essential to each room is also addressed, so if you are considering what kind of bathtub to install during a bathroom renovation or whether a gas or electric range would best suit your style of cooking, you will have the information necessary to make such an investment with confidence.

Do you have any wonderful old cookbooks you'd like to share? Let me know!

Happy cooking!

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