Cookbookaholic

Too Soon to Return to the Well?

I was hoping when Keely and Bill said they were going through the rest of their mother’s cookbook collection they would give me a call. As I was making my list for this Saturday’s sales, I noticed another ad for a garage sale at the same address was listed. Is it too soon to go back to the well for more?

I put it on my list and thought to give it a try. I got so many amazing finds last week, if they didn’t have more cookbooks—I think I’ll be okay. I’m still floating on a high from last week’s haul.

I walked up the driveway and into the backyard. I see a few people are already there but when Keely sees me, she says, “Are you ready to go through the rest of the cookbooks?”

The still small voice inside my head just let out a huge scream…

We went back into the kitchen and there are piles of cookbooks some were familiar, some were new to me. I went through the stacks on the island. Then, Keely brings out three more stacks from the breakfast nook. I move through each stack as quickly as possible. I ask for a cardboard box, but from the size of the stack, Keely brings out a huge plastic bin. And I start filling it up!!

I’m happy to see I’m getting a second chance at some cookbooks from last week. Plus, I’m looking at some of these with new eyes. Since last Saturday, I received a review copy of the Craig Claiborne biography by Thomas McNamee called The Man Who Changed the Way We Eat. I’m finding several of his cookbooks that I passed over last weekend and I’m thrilled at the second chance at some of these important cookbooks.

Walking the plastic tub full of cookbooks back to my car was a slow-going process. The tub was so heavy, I had to take lots of stops to rest the hands. Here is the second batch from Toni’s collection:

The Way to Cook (Julia Child), I’ll Taste Manhattan (Junior League of the City of New York), The Best of Craig Claiborne (Craig Claiborne, Pierre Franey), Paula Deen Celebrates, Paula Deen & Friends, The Two Fat Ladies: Full Throttle, Cooking with the Two Fat Ladies, The Two Fat Ladies Ride Again (Clarissa Dickson Wright, Jennifer Patson), Emyl Jenkins’ Southern Christmas, James Beard’s American Cookery, The Heritage of Southern Cooking (Camille Glenn), From Julia Child’s Kitchen, Christopher Blake’s Easy Elegance Cookbook, Lee Bailey’s The Way I Cook, Veal Cookery (Craig Claiborne, Pierre Franey), Craig Claiborne’s Favorite from The New York Times, Carolina Cooking (Telephone Pioneers of America, NC Chapter No. 35), The French Chef Cookbook (Julia Child).

And these as well:

Touche Microwave Cooking (Al Touche), First Baptist Favorites (First Baptist Church, Ballinger, TX), Charlotte Cooks Again (Junior League of Charlotte), Talk About Good! (Lafayette Junior League), Seasons in the Sun (The Beaux Arts Cookbook), A Third Course: More Cooking with Class from Charlotte Latin School, White Trash Cooking (Ernest Matthew Mickler), The Justin Wilson #2 Cookbook: Cookin’ Cajun, Tanker Tasties (100 AGS Spouse’s Group), Blueberry Hill Menu Cookbook (Elsie Masterton), Mama Dip’s Kitchen (Mildred Council), Cooks for Clients (Buckhead Brokers Realtors) and How to Cook for Your Man & Still Want to Look at Him Naked (Lori and Vicki Todd).

Take a look at that last one....

Hey now...

My next stop had a lot of fancy decorative items, but no cookbooks. I did find this awesome antique mallet for just a few dollars.

Just for curiosity’s sake, I decided to head on over to Eva’s estate sales. It had already started on Friday so I was checking out what was picked over. The description and pictures of the estate sale had cookbooks listed—but I knew those would already be gone.

When I arrived, I found these two framed recipes. I couldn’t believe they were still here!

I said as much to Eva and she was equally surprised that the Charleston recipe prints had not been scooped up earlier. She did say that the cookbooks went like hotcakes. Yeah…that’s a quick and deep buzzkill—right to my core. As I rounded a corner, the bookshelf was on my left. And to my great surprise, a few cookbooks were still there. Here’s the box that I brought home:

SLAR 1979, Pure & Simple (Neiman Marcus), Key Ingredients: Opening Doors to Hours of Happiness (Le Bonheur Club, Inc., Memphis, TN), Winning & Dining with John Grisanti, Mica Flats—Kidd Island Cookbook (The Happy Family Women’s Club, Mica Flats Grange Friends and Neighbors), The Pizza Book (Evelyne Slomon), Building Good Meals Again (Women’s Auxiliary of Home Builders Association of Charlotte, Inc.), Delectable Delights, Beginnings and Endings (The Charity League, Charlotte, NC), Louisiana’s Fabulous Foods and How to Cook Them, Holiday Sampler Cookbook (Providence UMC, Charlotte, NC) and Seafood Sorcery (Junior League of Wilmington, NC).

How amazing was today? I can safely say that it was a pretty good idea to return to the well again! I found so many great cookbooks, I’m thrilled. Sure, my back is killing me and the hands hurt—but it’s a great day to be a cookbookaholic!

 

Krispy Kreme's Key Lime KREME Pie Doughnut

For the last day of school, I decided to bring home some Krispy Kreme doughnuts for the boys to have before grabbing the last bus ride of the school year. When I was walking into the Krispy Kreme near my office, I noticed a door cling that featured their Fruit Stand Flavor doughnuts. The one that caught my eye? Key Lime KREME Pie!

I'll admit, when it comes to Key Lime Pie—I’m a fan. The online description of the doughnut touts it as “a tangy blend of key lime and KREME filling, white icing and graham cracker crumble.” This was a really intriguing flavor and I couldn’t wait to give it a try.  

The doughnut is filled with a light key lime pie flavored cream…sorry, kreme…then topped with white icing and graham cracker crumbles.

I gotta hand it to the Krispy Kreme chefs, they really know how to nail a flavor. The kreme really does taste like a light key lime pie. Emphasis on the word “light;” because once you get past the initial familiar lime tang, you wish for it to be a little stronger. 

The Krispy Kreme website also mentioned that this doughnut would go perfectly paired with one of their new fruit chillers. Their “Chillers” are slushies that melt really fast into what closely resembles a liquid lollipop. They offer lemonade, cherry or a blended version. I had actually purchased the cherry chiller and sipped it on the way home. It was super sweet and I couldn’t finish it…and keep in mind it takes me an hour to drive home.

I began to wonder if the super sweet chiller combined with the key lime kreme pie doughnut would’ve made some awesome cherry limeade concoction. So, of course, I went back the next day!

It was okay, but that chiller is supremely saturated in sugar. I spent a good part of the afternoon on a sugar buzz. Nice thought, but I think I’ll keep the Key Lime KREME Pie doughnut as a nice dessert treat this summer. This one is definitely not just for breakfast anymore!

 

The Dry Spell is Over!

Okay, so last week was a bummer with only one find before heading to the airport. It was a sad cap to an almost depressing dry spell. Sure, I didn’t spend my little yard sale budget, but man oh man did I feel terrible. This Saturday has me approaching the first set of sales at 7am with a lot of tempered apprehension.

There are three sales this hour and the first one is a bust. The second one is too far in the other direction so I cross it off the list and I head to the third one. It’s a husband and wife cleaning out some old items in their sunroom. I’m the only one there and quickly get through all the tables. Oh well, I don’t see any cookbooks. On my way out, the wife asks if I found anything. I tell her that I’m looking for cookbooks and didn’t see any. She looked a little confused and then called out to her husband, “Where did you put those cookbooks?”

He walked over to a table and pulled out a box from underneath. Inside the box were two cookbooks:

The Cookery (Temple Beth El Sisterhood, South Bend, Indiana) and The Caring Cooks (Temple Beth El, Charlotte, NC). How cool is The Cookery? It’s a very thick, 3-ring binder and there are lots of post-it notes all over the place…I think this one’s a significant find.

Well, I’ve got two! Woo-hoo! That’s already 100% better than the past three weekends…combined!

It’s still pretty early but I decide to head to an 8am sale to see if they’re open. Good thing I did because little did I know that my dry spell was just about over.

This is a nice, older home and the back yard is filled with really nice items. They even have a back room open and it’s filled with Christmas items and lots of nice art. But I don’t see any cookbooks. It looks like three people are running the sale so I walk up to one of the ladies and ask about cookbooks. She gets a smile on her face and motions for me to come with her. Her name is Keely and she takes me into the kitchen where I find one large walled bookshelf and several smaller cabinet bookshelves up above the sink and within the kitchen island. Nice!!!

As I begin to look through the cookbooks, I make a comment about how many there are. Keely tells me that these cookbooks belonged to her mother, Toni. I look through a couple of the shelves and find a few. Keely and I start to talk more about cookbooks and I mention this little blog.

She pauses and then tells me to follow her through another door. She brings me into a side room that has a bookshelf that extends the length of room. It had been a breakfast nook and the bookshelf had been completely filled with her mother’s cookbooks.

Keely and her brother, Bill, have been going through all of them and pulling out the ones that had her handwriting in them. And Keely is letting me have first crack at the ones that still remain on the shelf! I can’t tell you how honored and excited I am to go through these cookbooks.

As I go through the bottom shelf, I ask Keely about her mom. She tells me that her mom, Toni, was “the best cook in town.” She was originally from Atlanta and collected cookbooks her entire life. And between these and the ones in the kitchen, she probably had more than 300 cookbooks in her collection. Toni was my kind of gal!

She was always entertaining with dinners and cocktail parties. Or, she was cooking for others by taking casseroles to church or preparing meals for families with new babies. And get this—Keely said her mom served her dad a hot hors d’oeuvre every night of their marriage. Now, that’s commitment!

I love when I can get a little history and learn something about the person behind the collection. Now, keep in mind, if I could’ve put all these cookbooks in my car…I would have. But I pulled out the ones that really interested me. As they were still going through all the cookbooks, her brother, Bill, came in and pulled out a few cookbooks to keep. But here’s what I brought home:

SLAR 1979, Mastering the Art of French Cooking (Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle, Simone Beck), The Gift of Southern Cooking (Edna Lewis and Scott Peacock), Grace Hartley’s Southern Cookbook,  Marion Brown’s Southern Cook Book, Amber Waves (Junior League of Omaha, Nebraska), Pirate’s Pantry (Junior League of Lake Charles, Louisiana), Tea Time at the Masters (Junior League of Augusta, GA), Nashville Seasons (Junior League of Nashville, TN), The Lady & Sons, Too! (Paula H. Deen), Favorites of the Customers (King’s Drive Farmer’s Market), Stirring the Pots of Daufuskie (Billie Burn) and The Taste of Country Cooking (Edna Lewis).

Wow! Now, that was an awesome surprise! I came away with some truly wonderful finds. I already have a hardback version of The Taste of Country Cooking by Edna Lewis—but this paperback version is autographed! Turns out the Daufuskie cookbook is autographed as well.

I’m so thankful to Keely and Bill for letting me bring some of their mom’s collection home with me. I’m literally walking on air right now….

The next sale brings me back down to earth. I ask about cookbooks and the guy tells me that he’s the family cook. For this sale, he was cleaning out his mother’s house but only had a couple of cookbooks. I thought this one was hilarious…

 

Carefree Cooking (Jacquelyn Reinach).Now take a look at that cover photo…lots of fancy food and wine so how is that carefree? Do you have someone else cook it? The line in the corner reads: “How to enjoy the leisure life in a beach house, mountain cabin, lake shack, ski chalet, trailer…country home or city apartment.” As I read more about the book, this is a meant to be a resource for those who have a second, vacation home. It gives you menus and ideas on how to create easy but impressive dinner parties…without being stuck in the kitchen and missing out on the fun. Plus, I saw this cool old cigarette case with lighter for fifty cents…it’s very Mad Men, I think.

My last stop is an estate sale that starts at 9am. I’ve got a feeling that I should’ve showed up a little earlier. The line to get into the sale starts at the back door and wraps around to the front sidewalk. I’m probably #45 in line and middle of the pack. As it becomes 9am, it sadly starts out as a controlled entry sale. They only let in the first 25 in line. Ugh…and you should’ve seen the exodus of people at the end of the line. After about 10 minutes a few people leave out the front door and they let in about ten more people. Will there be anything left by the time I get in there? When I do finally make it in, there are several boxes of cookbooks…but they’re bundled together and given one gigantic price tag.

I went through one box and notice that there are multiple copies of a few cookbooks. Okay, so I take a chance and grab the ones that interest me. And, you know me, that ended up being a pretty good stack.

I waited in the checkout line to ask if I could just buy this stack and not the entire box. Standing in that line took just as long as the line to get into this joint! When I make it to the checkout desk, the lady running the sale agrees to let me have the stack of cookbooks at a lower price. Here’s the batch I brought home:

Pass the Plate (Christ Episcopal Church, New Bern, NC), The Harmony Hall Cookbook (Harmony Hall Restoration Committee, Elizabethtown, NC), Full of Flavor Volume II (The Dilettante Club, Red Springs, NC), Full of Flavor Volume III (The Dilettante Club, Red Springs, NC), New Brunswick Recipes (New Brunswick Home Economics Association), Favorite Recipes (VFW Post 10226 Ladies Auxiliary of Long Beach, NC), Flora’s Fare Cookbook (Flora MacDonald Highland Games Ltd., Red Springs, NC), Peace Cookbook (Peace Collage, Raleigh, NC), Robeson Recipes (Junior Service League of Lumberton, NC), Martha’s Favorites (Martha McGeachy, second printing) and Martha’s Favorites (Martha McGeachy, third printing).

Both of the Martha’s Favorites cookbooks are autographed. One of them even comes complete with a clipping from a 1992 Helen Moore column in The Charlotte Observer that focuses on Martha and her self-published cookbook. And I’m still jumping for joy about that Junior Service League cookbook from Lumberton.

What an amazing morning! Well, this more than made up for the dry spell.  Collections like Toni’s are a rare and wonderful find. I’m so glad to have been invited behind the closed door to get the first peak. That was incredible…why can’t they all be like that?!