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?!