You’d think there wouldn’t be any yard sales just days after the polar vortex rolled across our area. I don’t know about you, but the polar vortex wasn’t very nice to me. On the first day of one degree temps, my car blew a tire on the way to work. Blew a tire on the interstate! I’m very thankful that it happened on a stretch of road that still had a very spacious shoulder on which I could park and feel safe from traffic. Also, a state trooper just happened upon me on the side of the road within a few minutes and called a truck to come help change the tire.
At the end of the second day, I came home to find out that the pipe leading to the washer had burst in the basement. Water, water everywhere. Hubby, with some help, capped the pipe and the water to the rest of the house was fine. Just an overall yucky way to spend two of the coldest days in centuries.
Anyways--I go to check for Saturday garage sales and find that an estate sale in Gastonia had already started Friday morning. What’s worse: this one had “300 cookbooks” listed. Oh man…I found myself hoping that the deep freeze had kept some people from going. I would definitely give this one a try.
When I woke up early Saturday morning, there was a heavy thunderstorm pounding down. Lightning, thunder and torrential rain. Yikes! Not too happy about driving around in that…still on a spare tire.
The weather report showed that the worst part of the storm was already on top of Gastonia and heading my way. So…if I gave it about 15 to 20 minutes, then I should be good to go. Sure enough, right on time, a break in the rain gave me enough time to get on the road and make it the sale right as they were opening up.
There were only two other people waiting and we all headed in different directions. I found my way to a middle room with lots of bookshelves. One bookshelf was completely filled with cookbooks. It’s a ton of them—but I’m not sure that’s 300? On the other side of the room, I find a box with cookbooks. It does look like there are a few empty shelves. The heart is a little heavy right now but I decide to start looking. The heart got a little lighter when they said that books were half price because she had so many!
Pretty soon, I’ve got a nice stack and the ladies running the sale bring over a few wooden crates. I decided that this haul would be about quality and not quantity. I could’ve just cleared out shelf after shelf—but I’ve got limited space in the car and I’m on limited funds.
As I’m looking through the selection, I can see that this lady liked to travel. I also notice that her name was Betty. There’s a notation in one of the cookbooks that she got it during a trip to Boston and New York. I notice she’s got quite a few cookbooks from New Orleans. This will definitely be interesting…why are these still here? Did the people that came on Friday clear out her local stuff and leave all these nice hardback ones? Well, I probably would have, too—my first picks would’ve been the spiral spine local cookbooks.
I fill up two wooden crates with a nice blend of hardback and spiral spine cookbooks. On the way out, I spot this really cool find:
It’s probably not an antique—but it’s still a really nice find.
Here's the first batch:
Top row (l to r): The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook (Matt Lee and Ted Lee), Antoine’s Cookbook (Roy F. Guste, Jr.), Rick Bayless’s Mexican Kitchen, Nathalie Dupree’s Southern Memories, A Love Affair with Southern Cooking (Jean Anderson) and The New Orleans Cookbook (Rima & Richard Collin). Bottom row (l to r): Tapestry (Junior Welfare League of Rock Hill, SC), Southern Elegance: A Second Course (Junior League of Gaston County, NC), The Wolfgang Puck Cookbook, Nathalie Dupree Cooks for Family and Friends, Bill Neal’s Southern Cooking and Palm Beach Entertains (Junior League of the Palm Beaches).
Second batch:
Top row (l to r): Moosewood Cookbook (Mollie Katzen), Commander’s Kitchen (Ti Adelaide Martin and Jamie Shannon), Southern Food (John Egerton), Moosewood Restaurant Low-Fat Favorites (The Moosewood Collective) and The Gasparilla Cookbook (Junior League of Tampa). Bottom row (l to r): Chez Panisse: Pasta, Pizza and Calzone (Alice Waters, Patricia Curtain & Martine Labro), The Cordon Bleu Cook Book (Dione Lucas), Dori Sanders’ Country Cooking, The Pat Conroy Cookbook (Pat Conroy with Suzanne Williamson Pollak) and The Art of Creole Cookery (William I. Kaufman and Sister Mary Ursula Cooper, O.P.).
And the third batch:
Top row (l to r): The Stuffed Griffin (The Utility Club, Griffin, GA), Dinner Chimes (First Presbyterian Church, Gastonia, NC), Forum Feasts: New Updated Section (Friends of the Forum School, Ridgewood, NJ), The Vidalia Sweet Onion Lovers Cookbook (Bland Farms, Glennville, GA), Monumental Recipes (King’s Mountain Women’s Club, NC) and Diamond Jubilee Cookbook (Ft. Benning Officers’ Wives’ Club). Bottom row (l to r): Think Christmas (Junior League of the City of Washington, Inc.), The Saint Louis Cookbook: Bicentennial Issue (Women’s Association St. Louis Symphony Society), Bon Appetit! (Women’s Assoc. Bazaar, Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church, PA), Miss Daisy Entertains (Daisy King), Gordon Bleu (Officers’ Wives’ Club, Ft. Gordon, GA) and First Favorites (First Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, Gastonia, NC).
And finally…
Top row (l to r): The Charlotte Cookbook (Junior League of Charlotte, NC), Hudson’s Cookbook (Brian and Gloria Carmines, Hilton Head Island, SC), Moravian Ministers’ Wives’ (Women’s Fellowship Immanuel Moravian Church, Winston-Salem, NC), The Asphodel Plantation Cookbook (Marcelle Reese Couhig), Our Rich Heritage: Bicentennial Commemorative Cookbook (Women of the Church, Covenant United Methodist Church, Gastonia, NC) and Colonial Holiday Treats (Hutcraft, High Point, NC). Bottom row (l to r): Famous Drinks of New Orleans, Cooking in Old Salem, Top O’the Day (Barbara Stutts), Creative Cooking with Velveeta and A Lesson Plan on the Baking Powder Biscuit and Its Relatives.
And the one thing that made the whole trip worthwhile…thunderstorms and all:
Our Favorite Recipes (Women’s Fellowship of Park Road Moravian Church, Charlotte, NC). As you may remember, I married a Moravian and have attended Little Church on the Lane (Charlotte) and currently attend New Beginnings Moravian Church (Huntersville). In all these years of going to garage sales, I’ve never seen (or heard of, for that matter) this cookbook. It’s a good-sized booklet…definitely thicker than a pamphlet…and it’s from 1969. From the notation on the title page, Betty was given this as a gift in 1972. I was really honored to have found it in a box on a bottom shelf!
Okay, so I’ve got some great cookbooks and I’m trying not to get hung up on the ones I missed out on Friday. I did confirm that there were no Betty Feezor cookbooks, which I thought odd. Of all the cookbooks, you’d think she would’ve had at least one of those! But I’ve got a lot of really good ones—ones I’m surprised are still here on the second day. And for that, I’m grateful!