Cookbookaholic

$5 Box?

It’s been a while since I’ve been out to a garage sale. I did a little Friday night research and found a listing for a sale that included a picture of the cookbooks. It showed a full box and I spied a Pioneer Woman cookbook in there.

I’ll try to snag that one and see what the fuss is all about.

The next morning, as I make my way to the sale I notice this neighborhood is filled with two-story townhomes that are super thin and tightly packed in. Even the road I’m driving on is super thin. I’m not sure this is wide enough to have two cars going in opposite directions. So far, I’m the only one here and the only traffic is homeowners walking their dogs.

I pull up to the address and I see a lot of items in the short driveway and the garage door is open—showing more items in the barely-enough-room-for-one-car space. How do people park their car in there? You’d have to drive a teeny tiny smart car for goodness sake!

I hop out and say hello to the lady holding the sale. I tell her that I saw the picture of cookbooks. She points to a box and I walk over. I see the Pioneer Lady cookbook, but then notice that there are actually three Pioneer Woman cookbooks in there. How did I miss that when I looked at the picture last night?

Oh well. I’ve got about twenty dollars on me, so even if she wants to charge me $5 a book, I can still get all three of them. The biggest challenge would be to figure out what else to pick.

I ask how much she wants for the cookbooks. She thinks about it for a few seconds and then says, “How about five dollars for the box?”

I must have misheard. I say, “five dollars each?”

“No, five dollars for the whole box.”

Okay….

I pulled out a five dollar bill and then loaded the box in the passenger seat of the car. I wished her well and hoped her sale would be busy the rest of the morning. Quietly and quickly, I drove out of the neighborhood.

Did that just happen?

After Easter

So this Easter we did our usual trip up to Winston-Salem. During last year’s trip, I pinched something in my back and didn’t move out of the bed. Got a lot of sleep…but not much in the way of getting out.

This year had an added layer of excitement. Nephew Chaz, also known as the Reverend Chaz, was chosen to lead the annual Moravian Sunrise Service. We ended up spending a lot of time with family and I didn’t get to branch out on my own for cookbook shopping.

A few weeks after Easter, I was able to spend a few hours back in Winston-Salem on my own. I was meeting up to buy a Bob Timberlake print and afterwards I made sure to visit the Moravian Book & Gift Shop in Old Salem. Their downstairs section always has church cookbooks and a few local choices as well. 

Only this time, I discover that the downstairs section is now a quilting shop. I take a few laps around the main floor and find one cookbook:

Southern Breads: Recipes, Stories and Traditions by Marilyn Markel and Chris Holaday. 

From biscuits to cobblers, hush puppies to cornbread, I think this looks really interesting. Lots of recipes and looks like a brief history section that I can’t wait to read.

A section near the end lists out cookbooks that inspired the recipes in the book. Of course, there’s the Charleston Receipts from the Junior League of Charleston. Another one featured is Gardeners’ Gourmet from the Montgomery Federation of Garden Clubs in Alabama. 

I think I’ve seen this one before, but I don’t believe I have it in my collection.

A couple of weeks searching and I finally see one online. Perfect condition! I buy it and after a few days it arrives….with the plastic spiral spine broken. Argh! Oh well.

Birthday "Receipts"

So a few months back I tried to win an eBay auction for an early printing of Charleston Receipts by the Junior League of Charleston, SC. It was a fifth printing and I figured that was one of the earliest editions I’d come across. Needless to say, I ended up getting outbid right there at the end.

 

A few weeks ago, I was doing a search on eBay and came across another listing for a Charleston Receipts, but this one actually said “true first edition.” Hmmmmmmm. Really? Is that even possible? This didn’t come up in my usual search, it was listed at the bottom of the page—which meant it was listed slightly differently, enough so that I wouldn’t have come across it normally.

 

I clicked on the images and saw an inscription that was dated 1950. Unbelievable! It really looks like a first edition, first printing. The opening bid was a little on the high side, but if it’s the real deal, I could consider this a birthday present for myself and plan on a little extra padding on the maximum bid.

 

And then it happened, the auction ended and no one bid against me. Seriously? Was this listing so off the beaten path that no one else saw it? Don’t get me wrong, I’m really happy that I won it without having to blow my bank account.

 

The seller was up in Raleigh and the package arrived very quickly, within two days. When the mail arrived, I was on my way to the grocery store so I took the package with me. As I sat in the parking lot of the Food Lion, I couldn’t wait any longer. I opened up the box, unwrapped the layers of bubble wrap and tissue paper. As I opened up the cookbook, there was a smaller booklet tucked in.

 

Well…..that wasn’t in the eBay description. It’s a cool “nice to have” item, looks like a small booklet with recipes. The back cover has spaces for mailing addresses. So this is some kind of souvenir recipe booklet mailer. And then, to my dismay, I looked at the inscription:

 

My heart sank. It’s the wrong one. I looked at the page with the publication dates….not even close to an original printing:

Oh no. I bet the seller accidentally mailed out my first printing to the person that was meant to have this version. My mind started racing, that person would open up their package and notice that they got an original first printing…know exactly what it was and keep it. Ugh….

 

When I got back home, I logged on and went to the seller’s page. And there was another listing for a later edition Charleston Receipts with a booklet, the one that was at my side. So, maybe this was just an accident of shipping out the wrong one—not that both were sold and I’ll never get the one I won.

 

I sent an email to the seller and let them know what happened. They emailed back very quickly to apologize and said they forgot about having more than one copy of Charleston Receipts. And to my surprise, said to keep the one I had. What? I offered to ship it back so that they could still have the opportunity to sell it again but they said to keep it to make up for the disappointment I must have felt when I opened up the box only to see the wrong cookbook.

 

How nice, that was really generous!

 

Two days later, another box arrived and there was the inscription:

 

And when I got to the list of publication dates…I saw a lot of empty space:

 

It’s like the cookbook version of a unicorn! I didn’t think it actually existed but here it was! I feel like I’ve got a major addition to the collection here and I am so relieved to finally have it here.

Two Quick Finds at a ReStore

Quick post to talk about a great trip to a local Habitat for Humanity ReStore recently. I found these two gems in the local section:

Bob Timberlake’s Recipes from Home (Bob Timberlake) and A Plate Full (Davidson College Presbyterian Church).

Think I’ll start watching the Bob Timberlake website to see the next time he’s doing an autograph signing session at one of his galleries. And take a look at the name of this dish from the Davison College Presby cookbook:

Fall to Your Knees Mac & Cheese? Good gracious, is this Velveeta Shells & Cheese level of goodness?

Craigslist Score #1

I recently missed a Saturday for garage sales because I wasn’t feeling well. Whenever something like this happens, I check out the Craigslist offerings in hopes of making up for the lack of yard sale action. 

In going through the online sales, I spot a nice chunk of books for the low, low price of $25. It’s been there a few days, so I send an email and ask if they’re still for sale. That’s a really great price for the number of cookbooks in the pictures. If I can snag these, that’ll be a great haul.

A little while later, I get a response. They’re still available and they can meet me in about half an hour.

The cookbooks are one town over from me, so it’ll take me most of that half hour to get over there. We meet in an apartment building parking lot and when I pull up, I’m greeted by a lady, her husband and their daughter with four US Airways bags.

If you’ve ever taken a flight with US Airways, then you’ll recognize these bags from when the attendants take up the drinks and trash near the end of the flight. Those bags can hold a lot of aluminum cans and plastic cups. And I’m hoping these four bags will hold a ton of cookbooks.

Let’s take a look at what I’ve got:

(Bottom to top) Cooking Light Annual Recipes 2002, The Best of Country Cooking 2002, It’s in the Bag!, Bake and Freeze Desserts (Elinor Klivans), Family Circle Big Book of Christmas, Eva’s Kitchen (Eva Longoria with Marah Stets), Better Homes and Gardens New Junior Cookbook, Green Thumbs in the Kitchen (Green Thumb), The Cookie and Biscuit Bible (Catherine Atkinson with recipes by Joanna Farrow and Valerie Barrett), Apple Cookbook (Olwen Woodier) and Smoothies & Ice Treats (Lindsay Barnes and Amy Shawgo).

That Green Thumbs cookbook is by an organization that focuses on providing training opportunities and meaningful community service jobs for low-income older workers. I love the quote on the cover of the cookbook: “When It’s Smokin’ It’s Cookin’ & When It’s Burnt It’s Done.” Sounds about right to me… 

(Bottom to top) Pillsbury: The Complete Book of Baking, Fix-It and Forget-It Lightly (Phyllis Pellman Good), Express Lane Meals (Rachel Ray), The Kids’ Holiday Baking Book (Rosemary Black), The Dead Celebrity Cookbook (Frank DeCaro), Favorite Brand Names Incredibly Easy Silly Snacks, The Pizza Gourmet (Shea MacKenzie), The Donut Book (Sally Levitt Steinberg), Kraft No Oven Summer Sensations, Secrets of Fat-Free Baking (Sandra Woodruff, RD) and Good Home Baking (Diana Peacock).

 
(Bottom to top) SLAR 1998, Gooseberry Patch Christmas 6, Taste of Home Annual Recipes 2004, Great Cookies for Kids (Joanna Farrow), America’s Favorite Brand Name Light Cooking, The Pleasure of Herbs (Phyllis Shaudys), Put ‘em Up!: A Comprehensive Home Preserving Guide for the Creative Cook from Drying and Freezing to Canning and Pickling and Cupcakes (Shelly Kaldunski).

(Bottom to top) SLAR 2001, Baking (Dorie Greeenspan), Crazy Plates (Janet & Greta Podleski), Fit-It and Forget-It: Kids’ Cookbook (Phillis Pellman Good), 365 Great Cookies & Brownies (Joanne Lamb Hayes and Bonnie Tandy Leblang), The Ultimate Book of Kid Concoctions (John E. Thomas & Danita Pagel), Cupcakes from the Cake Doctor (Anne Byrn) and Totally Muffins Cookbook (Helene Siegel and Karen Gillingham).

Pretty awesome finds! I asked the lady offering up the cookbooks why she was getting rid of all these. After all, she’s parting ways with a quite a few. With a smile, she says that her husband told her that if she could get rid of some, then she was allowed to get some more. Spoken like a true cookbookaholic. She’s freeing up some space to make room for some new ones!

Dee-Luxe Betty

I always keep an eye out on eBay for any good Betty Feezor auctions. I’ve had some luck recently with getting a Carolina Recipes Volume I for less than $8. That’s a phenomenal find when you see some auctions start off northward of $60.

Understand that sometimes those auctions can get a little nuts and end up at a high price, but mostly, they sit there and languish when the starting price is outrageous.

About two weeks ago, there was an auction of one of the hardbound editions of Betty Feezor’s Best. As you know, that’s the very first one from the late 1950s. I actually have one that I found during a lunchtime excursion to an estate sale. It had been tucked away in a stack of cookbooks in a very cluttered kitchen; and without a cover, it was hard to decipher the title written down the edge of the spine. But this auction actually has the cover!

The cover! WOW! That would be nice to have. It has the right image, but of the Betty’s Best I’ve seen, there’s been a red cover and a green version. The description mentions that the cover may have some issues. But even if it’s about to fall off, I don’t think I’d mind. I can always put it in a plastic bag to help preserve it.

I placed my bid and waited several days for the auction to end. I don’t know if anyone was confused by the hardcover version? But, when the auction was over, it only cost me $8.50. Now the waiting game…

When it arrived, I was very careful about opening it. When I freed it from the package, I found it completed encased in plastic kitchen wrap.

If this cover is in delicate shape, would the saran wrap stick to it and cause further damage? I’m not really sure if I should even try to unwrap it? It’s sealed up so tight and I don’t see an edge to begin unraveling it!

I do a little more careful searching and eventually get two layers of saran wrap off. It’s amazing: the cover has a gold shimmer to it.

I open it up and find that it’s autographed and then personalized. This was a gift from a husband to his wife:

That is really touching!

As I’m flipping through the rest, I stop on a page that has an old newspaper clipping.

I turn the book to get a better look and find a Stroganoff recipe with a Helen Moore byline. She retired from The Charlotte Observer a few years back, so this is a neat find.

And then I take a look at the copyright page.

I see that the cloth bound version is what Betty called the “Deluxe” edition. It only cost a few cents more but over the years, I’ve found more with the plastic spiral spine. I don’t have a real understanding of how much $3 would’ve meant to a household in the late 1950s. Would that have been an expensive cookbook to own? And would that extra cost put the hardback version out of reach for most penny-pinching housewives?

I have a feeling that cost may have played a huge role and that’s why these hardback versions are so rare. And how about that, more than 50 years and $8.50 later, I’ve got a Dee-luxe Betty!

The Enchanted Forest

What is going on this morning? There wasn’t a long list of choices but I’ve got four sales on my list. Two are at 7am and the other two are in the 8am hour. Nicely spaced apart and all…but I’m still feeling a little wiped out and sleeping in is a very strong option.

I do find some energy and I’m out the door for that first sale. It’s not super early, but I do roll up a few minutes early…only to find nothing. I’m back in the car pretty quickly and find the second sale a few minutes after the 7am start time.

There’s a chair at the end of the driveway with a sign pointing into a cove that is covered with a canopy of trees. The shade blocks out almost all of the morning light. There was an overnight rainstorm, so the gravel driveway is still wet and tiny raindrops fall when the wind moves through the branches. The air is moist and cool and for a short while, I feel like I’m walking through a hidden forest in the middle of Charlotte.

As I move through the path and up a slight hill, I notice what looks like the back of a brick house. Wrapped around the left side are tables piled with items. So there was sale back here after all! I was beginning to wonder….

On the very first table I see a box of books. I begin to look through them and see that they’re cookbooks. I don’t see any other boxes nearby, so I’m thinking this may be my only option. I flip through them very carefully. Some are warped from water damage and I quickly flip by them…and then I see a very familiar face:

Betty Feezor’s Best (Betty Feezor). It’s the very first one! No one else is around so I take a minute to quickly Instagram my find. Some other people start to round the corner, so I quickly grab it and then stack a few more good finds with it. I’m not letting anyone know what I’ve found!

As I work my way down the other tables, I see that the lady running the sale is a fellow yard saler! We exchange hellos and I tell her that I think she lives in an enchanted forest. It’s so calm, cool and quiet—and all so close to downtown. She tells me that this was just a brick cabin surrounded by trees when they bought the property. The nice two-story front part of their home is actually an addition. Then, she says she’s surprised that more of the usual yard sale people haven’t been to her sale yet. I mention that there wasn’t a long list of sales to begin with…but personally, I’m glad that no one else stumbled upon my Betty first!

Some others are ready to check out so she helps them and I finish looking at the rest of the items. When the transactions are complete, she heads back inside and brings out another stack of books. I walk over and go through them. In the middle of the stack, I almost have a heart attack: another Betty!

Another Instagram opportunity! Two in the same morning? WOW!!! This one is Carolina Recipes Volume III which was completed and published by her son, Bob, after her untimely passing.

I finish going through the rest of the second stack and check out. Want to see the other cookbooks I picked up?

The Charlotte Christian Cookbook (Charlotte Christian School, Charlotte, NC), What’s Cooking at Commonwealth (Commonwealth UMC) and Steele Creek Treasures Too (Steele Creek Presbyterian Church, Charlotte, NC).

Bravo!: Applaudable Recipes (The Mobile Opera Guild Association), Ramseur Garden Club Cookbook (Ramseur, NC) and Concord Cuisine (Junior Charity League of Concord, NC).

A Matter of Taste (The Junior League of Morristown, NJ), Artful Entertaining (Southeastern Wildlife Exposition) and Kitchen Gems (North Carolina Grand Court Order of the Amaranth).

Should I just go straight home? I’m so thankful that I got up instead of sleeping in for a few more hours.

The third yard sale was a bust, but I didn’t care. Betty X 2 was riding shotgun with me!

The final sale already had a good half hour start before I got there. There were two large bookshelves in the garage packed with books. Could there be some cookbooks on there?

At first glance, the bookshelves are filled with WWII books and really nice travel books. And when I say “nice,” I mean coffee table level of nice. I look very closely and on the bottom shelf, voila!, I spot a few cookbooks.

On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of The Kitchen (Harold McGee), The Elements of Cooking: Translating the Chef’s Craft for Every Kitchen (Michael Ruhlman), Chefs of the Mountains: Restaurants & Recipes from Western North Carolina (John E. Batchelor), The Ultimate Route 66 Cookbook (Edited by Tammy Gales) and Recipes of the Carolinas.

(These are really cool finds. I’m really loving the Recipes of the Carolinas and Chefs of the Mountains.)

I look around and notice that, of the couple running the sale, the husband is doing all of the wheeling and dealing. When there’s a break in the haggling, I ask if there are any more cookbooks that I missed. The gentleman says that he still has a ton of cookbooks in the house. He’s the cook—and he didn’t want to thin the herd (as it were)…just yet.

So, after I paid for my haul, I left behind my business card in hopes that a future cookbook purge would find a few more for my collection!

Chris Saves the Day

I spent a long time in the radio industry. What many may not know is that I spent a long time trying to get out of radio. It doesn’t pay very well, there wasn’t much chance of a lasting career and the TV station that shared our building had asbestos. Three solid reasons to get out.

Also during this time, I was the breadwinner in the family. And when you’re a married mother of two who still needs your mom to help pay for the gas in your car and groceries on your table, you know that getting into a better paying job is the next step. I had a few phone interviews and, at some point, the whole economy collapsed. But around the July 4^th holiday, I noticed a job opening and sent in my resume. After a phone interview, then an in-person interview with a manager named Chris, I was offered a job. It was freedom. It was a career position. It was a future…a much more hopeful future.

Working with Chris was awesome. He was a very positive and encouraging person and I felt like a valued part of the team. He moved on to another job almost a year later—but I’ve always been grateful for the door he opened for me.

Not long ago, I spent a couple of days traveling to Philadelphia and Pittsburgh for work. When I got home, I was wiped out and tired. I was even too tired to put together a list of yard sales for that weekend. Can you imagine that? Sure, I like to sleep in—but I didn’t even bother to look at the sales that Friday night! Then, I got a Facebook message from Chris saying that his wife had cleared out some cookbooks and they were mine if I wanted them.

See? Didn’t I say he was a pretty awesome guy? I thanked him for thinking of me and, of course, I said I’d come by to pick them up. He and the family would be out for the afternoon, but he had already put the cookbooks out on the front porch for me.

I got his address and was able to make my way over to his house later on Saturday afternoon. Did I mention he is a very devoted fan of the University of Alabama? When I was winding my way through his neighborhood, I clutched the paper with his address so that I would be careful not to miss it.

As I noted the street numbers on the mailboxes getting closer to his, I looked up and saw a big, maroon flag with that unique, cursive “A” hanging proudly from the front porch. I started laughing so hard I could barely park the car! That was a sure sign that I’d found the right house.

And look what was waiting for me!

That’s a pretty impressive stack!

Here’s what I discovered:

Top Row: Pottery Barn Home, P. Allen Smith’s Garden Home (wait, how did that get in there?), The Best of Cooking Light and Christopher Lowell, The Hassle-Free Host (Christopher Lowell with Frances Schultz). Bottom Row: Betty Crocker’s Cooking Basics, Taste of Home’s Quick Cooking Annual Recipes: 2000, The Best of Country Cooking: 2001, The Best of Country Cooking: 2002 and Taste of Home Annual Recipes: 2003.

Remember when Christopher Lowell took the home decorating world by storm? I liked him and his show was so much fun—but I never got around to buying any of his decorating books. Didn’t he have a line of home decor products? Whatever happened there?

Top Row: Paula Deen & Friends: Living It Up, Southern Style (Paula Deen with Martha Nesbit), Favorite Brand Name Easy Entertaining and Cocktails (Linda Doeser). Bottom Row: Cooking Light: The Ultimate Kid-Approved Cookbook, Southern Living: Ultimate Book of Appetizers and The American Grill (David Barich & Thomas Ingalls).

This was a really nice and diverse collection! Thanks again for thinking of me, Chris! I’ve always said you rescued me from radio and today you rescued me from suffering a cookbook-less Saturday!

Dori’s Autograph

I spent a few more minutes with my finds from Saturday’s sales. Remember the home where I asked the lady if she had cookbooks and then she mentioned that she had a Betty still packed away in a box?

Well, I took a closer look at the cookbooks from that sale. I got to the Dori Sanders’ Country Cooking cookbook:

Guess what I found!

Autograph!! What a fantastic score!!!

Colin's Goodwill Find

I’ve made it to that part of motherhood where the boys’ shun any hugs from me. It’s a bummer. But occasionally, a little warmth shows through. During our last trip in Hilton Head, I had a heavy box of cookbooks I needed to load in the car. I was about to head down the steps when Colin stopped me and said, “Wouldn’t you rather take the elevator?”

He may not welcome hugs anymore, but at least he didn’t want to see me trip and fall down a flight of stairs. Heartwarming, huh?

This past week, hubby took the boys on a thrift store run and when they got back home, this cookbook was in the bag:

Carl Sandburg: Favorite Recipes (Elena Diana Miller).

And while I have seen autographed cookbooks, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen one that looks like it has a notary embossed stamp!

Apparently Colin spotted it and asked if they could bring it home for me. He just might still have a soft spot for his ole Mom. I’ll take what I can get!