vintagejenta's Profile

Have a plan and STICK TO IT when it comes to buying books. I'm a thrift store junkie and I used to buy all kinds of cookbooks, many of which I read once and never used. So here are my personal rules.

1. Flip through it. If you don't see at least 5 recipes that sound amazing and which you might actually cook, skip it.

2. It has to be published before 1950 (I love me some vintage cookbooks).

3. If it was published after 1950, it has to be an ethnic cookbook or a cookbook focused on older cuisines (such as the plethora of nostalgic memoirs and cookbooks published in the 1970s).

4. The more focused the cookbook, the better. Those giant 19th century household compendiums might be good for historical research, but you're unlikely to use any of the recipes.

5. Make sure your cooking level matches the books you're purchasing. Although I CAN cook fancy foods, I generally choose not to, so many of the cookbooks I picked up years ago I've never actually cooked from because I'm too lazy.

6. Finally, if it's not mostly from-scratch, skip it. I know I won't make recipes full of canned and packaged foods, so why buy a cookbook full of them?

And then weed extensively. I have over 100 hard copy mostly vintage cookbooks and another 100 on my Kindle (free vintage cookbooks are the best!). I haven't read them ALL in their entirety, but I'm getting there. I've mostly gotten rid of the cookbooks I don't use at all. I've kept some that I'm thinking I need to sell or give away, simply because I'll never cook from them and they're not that interesting of reads.

Working all weekend and getting sick, so maybe make a chickpea tomato soup with the rosemary bread I bought the other day.

Thankfully, I bought some new vintage cookbooks the other day. They may serve as inspiration.

How did you meet your neighbors? We have no neighbors on our street (we're surrounded by parkland) and the ones across the street from us we barely see out of their houses, except one guy who occasionally ventures out to fanatically mow his lawn and their teenaged son waiting for the bus in the morning. Even the poor dog gets his lead attached to a line to be let out.

I'd like to be more neighborly, but don't know where to start. Doesn't help that there's a major arterial road between us.

I am shocked that this post has been up for 6 hours and it doesn't have a storm of comments yet.

My personal preference is to reject GMOs, although in the US the lack of labeling makes it nearly impossible, unless you buy all certified organic (which by definition cannot have GMOs) and whole, unprocessed foods, which the vast majority of people do not.

I'm all for hybridization (even though the sterile or non-proving offspring are not a great side effect), but modification on the genetic level is not cool in my book, especially since so little long-term testing has been done and almost NO testing or research has been done by impartial third party researchers (i.e. the bulk has been done by industry-paid researchers - not exactly unbiased). I also don't think you should be able to patent plants and animals (though that's a whole different kettle of fish).

And finally, most of the promises (drought-resistant, bug-free, higher yields, improved nutrition) have been proven all or mostly false. And many of the problems GMOs are touted to solve have much easier, cheaper, and low-impact alternatives (for instance, solving vitamin A deficiency is more easily accomplished by eating sweet potatoes instead of genetically modifying "golden rice.").

I'm not really hating, just whining. :) I love cookbooks, so I enjoy looking at new ones when they come out, but it seems as though everything these days is either vegan or paleo (or gluten-free). And I'm Midwestern with dairy farmer roots, so I can't imagine a world without ANY animal products, although I do try to cut back quite a bit on the actual meat (I could live forever on beans, cheese, butter, bread, and veggies). Nor dairy or grain for the paleo diet (which isn't really "paleo" anyway).

I'm just the sort of person who chafes under "rules," so veganism and the paleo diet and other such things are very much not for me.

It's just that I feel by labeling things "vegan" or "vegetarian" it turns off meat eaters to what they might otherwise think would be delicious dishes. It puts cookbooks in boxes, which I'm not fond of. That's all.

Sorry if I offended, that's just how I feel.

I wonder how the pesticide residue is on locally produced crops (made for a local market) as opposed to grocery store crops? Do you think they are the same? I buy a lot of local apples and peaches.

I just bought some strawberries. :( I'll have to try and find organic now. I always forget about this list. Maybe I should print it out and always take it with on my grocery runs! I didn't know sweet bell peppers were on the list too. :( I do buy organic celery because it's available at my local store and not much more expensive than conventional.

Thankfully a friend is growing a big garden this year and I promised to help in exchange for produce. So there will be some organic tomatoes, bell peppers, and lettuces in my future.

Tacos! I love shredded chicken with black beans, onions, a little tomato paste, and smoked spanish paprika. You could totally do that in the crockpot.

I would totally be all up in making fondue with a fondue pot (it's an electric one, right? Not just a crock with a candle under it?)! Could you make soup or heat up beans in the fondue pot?

Why not try making savory waffles and top them with something like chili (cornmeal cheesy waffles!) or creamed chicken and vegetables (herbed waffles!)? That would be awesome.

Green olives are FANTASTIC with fresh oranges and a honey mustard vinaigrette over fresh lettuces. Add some thinly sliced red onion if you like, but the olives carry it. I tear mine in half lengthwise with my hands to make them a little easier to spear.

I love them on pizza too. They are also awesome with onion dill dip and rye bread. Don't ask me why. Something about the bitter saltiness goes so well with the mellow creaminess of dill dip.

Ooooh! I made a Victorian recipe for semolina cooked in milk, cooled and cut into squares, and then baked with butter and parmesan cheese. It was AMAZING.

But coating it in breadcrumbs and frying? Might be even better. Trying it for my next dinner party....

I read the whole blog post and I really love the remodel, but I have to wonder - what happened to the microwave?