(no subject)

[which_chick]

I have a family cookbook. It's a three-ring bound thing, somewhat foxed these days, with recipes from my family and some empty pages in the back for me to add stuff of my own. My aunt Dora assembled this cookbook one year for the girlchildren for xmas and I've found it somewhat handy over the years for providing recipes to things that I need to know how to make. The problem with the family cookbook, though, is that it's an incomplete memory-jogger of a thing. You're supposed to know how to make these things already and the instructions in the family recipe book are only there to help you remember what you already know. Also, it does not cover things that are too obvious, like chicken pot pie. Let me state for the record that making chicken pot pie is "obvious" until you are alone in your own apartment, in a different city from your family and it's cold and grey and raining outside and you, bless your heart, want Pennsylvania Dutch Slippery Noodle Chicken Pot Pie like grandma used to make except you've never done it for yourself. Then let's see how obvious it is, Pilgrim.

There's been some talk about updating and improving the family cookbook. First off, It's missing recipes that are "obvious" and some that the creators didn't think were recipe-worthy. There are no instructions for making chicken pot pie, pickled beets and eggs, or decent gravy even though all of these things are solidly part of the family cooking heritage. Secondly, the existing recipes, those which we like and use, could use more detailed instructions. The instructions are pretty sparse. I think the cookbook could also benefit from helpful notes so that three generations from now some poor bastard doesn't have to face his or her first go at squash-pie batter (which is alarmingly runny for something you are supposed to pour into a pie shell) without a reassuring marginal note that says "This is supposed to be very runny, runnier than pancake batter. Don't worry. It'll be okay." I know I'd be more comfortable approaching new recipes if I knew that there would be helpful notes like that along the way.

Finally, it's missing a lot of stuff that we now make, stuff that is good stuff, stuff that probably other people would enjoy if only they knew how to make it. I'm a fan of Once Upon A Time Pork (it was on the DVD extras for Once Upon a Time in Mexico) and I like the Tasty Dal recipe that I got off the internet (had that again for dinner this evening, made with my nice yellow dal from Wegman's and it rocked) and No Bake Cookies (yes, they're ghastly and they're white-trash, but I like them anyway) and potato-leek soup and curried cauliflower and soba-noodles-with-sauce and so forth. We have good things that are not in the cookbook, good things that have made it into the dinner rotations of our various households. These things should be added to the book.

Comments

[electroweak.livejournal.com]

As someone with an archivist's heart (kept in a jar etc.), I expect you to slowly transcribe your family cookbook and make it available on the web. Otherwise it'll be gone some day.

What, if I may ask, are No Bake Cookies? Surely cookies require baking. Anything else is heretical.