Happy New Year. May it be yummy.
January 1, 2024 5:31 AM Subscribe
Leslie Gray Streeter's resolution for 2023 was to make at least one recipe from each of the 45 cookbooks in her collection. For New Year's 2024, she writes about how that went. (Main links to The Baltimore Banner, which I think you should be able to access for 2 articles as a non-subscriber, but archive links provided for back up: 2023, 2024)
In addition to her column for The Baltimore Banner, Leslie Gray Streeter is the author of Black Widow: A Sad-Funny Journey Through Grief for People Who Normally Avoid Books With Words Like "Journey" in the Title.
In addition to her column for The Baltimore Banner, Leslie Gray Streeter is the author of Black Widow: A Sad-Funny Journey Through Grief for People Who Normally Avoid Books With Words Like "Journey" in the Title.
....I.....I have considerably more than 45 cookbooks (and just got 3 new ones among the gifts this year). I'm totally thinking I should do this now.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:57 AM on January 1 [1 favorite]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:57 AM on January 1 [1 favorite]
I have my dad's old copy of George Herter's cookbook. There's a recipe in there that I've wanted to make for decades. It's for a hamburger. You assemble the meat, bun, and whatever fixins you like. But you assemble it with an uncooked beef patty. Then you wrap the whole burger in foil and bake it. The flavors mingle, supposedly.
posted by neuron at 1:22 PM on January 1
posted by neuron at 1:22 PM on January 1
45 cookbooks? Oh my. A quick count in the kitchen comes to just over 200. A cookbook is one of my favourite forms of reading, especially those that have a bit of commentary along with the recipes (although that's proper commentary, and not just the online life-story filler that you get in online recipes) and I often settle down with one over dinner or a drink.
They are such a fantastic repository of knowledge, and I love chasing down some ingredient in order to make a dish that's caught my fancy.
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 1:42 PM on January 1 [2 favorites]
They are such a fantastic repository of knowledge, and I love chasing down some ingredient in order to make a dish that's caught my fancy.
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 1:42 PM on January 1 [2 favorites]
I consider myself a good cook. Many, many people have told me I'm a good cook. I have hardly any cook books... just a few old ones my wife had from decades ago. Never been much of a recipe-follower. I dig out old recipes when I make Xmas cookies, but other than that I improvise, or I make stuff (occasionally) based on something I recently saw on a PBS cooking show (and I very rarely look up specifics in those cases.)
When I do need to know something or find a recipe for, say, a cake (I make maybe 2 cakes a year) I just google "XYZ cake Martha Stewart" and it always works for me.
posted by SoberHighland at 2:04 PM on January 1
When I do need to know something or find a recipe for, say, a cake (I make maybe 2 cakes a year) I just google "XYZ cake Martha Stewart" and it always works for me.
posted by SoberHighland at 2:04 PM on January 1
I tried a new cake recipe today: a blueberry-swirl Bundt cake. The cake turned out fine, but man it was one of those recipes that created an infinite amount of dirty dishes: every mixing bowl in the house (well, not quite, only because I've got a serious number of mixing bowls), the blender (technically, a Vitamix which surprised me by not being able to cope with two cups of half-frozen blueberries--I was afraid the motor was going to burn out), the juicer, the zester, the strainer, two sauce pans, the beaters for the hand mixer, all the measuring spoons, the measuring cup (well I used one but had to wash it halfway through), the cake pan, the cooling rack, etc.
Normally, my one key baking skill is to be able to reduce the number of dishes required to prepare a recipe, but there was no way to do so with this one. I started out trying to cut down on the number of bowls, but I realized that approach just wasn't going to work.
It was also one of those recipes that took eons longer to put together than I would have thought before attempting it. There were just so many fiddly steps and pauses built into it. (And I didn't even bother with the glazing as the recipe said it was optional, and since I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out, I didn't want to waste even more time and create more dishes on an unknown outcome.)
I doubt I'll make it again. I don't mind spending time and effort to make something elaborate, but a Bundt cake should be something that's quick and easy to throw together--a minimal effort type of baking to produce something that's relatively simple and basic. This wasn't that. But it was something new, which is what I wanted to accomplish on this first day of the new year.
posted by sardonyx at 9:17 PM on January 1 [1 favorite]
Normally, my one key baking skill is to be able to reduce the number of dishes required to prepare a recipe, but there was no way to do so with this one. I started out trying to cut down on the number of bowls, but I realized that approach just wasn't going to work.
It was also one of those recipes that took eons longer to put together than I would have thought before attempting it. There were just so many fiddly steps and pauses built into it. (And I didn't even bother with the glazing as the recipe said it was optional, and since I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out, I didn't want to waste even more time and create more dishes on an unknown outcome.)
I doubt I'll make it again. I don't mind spending time and effort to make something elaborate, but a Bundt cake should be something that's quick and easy to throw together--a minimal effort type of baking to produce something that's relatively simple and basic. This wasn't that. But it was something new, which is what I wanted to accomplish on this first day of the new year.
posted by sardonyx at 9:17 PM on January 1 [1 favorite]
....I.....I have considerably more than 45 cookbooks (and just got 3 new ones among the gifts this year). I'm totally thinking I should do this now.
posted by EmpressCallipygos
Oooh, if you do, I would hope you would start a second blog and tell us all about it. Your film blog is great even for movies I haven't seen.
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 11:20 AM on January 2 [1 favorite]
posted by EmpressCallipygos
Oooh, if you do, I would hope you would start a second blog and tell us all about it. Your film blog is great even for movies I haven't seen.
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 11:20 AM on January 2 [1 favorite]
That's very kind, a non mouse, but I think one blog is all I can manage!
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:24 AM on January 4
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:24 AM on January 4
« Older Happy New Free Thread, MetaFilter ... what do you... | Death is but a door, time is but a window Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
I just counted, and I only have a dozen cookbooks - we will not discuss the pile of random print outs, magazine pages, and back of envelope scribblings that also live in the cookbook cabinet, nor the recipe folder saved to the cloud.
My mom's cookbook shelf, on the other hand, must easily exceed the author's 45, as she and my dad both are/were book lovers and cooks and slightly hoarders. Will send her this project to chuckle at.
Happy new year!
posted by the primroses were over at 5:42 AM on January 1 [1 favorite]