Books of Knowledge

I cook. Sometimes it's the monotonous life-sustaining cooking. Sometimes it's the I-just-have-to-try-that kind of cooking. I try to make it all jazzy at Christmas and introduce something I think everyone will just be desperate to try. This year it was Smoked Salmon Crepe Cake.............I LOVED IT..........not a crowd pleaser though, considering how much was left.
My earliest memories are making cakes and icing them and watching the icing run all over the cake and onto the benchtop......mmmm too much liquid........
At school we were "taught" cooking and even though at the time I was too busy being a typical teenager I think some core knowledge seeped into me and never left.
I recently had a look at my recipe book collection thinking about having a clean-up and found these golden oldies. One I believe I "forgot" to return to high school......sorry Mrs C, and the other I did purchase when I was a young mum living in a country town far from home. Both of them are a reflection of a period of time in my life and the role that cooking played then. Both of them have lost their covers but the recipes are still there inside.
Strangely I feel a bit like these cookbooks. I am from a past era, my "cover" may be changed, altered, torn, missing or just a bit dodgy but the recipes inside remain the same. The favourites are still there, all a bit smudgy from overuse, the tried and true ones, the have-a-go experimental ones, the like it or leave it ones, the ones that I just can't "stomach" and the ones I will never try.

  So today I might put aside my new, glossy recipe books and have a look at an old faithful. I think they might be keepers.

The Commonsense Cookery Book

The Nursing Mothers Association of Australia Cookbook