Cookbookaholic

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.

Katie Brown x 2

Have you heard about Everything But the House? It’s an online estate sale auction website that is absolutely revolutionizing the way estate sales are done. Think online estate sale done ebay style.

 

I’ve been able to win a few items here and there over the past year. If the auction is in the city where you live, then you can pick it up the item you won in person and save yourself the cost of packing and shipping. If the item you win is in another city, then prepare for some shipping costs that can take your breath away. (For cookbooks, I wish they’d look into charging for just Media Mail)

 

Last year, they had an estate sale for the lifestyle expert, Katie Brown. Included in several of the auction lots were autographed, first edition cookbooks. I put in several bids and promptly got outbid on the ones that included cake stands or tiered serving trays. Ugh. I would’ve loved to have a Katie Brown cake stand. Oh well.

 

At the end of the auctions, I did end up winning two lots. In addition to two autographed copies of Katie Brown Celebrates, I have two gorgeous glass pitchers, a mixing bowl, wooden serving tray and two small  outdoor votive candle holders. As Christmas was right around the corner and the hubby was heading into a sangria phase—the tall, skinny glass pitcher (along with some fresh citrus fruit, Ocean Spray Cranberry Sangria Cocktail mix and two bottles of red wine from my local Food Lion) turned into a very thoughtful present for him.

 

But we all know it’s all about the cookbooks in the end! So here’s Miss Katie times two:

 

 

 

Big Red One

If you remember back to last year, I was so thrilled when I found a first edition/first printing of Charleston Receipts from the Junior League of Charleston. Had a slight hiccup, in getting the right one, but it did finally get here.

 

But did you know there was another cookbook that the Junior League published before that famous green one? I didn’t. At least, not until The Lee Bros. wrote about it in one of their amazing cookbooks.

 

It was ultra rare from 1949, and it was only printed once. First edition…only edition.

 

And it’s called Charleston Recipes…which feels more natural than Receipts.

 

As you can imagine, once I learned about this cookbook—I put it on my list. Don’t assume it went straight to obsession (hello, original Paula Deen Lady and Friends cookbook).

 

Not too long after, the Junior League of Charleston actually re-released a new printing of that original red cookbook. Here’s how they listed it on their website:

 

Virtually lost for decades, Charleston Recipes was recently rediscovered in an attic by Josephine Humphreys, a former JLC member and daughter of the original editor Martha Lynch Humphreys. “Only one year separates the two cookbooks (Recipes and Receipts), but they can almost be seen as representing different decades,” says Humphreys in her introduction. “The 1949 book seems spare and frugal, still in the shadow of the depression and wartime privations, while the 1950 book is exuberant, celebratory, even sometimes downright lavish. And yet there are tempting and delightful recipes to be found only in the red book.”

 

Amazing! And the proceeds for purchasing this reprint went to their charity work. And yes, I did buy one. So that scratched that itch….until.

 

I logged on to ebay and went through a search for Junior League cookbooks from the Carolinas. And deep in a “Buy It Now” section was an original. THE original….the Red One. It was part of a private collection of a professional chef who collected rare and antique cookbooks. He was choosing to sell off a few from his personal library and I knew I had to act fast. I couldn’t afford the Buy It Now price, but it did have a “make an offer” option. I submitted my best offer and waited.

 

The next morning, I got a notification that the offer was accepted. Woo-hoo!!!!

 

I thanked the seller and told him that Red was coming to a good home and she’d live right beside the first edition/first printing Receipts. And a few days later, she arrived:

 

 

So thrilled!

Midnight in Birmingham

I made it through the first week at work. A few tearups, but no ugly-cry meltdowns. So there’s a win for me.

This was a really trying time for me, not only for the loss of my Mom, but I had also endured a professional setback, quite literally, at the exact same time. Looking back on it now, that issue would work itself out—and by that, I mean out the door—within six months. But at that point in time, I was just starting down a path that felt dark, deeply lonely and like my new reality.  

That first week back was spent focusing on a previously scheduled trip to Birmingham, Alabama, for a symposium. I was looking forward to getting out of town, out of my circumstances and quite frankly, out of my self-imposed pity party.

 

I packed my clothes, a cookbook to get autographed, hopes for rest and got out of Dodge for a few days.

 

The first evening in Birmingham was great. We were invited to attend a get-together at the offices of Southern Living magazine. I knew absolutely nobody there but the office was amazing. Check out the appetizers, show kitchen and the library of cookbooks…I was in Heaven!

 

 

The next day started off with a light breakfast just outside the symposium venue and I spotted the Director of the Southern Foodways Alliance, John T. Edge. I grabbed my copy of The Southern Foodways Alliance Community Cookbook and made beeline straight to him. I asked him to sign the cookbook and he very nicely obliged.

 

 

The day was filled with really interesting sessions. I took a lot of notes. After the last session, I walked back to the hotel and figured out dinner plans. Nothing major—just nearby and basic.

 

Back in my hotel room, I had a quiet evening ahead of me.

 

I pulled out of my purse three handwritten notecards. These were notes my Mom had taken from a lesson on the disciples after Christ’s crucifixion. She had kept these notecards and placed them on a kitchen cabinet door. Those three cards had been there for years…about 13 years exactly. They obviously had messages that held importance for her. As I was gearing up to leave her house following the funeral and come home, something told me to put the cards in my purse.

 

Now that I had time to myself in the hotel room, I pulled out the cards and began to read each of them.

 

The last card was titled, “The Miraculous Resurrection,” and it was filled with notes she’d jotted down from a radio broadcast of one of her favorite preachers, Dr. David Jeremiah. The card was dated February of 2003.

 

 

It was focusing on the day after the Crucifixion and how the disciples were left feeling devastated at the loss of Christ…that long Saturday.

 

The flip side of the card reads:

 

It is neither the dark Fridays or the brightest Sundays that require the greatest grace.

The greatest grace is during the eternally long Saturdays when we are caught in the middle.

It is where we seek to get rid of our grief and get on with our life.

It is where our former vision of what life would be has failed and we are desperate for a new one.

Hope is never more needed than on Saturday between Friday and Sunday.

Where are you?

 

Then below, she wrote, “I think this also applies to the grieving process. Is it Friday, Saturday or Sunday in your life right now?”

 

Wow. If this were a movie, this scene would be where a character suddenly realizes something important, there's a sound effect and then everything freezes in a quiet instance of awareness.  I was totally focused and understood that this card was meant to be read by me, at this moment.

 

It just instantly landed what had been quietly swirling in the back of my mind: I was definitely at the start of my midnight on this long Saturday.

Hard One to Write

So, the week following my mother's passing was slow and sad. I was sitting at her house, dreading going back to work. Couldn't imagine being able to sit at my desk without tearing up. Not to mention if anyone were to come up and express any kind of sorrow—even thinking of that got the waterworks going.

 

But I knew I needed to think about going home, back to my family and back to work. On Wednesday night, I got a phone call from a neighbor of Carolyn Leonard. Mrs. Leonard was having her final yard sale and wanted to be sure I came on Friday afternoon.

 

She had contacted me a few months earlier to come over and look through her cookbooks. I wasn't able to find the time since my Mom fell soon after and her passing followed a few months later.

 

Honestly, I felt guilty not being able to go over and meet with her earlier. But this was exactly what I needed to motivate me now to make the drive back home.

 

When I arrived at the house a few minutes before the start time, I noticed people were already inside. Oh boy, I hoped I wasn't too late.

 

As I walked through the house, I could tell that the sale had been going on for a while. I'd be lucky to find anything at this point.

 

In the living room, there were built-in bookshelves and I spied cookbooks. They'd definitely been picked through, but then I saw this just lying flat on the bookshelf:

 

 

Wow! Betty Feezor's Carolina Recipes Volume II?! Still here? I had a sense of relief wave through me. Now I could look through the rest feeling a little more relaxed.

 

A few more jumped out at me and I was able to snag these as well:

 

 

Tea Time at the Masters (Junior League of Augusta, GA), It’s Not Gourmet, It’s Better! (Eudora Garrison), Carolina Recipes Volume II (Betty Feezor) and The Food Lion Family Cookbook.

 

After these finds, I took a few more minutes and walked around the house. I even found this gorgeous footstool! Very Christmas-y, I think.

 

 

Now it was time to check out and finally head home. I saw Mrs. Leonard as I was leaving from the garage. She saw me from the top of the steps and said that she was hoping to see me a few months earlier. I could tell she was disappointed and a little cross with me. I struggled to find some words but the only thing that came out of my mouth was, "I lost my Mom this week."

 

The look on her face turned immediately to shock.  She quickly, but carefully, came down the steps and grabbed onto my arm. "I am so sorry," she said. Her grip on my arm was firm and shook as she said each word. We had a brief conversation and I’m relieved that I held it together without any tears.

 

A few months went by before I came across the small stack from this sale. For some reason, I found myself flipping through the Betty Feezor cookbook. Written on the inside of the back cover, I found an amazing surprise: a note from Betty’s husband, Turner.

 

 Feb. 26, 1978

To Mrs. Carolyn Leonard,

Betty asked me to send you this book and to thank you for your work on the scholarship fund. She is so pleased that young people are going to benefit from your work.

                                           Best wishes, Turner Feezor

 

I was astonished to find this note. It’s brief, touching and so unassuming…tucked away in the very back. A quiet thank you for helping his wife’s legacy live on with the Betty Feezor Scholarship program. And after doing a quick date check online, I find that this note, dated February 26, was written only two days before Betty passed.

 

I’m struggling to make a connection between my loss and finding this cookbook…but l am incredibly grateful that it found it’s way home with me.

Betty Didn't Want to Go to the Catskills

Three sales on my list for the morning. The first sale is all the way up in Concord at 7am, but it also started on Friday—so I’m not convinced I need to begin the morning up there. It listed “tons of cookbooks” but those could be gone by now.

 

The second sale is 7:30 am and it’s the same street as Voo Doo Economics. It’s a nice street and since I’m skipping the first sale, I’ll be showing up a few minutes early.

 

And guess what, it IS Voo Doo Economics’ house. There are several plastic bins of cookbooks, and I find these two:

 

 

Potsticker Chronicles (Stuart Chang Berman) and Build a Better Burger (James McNair).

 

The only sale I’ve got listed at 8am has a Matthews address and it mentioned “vintage cookbooks.” I ask Google to navigate me there and it turns out to only be 20 minutes away. I’ll be there a little before 8am, but it’s already bright out—so I’m sure I won’t be alone.

 

Sure enough, there’s already a couple of cars. I make my way up the driveway and there’s a couple talking over a set of dinner chairs. They are deciding that the chairs aren’t the right color and then wishing the lady having the sale luck on her move up to the Catskills. On a table, I spot some cookbooks. I go through them and select these:

 

 

Market to Market (Jr. Service League of Hickory, NC), Mama’s Recipes and other Cookbook (June Thompson Medlin), Seafood Cookery (Carteret County Extension Home Makers Clubs), Concord Cuisine (Jr. Charity League of Concord, NC) and The Grecian Plate (The Hellenic Ladies Society, St. Barbara Greek Orthodox Church, Durham, NC).

 

They are nice and yes, some are vintage! I pay for them and the lady mentions that she has more that need to come out. I ask, “do you mean cookbooks?” She says yes and I tell her that I’m happy to wait.

 

She spends a few minutes trying to move some more furniture out a patio door. Eventually, she comes out and says that it would be easier if I came inside and went through the cookbooks myself.

 

She leads me down a hallway and just around the corner is this bookshelf:

 

 

She tells me that she’s selling the spiral bound but that she wants to keep the hardbacks. That’s fine with me. In fact, that probably cuts down the amount of cookbooks to look through in half.

 

I’m look through the shelves and find a few. The real work is in the bottom part. I start a pile that keeps getting taller. There’s about 6 stacks of cookbooks in the bottom cabinet and I’m trying to be careful and deliberate about the ones I select. If they’re not first edition, first printing or super unique—they’re not making it to the pile.

 

And then, in the last stack; the next to last cookbook at the bottom:

next to last cookbook at the bottom:

 

Betty. Red cover. That’s the first one….grab it, put the stacks back in the cabinet, pay and go home!

 

Here’s the full haul from the bookshelf inside the house.

 

 

Top Row: What’s Cooking at Pleasant Grove (Pleasant Grove UMC, Charlotte, NC), It’s Not Gourmet, It’s Better! (Eudora Garrison), River Road Recipes II (Jr. League of Baton Rouge, LA), Perennials (Jr. Service League of Gainesville, GA), The St. Paul’s Sampler (St. Paul’s Churchwomen, Summerville, SC), Lunchin’ on the Levee (Memphis Light, Gas and Water Division Home Economists), and Bayou Cook Book (Thomas J. Holmes, Jr.).

 

Second Row: Mac Gregors Gathering Recipes 1980 (American Clan Gregor Society), A Cook’s Tour of the Azalea Coast (Auxiliary to the New Hanover, Pender, Brunswick County Medical Society, Wilmington, NC), The Quaker Cook Book (The Woman’s Auxiliary of High Points Friends Meeting, High Point, NC), Woman’s Exchange Cook Book (Memphis, TN), Out of This World Cook Book (The Cocoa Beach Woman’s Club, Cocoa Beach, FL), and Uptown Down South (Jr. League of Greenville, SC)

 

I think I pulled some back muscles lugging around the box….especially when the tape gave way and started to come apart.

 

Finally back home, I take a moment to look at Betty Feezor’s Best. I find a nice surprise on the top of the title page:

 

 

Something tells me Betty didn’t want to go to the Catskills. And I’m happy to have her at my home.

So true.....

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.

First Lady Cookbook

When thinking back over my Mom’s cookbook collection, she had a ton of SC First Lady Cookbooks that were published for years as an American Cancer Society fundraiser. I think those started in the 1970’s? Imagine my surprise when, by chance, I saw a listing on eBay for a First Lady Cookbook from my hometown of Florence, SC…from 1939!

 

 

How exciting! Now this couldn’t be the same type of First Lady cookbook because the ones my Mom had were meant to be from the governor’s wife, the state’s First Lady. So, where’s this cookbook coming from?

 

This was compiled by the Executive Boards of the City Federation of Women’s Clubs in Florence, SC. So, I guess there was an organization that connected all the other women’s groups in town?

 

Notice that all the ladies are listed by their husband’s names? I know it was the way things were done back in the day…but I just wish the ladies who ran these organizations (for women) would’ve put their own names on the title page.

 

The lady listed for the Florence Art Association has the last name Rainwater. My grandmother, a cook, had a client by that name. Every Christmas, my Grandma made chocolate covered peanut butter balls and cheese crisps and delivered them to her very posh home near a park. Throughout my childhood, I got to accompany my Grandma on several of these deliveries. I wonder if this is the same lady?

Birthday Cookbook from Church

What a nice way to start off the birthday month: the gift of a cookbook from my church.

How awful is it that I actually missed church this Sunday? Luckily, the guys were nice enough to bring it home to me. To keep it from becoming part of the clutter, I bet they thought twice about it.

Sharing Delicious Secrets by Denise Robinson and Stephanie Robinson.

I’m already intrigued by their Chinese Pork Fried Rice and Chicken Satay recipes.

Thanks to the Birthday Ministry at my church! It’s been a rough year for me and this was a really unexpected, uplifting and thoughtful gift.