5 October Wednesday

Many are surprised/intrigued/disgusted by my love of buying used cookbooks. The experience is the complete opposite of a) finding the brand-new book online, b) ordering it, c) having it go missing from the front porch and re-ordering it d) getting exactly what you expected, pristine with color glossy photographs. It’s all fine and good, but cookbooks generally have changed in purpose to be more books one looks at, rather than a book that gets a real workout in a kitchen. I want a book that has been looked over, cooked with. I love other owner’s comments and corrections. The batter and sauce spattered pages directing us to winning recipes. The browned edges of the paper. Mostly, I like that they are smaller and weigh less, like a regular old book.

Thrift stores and used book stores can be treasure troves of old cookbooks. There are classics like Joy, and everything Julia, with inscriptions inside the front cover- Christmas 1972, To Doug and Judy, all best wishes for the first Christmas in a new home, Love Nan. There are the crazy, trend based cookbooks of the 80s, like Weeknight Almost-Gourmet Microwave Cooking for the Single Pescatarian. Of course, spiral-bound church and community cookbooks by the dozens. Sometimes, I find some ancient gem among the dusty tomes, a book so fascinating and unusual to me that I buy it, read it, put it on the shelf, decide to give it away, pull it off the shelf and read it again, decide that I cannot give it away because some day, some day, I am going to translate those recipes into food that I will eat. Will the food be as pleasurable to eat as this book is to look at?

At least ten years ago, I came across Roy Andries de Groot’s Feasts for All Seasons. Now Roy (henceforth known), was a great international brat, cooking and wine enthusiast, and writer. This book is filled with really interesting-sounding recipes from all over the world. It is a menu cookbook with wine pairings, varying in complexity and seasonal, including which fish are off which waters when. I have always found it a bit intimidating. I resisted cooking anything from it because he calls for some hard to find ingredients (veal knuckles are popular with Roy) and a number of preparations take several days. I will write more about Roy, a very interesting figure, later on.

A few years ago, I decided to make one recipe from this book, and it has become one of my more legendary and oft requested offerings. And so, his Cream of Pumpkin Soup, served in the pumpkin, will commence an entire menu from Roy’s book. It is a mild mix of slightly pureéd pumpkin (the pieces of pumpkin in the creamy soup is part of the magic), stock and milk. It is more savory then you might imagine, there is no sweetening at all. It is topped with paprika toasted pumpkin seeds and finely chopped parsley.

After that, a pyramid of Algerian Chicken Couscous, with plenty of spices and vegetables. We´ll finish off with pan-fried apple dumplings. Chopped apples, butter, and cinnamon wrapped in biscuit dough and fried in the pan. Dear Roy encourages the use of pre-made biscuit dough in a tube, and that is what I will do. Now you know I´m always a little leery about sharing the menus before I make them. You know, things change, people change. We´re all flexible in today´s crazy world. OK, wine pairings to come.

One more thing- It is October, and I have it on good authority that a later season glut of tomatoes is coming into the Farmer´s Markets this week. I´ve also heard there is a market that sells them a dollar a pound. I am going this afternoon to see whether or not this is true. I will report back.