19 January Thursday

The Lunar New Year begins this weekend, the year of the Water Rabbit. There are many good things said to come in this year, with peace, hope, and positive expectation among them. I choose to believe this is a good theme for the year to come. To celebrate, I am making appropriate Chinese dishes for the season, including noodles, and a new one for me, Lion’s Head Meatballs with crab. But more on these things later. As it has stopped raining and the sun has come out, I decided to stroll through the neighborhood. Of course, I was lured into the community thrift shop, called Community Thrift Shop by the scent of old books and cheap things.

As I have written before, I love to find old cookbooks and root around for the winning recipes. I love to buy used cookbooks and bake from the batter caked pages. I love that I can get these treasures for a dollar. In fact, I never pay more than a dollar fifty for a book at the thrift shop. Today, I was browsing when my eyes caught the green plastic comb binding. Talk About Good! Le LIVRE de la CUISINE de LAFAYETTE is the name of the book, published in Layfayette Louisiana in 1967. I have the the 1971 printing. I thought for sure that I had found some totally obscure work that would not be in my Eat My Books index. Wrong again, Jerry!! It turns out to be a very popular book that was published for nearly forty years. It is amazingly New Orleansy, with lots of different dishes (and drinks) I have never heard of. More in a bit.