Perfect Day

Today is a holiday (Poland's Independence Day) so Greg and the kids stayed home. Here's what it was like for me:

warm house full of happy children

gray and drizzly all day

leftover chocolate cake

I can't imagine better conditions for curling up with a good book. So that's what I did. Except for the curling up part. Because you can't really curl up with a binder (especially not with an enormous belly), and what I was reading was a binder full of recipes. Recipes that suggest that you "thoroly blend" ingredients together, or that tell you to drop the dough on a "cooky sheet", or that require you to drain or reserve "sirop" from a can of fruit and give you the option to use either a chopped bar of chocolate or "packaged chocolate pieces", and where 90% of the cakes and cookies call for shortening instead of butter. There's also a separate section entitled "Leftovers" and one for "Canning and Freezing".

I'm so completely charmed by this 1949 Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book that belonged to my stepmother's great aunt (how's that for a cool connection?). It's just fascinating reading for me. And the book's stuffed full of old newspaper clippings of recipes and ideas for entertaining (with the fantastic advertisements here and there). I've been completely transported back in time, and I LOVE it. I feel that if I can just stick with this book, plus another favorite of mine that my mom gave me, The Art of Homemaking (1969), and also develop the fashion sense of this lady, I'll be my perfect self.

I just received it in the mail yesterday and the fact that I've already found two recipes (identical recipes!) that I already make regularly and love dearly (brownie pudding and borscht) makes me really excited to start trying out some of the other recipes.

Thanks so much to Pam for the cook book!