A New Arrival + DIY Book Boxes

Last week, Mother in Law Scrimp took me to a new antique shop that opened up by her house. It's amazing. Everything in the store is purchased cheaply at estate sales and re-sold just as cheaply. I just had to take advantage of it.

Are you ready to see what we bought? Are you? 

Ok. :)

Excuse the grit on the floor underneath it. I didn't sweep up after Mr. Scrimp and his brother carried it inside. 

It's a lovely art deco-style buffet, with beautiful old hardware. There are some dings and nicks here and there but really it's in excellent condition. 

I think the thing I am most in love with is the beautiful, simple woodwork:

DIY Old-Fashioned Book Covers

Have you ever had a pile of books that looked like this...

and found yourself wishing that instead, they looked like this?

Well, wish no more, my friends! It is now in your grasp to have many leather-bound books, and an apartment that smells of rich mahogany. Ok, well, maybe not quite, but you can transform your bookshelf into a beautiful display of faux-antique volumes with this awesome and easy tutorial from Hydrangea Girl.

Mrs. Beeton's Household Management

Have you heard of Mrs. Beeton? In the 19th century, Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management was the Victorian homekeeper's bible.

That is one intense book jacket.

You can find the entire text online here. It's worth a read, if only for a chuckle over the way things have changed.  The book is primarily a cookbook, but also opines at some length about social conventions, visiting, managing servants, and caring for invalids.

I mention it because I read a quote from the aforementioned Mrs. Beeton in which she said, "What moved me, in the first instance, to attempt a work like this, was the discomfort and suffering which I had seen brought upon men and women by household mismanagement. I have always thought that there is no more fruitful source of family discontent than a housewife's badly-cooked dinners and untidy ways."

Obviously the blame for this no longer lies just at the feet of the housewife. But I'm curious to know, readers, do you think that bad dinners and an untidy house are a source of "family discontent"? Domestic stress? Mr. Scrimp and I certainly seem to have a much better time when things are really clean and organized.

Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Christmas in January

My brother and sister-in-law gave us a gift card for Christmas, and tonight we went and used part of it to buy something that I have been wanting for a very, very long time. What is it, you ask?

Recognize this beauty?

Yes! I'm a little embarrassed to admit that we didn't already own it, because buying it after Julie and Julia came out makes us look like we're jumping on a bandwagon. Thing is, when we lived with our parents, there was never a need for either of us to own a copy. And when we got married, we each assumed that the other had one. So we ended up married and in possession of Julia Child books, but not that one.

Is it strange that I want to sit down and read it cover-to-cover, just like a novel? It's so pretty.

Cookbooks 101

I've mentioned before, I think, that Mr. Scrimp and I were both English majors. Being a book collector sort of comes with that territory, and when you throw in our mutual love of cooking, it only makes sense that we'd have a pretty extensive cookbook collection.

Some of our cookbooks, as viewed through a cell phone 

because my camera is in Mr. Scrimp's car

But, if you haven't had the time that we have to figure out what cookbooks you want or need, to accumulate things secondhand or pick them up in wanderings around the bookstore--if you aren't the kind of person who already hoards cookbooks and loves to try out new recipes just for fun, I'd like to make some recommendations. These are fab if you are just starting out with learning how to cook, or if you, like us, have been cooking for years. I consider them essential.

I considered linking to these on Amazon, but if you're like me, you'd probably go look at the Amazon page and then just try and buy these from Half.com instead, so I leave that all up to you.

1. The Joy of Cooking, by Irma S. Rombauer, Marion Rombauer Becker, and Ethan Becker

No kitchen is complete without this book. If you live on your own and don't own it, get it. Buy it used if you must. Buy an ancient copy. Steal your mom's (if you think you can get away with it).

I will warn you, it's not a modern-style cookbook. There are no photos, only a handful of antiquated line drawings, and page after page after page of recipes, packed in as tightly as can be. Just sit down and read through it sometime, though. Skim the index. Acquaint yourself with the way their recipes are worded. I can't even count the number of times I've referred to this book over the years since I first began to learn how to cook.

2. How to Cook Everything, by Mark Bittman

Like The Joy of Cooking, this is indispensable. Consider it essentially as a recipe encyclopedia, full of delicious things waiting to be discovered. This was a Christmas gift to us last year and I love it. If you made the hummus recipe I posted a few days ago, you may be interested to know that it is a modified version of the recipe in this cookbook.

For those of you who don't eat meat, Bittman also has published How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. I don't own that one, but it comes very highly recommended from several friends of mine who love to cook as much as I do.

3. On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, by Harold McGee

Although this has recipes in it, it's not strictly a cookbook. Rather than simply cataloging hundreds of recipes for you to try, admirable as that is, Harold McGee sat down and wrote a book about what it is that makes those recipes work. This has everything from a discussion of the chemical composition of eggs to the genus of the mold that makes blue cheeses delicious (it's a strain of penicillin. Who knew?), to quick and easy ways to make creme fraiche at home.

Anybody can follow a recipe. If you're going to become truly comfortable in the kitchen, though, you're going to have to go beyond just following a cookbook. McGee's book will empower you to be more bold and creative in your cooking because you will know why certain things work in cooking and baking, and why other things never can, no matter how good they sound in theory. If you've ever had a question about why a cookbook tells you to do something nonsensical, this book will probably answer it.

4. Allrecipes.com

Allrecipes.com is, of course, not a printed cookbook. It's essentially a giant recipe swap. It is also my go-to place for finding new recipes when I'm bored, in a hurry, or trying to come up with something to make with specific ingredients that I already have on hand.

You can search by ingredients, type of meal, or other keywords. Many recipes are submitted with photos, and are rated by other users of the site. People leave comments with suggestions for tweaks to the recipes, or warnings about common pitfalls. I try to stick to four or five star rated recipes and always check the comments first, and I've never had it fail me yet.



Of course, there are so many cookbooks that you can find and enjoy beyond these. I haven't even mentioned my beloved Julia Child or Madhur Jaffrey, or the battered copies of Escoffier and Larousse Gastronomique on our shelves. I've often even had luck finding great recipes (and wonderful food for the gastronomic imagination) in the richly illustrated and photo-heavy cookbooks that they sell in the bargain section of stores like Borders.

But these four (well, three books and a website) are the ones I turn to most often for my day-to-day cooking needs. Now go, go obtain them. Read them, savor the ideas in them. Turn the recipes over in your mind. And then start cooking!