I began to take an interest in cooking when I had my first apartment and tired of eating cottage cheese and hard-boiled eggs. Maybe it's time to increase my cooking repertoire!
I remember going to a bookstore, looking at the cookbook section, and choosing the Fanny Farmer Cooking School paperback. It suited my style: it was to the point - not cheerfully chatty like The Joy of Cooking, a popular cookbook at the time. It had general instructions for beginners like me and recipes for food I liked, like dumplings and chocolate pudding! I bought it and took it home. I can honestly say that Fanny Farmer taught me how to cook!
I'm not sure why I wanted to learn to cook from a book. I had resisted "helping" my mother cook at home. It felt less creative - besides, I didn't like anyone hovering over my shoulder telling me what to do. (And I must admit, I still don't!) My Aunt Elsie (an excellent cook) was concerned about my lack of cooking skills. After all, wasn't that a woman's role in life? But I remember her daughter, Eleanor quietly telling me, Don't worry! When you're ready, you'll learn.
Now I was ready - and this cookbook was going to teach me how!
For the next 10 years, Fanny Farmer was the main cookbook I used. When it started to fall apart, I bought a new paperback copy (which has since also begun to fall apart). I was disappointed, however, to discover that it wasn't exactly the same as my previous one. (In fact, each edition of Fanny Farmer is a little different! - to the dismay of all of us who love one edition and hope the next edition will be just the same!)
When my second Fanny Farmer Cookbook began to fall apart, I went on Ebay to look for it in a hard-cover version. I thought I had it in the more durable hard-cover format (on the right), but when it arrived and I started to use it, I again discovered that, even if they claim to be the same edition, hard-covered and paper-back editions differ. My solution was to keep the old one (seen here with an elastic around it to hold it intact!) while I try to adapt to the hard cover one. The one on the left is a more recent edition... I don't use it a lot. I'll never understand why publishers insist on changing cookbooks that are perfect just the way they are!
Eventually two other cookbooks were added to my collection. Knowing my love of desserts, my Aunt Lydia gave me The Better Homes and Gardens Dessert Cookbook. I used to make the Banana Nut Cake almost weekly, eating it un-iced with plain yogurt for breakfast.
Then my friend Judith gave me the Betty Crocker Cookbook. Its colorful illustrations inspired me to try my hand at new things - like cinnamon buns, date loaf and apricot loaf.
These three cookbooks - the beginning of my cookbook collection - are still my favorites.
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