The Fred Meyers in the Portland area are running a special on blueberries this week, which at casa Wolk-Stanley means it’s high time for pie time. Add to this my next door neighbor’s invitation to pick the raspberries from her yard, and it would be criminal to ignore the call of flaky crust and juicy berries.
So I pulled my trust Joy of Cooking cookbook off the shelf, and sure enough the pages automatically fell open to the pie section, which was thoroughly crusted with the evidence of past pie times. In fact, I actually had to scratch away at the page to properly read the recipe.
In comparison, here’s the page of spinach recipes:
Yup, absolutely pristine.
Luckily, the berries themselves were beautiful enough to make up for any and all crusty cookbook issues:
And the pie itself was perfection in circular form. You may be asking yourself where the photo is, but it got eaten before any photography could happen. You’re just going to have to take my word for it.
Ahh . . . Pie.
Katy Wolk-Stanley
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without”
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Spinach is AWESOME you’re missing out! I use silverbeet (really hard to grow spinach in australia) but spinach curries, spinach and lemon juice pasta, and just wilted spinach on toast with mushrooms.
I’m cracking up here at your spinach pages. Maybe you just know how to cook spinach without needing a recipe. 😉
Um,… spinach is easier?
I’m with Katy on this one. Given a choice between spinach and blueberries, um, I promise you that I will ALWAYS choose blueberries!
I love it! That’s what I always loved about my mom’s Betty Crocker cookbook, except it was the cookie section for our family. The page with the oatmeal cookie recipe is covered in decades-old oatmeal. So great.
I’m relieved to know that I’m not the only one with cookbooks that automatically fall open to certain sections where the pages are crusted with things like sugar, butter, and chocolate!
I meant to mention the “Sneaky Chef”. She hides not so popular things like spinach, beets, cauliflower, etc in cookies, cakes, pies, even mac and cheese. What a genius!
That was funny. Thanks for making me smile.
In my Joy of Cooking the book falls open to the kuchen/coffee cake page. That’s what I bake when I have an abundance of summer fruits.
Half a century ago when my brother was born and mother’s spent a week in the hospital, my dad hired a housekeeper/cook to take care of us until my mom returned. She knew what to feed us because she went through my mom’s cook book and made the recipes that looked most used!
I had a beloved cookbook fall apart. I put all the pages in page protectors that I bought at Office Depot. The cover went into the front of a presentation binder and voila! a cook book that can be wiped clean!
regards,
Theresa
I can relate to the cookbook thing – but in my case I inherited my grandmother’s cookbook which is missing a cover and was obviously well-used – she cooked more than anyone I know (3 meals/day for her family for about 70 years). And I love seeing pictures of your Pyrex bowls – I have the same ones ( the green and yellow at least) inherited from my other grandma who was a great cook too!