I have grown lazy, accustomed to - perhaps even embracing - the ease with which I can search a billion files and come up with a recipe for mashed sweet potatoes. I hover over the print button, produce a color version and consult it periodically as I cook. Once it has accomplished its insular and clearly defined task, it is thrown away with the skin peels.
One might think that a writer who navigates mostly the digital world - all of my novels are available on Kindle - would seamlessly move into the world of zeros and ones. One would be mistaken.
We have accumulated dozens of cookbooks, into which we have increasingly jumped with twin feelings of nostalgia and reverence. There is just something about a cook book. The search began.
I flipped through Emeril Lagasse's Louisiana Real and Rustic. Pat and I purchased it at the old Tattered Cover in Cherry Creek, stopped at a pub for a beer and poured over it. Our first dish - Red Beans and Rice. I was not optimistic at first. Four hours later I was hooked. The spine is falling apart (twenty years later) and many of the pages are stained with some of the many fabulous dishes we've created from this book.
We're doing a prime rib roast today - it's Jed's ninth birthday and he is allergic to chicken - and I looked first for cooking instructions in Ray Lampe's Dr. BBQ's Big Time Barbeque Cookbook. I bought it many years ago, ahead of making a brisket for daughter Beth's college graduation. Eighteen hours later (including mostly overnight) the meal was a success. The book has notes, tabs, loose printed recipes and the evidence of the dozens of ribs, rubs and side dishes it has described.
I have two autographed cookbooks that are in general use - one called Blue Crabs was a Christmas gift out of which I've made both crab cakes and a seafood gumbo that is a sort of coastal decadence only a visit to Baltimore can replicate. The other, an Emeril book that my mom stood in line to have signed by the man himself.
Yet, it is two homemade books and an old recipe I cherish the most.
The first is titled Beth's Florida Cookbook. It contains pictures, recipes and recollections from her time in Ft. Myers. She rescued it just after it was written when she evacuated ahead of a hurricane. It has multiple dishes we've made over the years (including a simple but breathtaking shrimp marinade). My favorite, which we've actually made just ahead of a vacation, is "Beth's Hurricane Dinner."
1. Take everything out of the fridge or freezer that will go bad.
2. Cook it all on the grill.
3. Eat as much as you can while drinking warm beer.
4. Feed leftovers to the cat.
We substitute the dogs into step 4, since out cat usually looks at us and struts away when we try to feed her people food.
Beth's Maryland cookbook contains a Salmon with Grapefruit and Coriander sauce dish whose author is Martin Ginsburg. Never heard of him? Look up Supreme Court Justice Ruth Ginsburg.
Finally, we have put on the wall of our kitchen a recipe for Beefsteak Pudding, which my brothers and I ungenerously renamed "Lard Stew." It is an old rendering of a dish from the Nineteenth Century, a conglomeration of suet, inexpensive beef cuts and flour. Yes, it is as greasy and chewy as it sounds. But, in beautiful handwriting is this phrase:
"If you get stuck, ask the boys. They've watched me make one."
The boys are my grandmother's sons...my dad and my Uncle Jim.
The internet has its place. Ultimately, I found what I was after online - Paula Dean's recipe for mashed sweet potatoes. But, nothing compares to opening a book to connect with a time, a place and a loved one.
