The Cookbook Haul - breathless excitement ahead

Hey sports fans!

What do we have today?  We have COOKBOOKS DAMMIT.

And I mean a metric shit-ton of cookbooks too, all of them unread.  Witness my shame:

     I cannot wait to crack into that Sunset book!  I owned that way back when I was but a wee Nationette, like a territory, and there's a Vermouth Chicken recipe in there that is absolutely superb.  And get a load of Mr. Oster Super Pan with his cape and everything!  EEE! 

Those ESA gals are out there making casseroles and just abusing the Cambells Soups.  It's atrocious.  

Fixin' Chicken is...adorable; profusely adorned with wacky chickens in pun vignettes.  

The onion cookbook was put together by some farmers' wife and illustrated by that kid in the family that everyone says can draw.  You'll get a peek, don't worry. This is the post where I gloat, so yeah, just put up with me doing that for the time being.

Oh Hell Yes

Hell Yeah I got 'em both!!!!!! JULIA!!!! 

Fifteen bucks replaces the ones I lost in the flood, and these are in better condition!

You might notice I have a thing for Sunset Cookbooks. I use these. They're really good. Sunset put a lot of effort into testing, collecting and presenting original recipes - and their recipes WORK. 

Sunset isn't fucking around. Their cookbook for men contains fear and boldness and booze and fire and wild game.  Possibly leather and kung fu. 

The Modern Household Cookery Book is a corker!  Just wait until you see inside!  And it is, in fact, Fun To Fondue.  As for Hawaii, we shall see. I'm expecting a lot of pineapple.  Of course the Sunset is gonna be good. And oh, the clip art in the New Way of Living!!!

Holy shit Nations more Sunsets? 

 YES MORE SUNSETS.

Mary Meade and Farmers' Journal are going to be a snoozefest, I think.  But the Practical Receipts?  Has recipes for horse liniment, caustic washing soap and explosives. 

   The tomato cookbooks are going to be nothing special, I fear, but the Pampered Chef booklet might be good. 

Pampered Chef is a 'home party' outfit that sells kitchenware - good kitchenware, too.  I've been to three of these parties and bought way too much at each one.  If you ever get invited to a Pampered Chef party, you should go. The chow is amazing.  Your hostess and her assistant cook up a whole feast using Pampered Chef utensils AND recipes created in their test kitchens, which is brilliant strategy IMHO.  

   

America's Test Kitchen:   The most overpriced and overrated cookbooks out there.  I have OPINIONS about this outfit.  (I also subscribe to the magazine and the YouTube series.  The stuffs' good - but read on me hearties; arrrrrrr.)   This thing new is $71.00.  SEVENTY-ONE DOLLARS PEOPLE.  And it's ring bound! Come on!

I bought this cookbook used for $1.00 because it made me feel like I'd got one over on Chris Kimball.

That is absolutely enough kitcheny-ness.  I feel like lighting some WD-40 on fire now.

As you can see, I didn't have any WD40 but I did have a can of de-icer, so I set that on fire instead. You can just barely, barely see it burning blue there by the yellow flame of the incense stick.

NEXT: A look inside!!!!

  

MORE LIMES yes it's more fucking limes and other stuff

Hello!  Here are nine dehydrated limes in their primary dried state:

And here are the same nine after having gone through the Cuisinart to break them down into a grit; next to my statue of Spock as the Buddha of Enlightenment:

 And finally, we have nine dehydrated limes after having been pulverized into dust thanks to this absolute gorilla of a coffee grinder put out by some company.  

Hang on.  

OK put out by the Kitchenaid Company.  It's actually a coffee bean grinder, but we always use it for spices.  You can take the blade and bowl assembly off and wash it, which is the difference between a grinder that you cannot wash (EW) and that gets all seized up with guck in a year, and one that will last you.

And now.......  

   Ta daaaaaa! Nine limes becomes 1/4 cup of cream-colored powder! 

It will keep for years, but I'll use it all before then.      

Now.  Is all this washing and drying and mincing and dehydration and grinding twice and so forth really fiddly? 

No. No it is not. 

Only the part where you use the Kitchenaide coffee grinder is fiddly because your material builds up a static charge inside the metal bowl as it whizzes around, and you have to coax it out into the container that you plan to use with a small paint brush and a funnel.  THAT will make you scream and throw things.  I am a large knives and cast iron pans kinda cook, not a paintbrush and a funnel racecar driver.  Geeze.

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Before and after dehydration shot. It is pretty awesome. 

So are those shoes.

  In a little pile there on the red silicone mat you see what seven wands of celery, nine green onions and four tomatoes look like after having been minced and dehydrated. That little pile weighs three grams. No shit.  

 I didn't do this just for fun - I'm making a batch of our House Spice!!!!  

Now you know that celery, green onions and tomatoes go into the house spice, but that's all you know so ha.  

But you wish you had some.  

This is the mighty dehydrator that I own, so....yeah, there it is.

 As you can see I am culturing yogurt in there.  Hello yogurt! 

93f and all is well.

   Oh hell yes. I make my own yogurt and sour cream and bread and sourdough starter and poolish and all that happy culinary microbial crap, and I can do that because this dehydrator makes a perfect warming chamber.  I have a digital thermometer that tells me low = 90f on this thing, which is just the exact temperature you want for making bacteria happy.  Or encouraging the growth of something unspeakable; so I clean with bleach. A lot.  Bleach and a bamboo skewer, in fact.

   

   This dehydrator was made by hippies working out of a metal building, in about 1973? 1977? or so.* It's a sturdy, melamine-covered wood box with a heating fan which is operated by a simple rheostat ^^^.  

The lines inside are ledges for racks to rest on, and there's ten of those.  It couldn't be simpler or more effective and it was built for the ages. I bought it used.  I've had it for fifteen years or more. It's been dropped, it's fallen, it's been left on for nine days straight, it's suffered is what I'm trying to say here, and the only casualty has been a broken rack.   

HOLY SHIT WOW I NEED A DEHYDRATOR NOW fuckin' A Nations you sold me.  I must have a food dehydrator for my very own. I WANT IT NOW.

    OK a few things here. 

1. No you probably do not.  I mean it. They take up a lot of room. I had to buy this thing it's own little cabinet to sit on because it won't fit in my apartment kitchen, being an 18x18x18 cube. It's a useful size, though, and meant to be used by a family of four (although don't ask me how they came up with that number.)  Us three, and later two, people do just fine. 

2. You have to cook A Lot and be a curious cook who is willing to experiment to justify what is these days a pretty significant expense.  This exact design, made with updated technology and materials, costs $500.00 straight from the factory.  Now I will insert a a link that probably won't work for most of you.  That is the one I would suggest you buy. 

3. Get an idea of how you might use it beforehand. My mom and my grandmother used to dehydrate stuff every year. I grew up with the practice, so I had an idea going in of what kind of food you want to spend time on. There's A Lot of prep and planning involved.

 4. If you do not particularly like to work in the kitchen AND you do not need to be thrifty, don't get a dehydrator.  

 I see dehydrators - usually shitty ones too small for the job, almost always the plastic ones heated by light bulbs - at literally nine out of ten garage sales I attend. The reason given for getting rid of them is some variation on 'I just don't have the time to spend on dried strawberries' (or what have you.) So yes: food dehydration is like a cult.  I know what I mean. 

5. The flavor of dehydrated food is not for everybody. It can taste overcooked, or too strong, or just...weird.  There is a learning curve, and you will spoil things in the beginning. Dehydrated foods are meant to be used as ingredients in other things, once RE-hydrated. Not as the main player in a recipe.  Now somebody is going to pop up with 'Oh yeah well what about Lagoon of Devils Antelope in a Broken Toaster?' and we will have to agree to disagree. 

 The only things actually improved in flavor by (partial) dehydration are fruit jams and tomato sauce.  And this is very specific - you are reducing the amount of water and thereby concentrating the flavors and the aromas - But Not By Boiling.  Boiling is the thief of flavor.  But to dehydrate by even as much as 1/4 of the volume, just one shallow pan of must in the machine for six hours at about 160f- 190f, does AMAZING things for Blackberry Jam, Fruit Pie Filling, and particularly tomato sauce.

Oh Holy Shit you need to try putting up a tomato sauce using this method. I worked it out over 12 years, down to the variety of tomato to grow!  and it was SO EFFIN' DELICIOUS.

Well crap. If you guys would like that recipe just let me know. I can even tell you how to make it without a food dehydrator and it will turn out the same!

    a. First Haiku

Omg you cute

platy-folks deserve 

secret recipes

b. Second Haiku

gorilla doggie

gorilla doggie, doggie

gorilla doggie

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*Those hippies found religion and had a bunch of kids, and then either sold out to, or became, the Excalibur brand, which is in operation to this day, and to whom I would trust my LIFE. With. Of.

The punch line?  In the old Whole Earth Magazine archives there are several plans for do it yourself food dehydrators.  Guess where the  hippies got their plans from?  Yup that's right. Shit, I think Jethro Kloss had designs for one - maybe Euell Gibbons and Adele Davis; I forget. I mean come on it was 1968 the last time I read Adele Davis cut me a break ALREADY.

Secrets Revealed!

 OK this is just between you and me. I am going to show you a few of pictures of Our Hangout. It's super crusty and old. 

Tourists fear it.  

That's important. 

This is the view from Our Table.

Many tasty beverages on hand. Yes I see the kiddie shit too; just ignore it and look instead to the Famous Grouse. Can you spot it?

 

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Grunge Is Alive And Well corner:

View the quaint native costume of the Bellinghamster!  (Some of you will have difficulty doing this.)

Backstory:  for the first time this year we had a sunny, pleasant Saturday, and so the Biker and I went forth to explore the pop-ups, food trucks and brewpubs because that is what one does here. Mainly the brewpubs because BEER. Everywhere we went, everybody of every flavor was wearing this uniform:

To wit:  Tore the fuck up t-shirts, ugly footwear, shorts (yeah I see the two guys in longhandles, sue me) and a cap of some kind.  Sprinkled throughout were variations on this person:

And this person is wearing a hoodie with a hat that has little animal ears.  This person is also wearing an animal tail tied to their beltloop. 

All of us are sitting in the lobby of what was formerly a Chinese restaurant and is now a pop-up burger joint.  They put out a really, really delicious burger, too.  Prime Bellinghamster-spotting location, as you can see.  Sadly I did not bring my phone or I could show you more pictures just like this one! Aw bummer! but The Biker was kind enough to sneak these for me. 

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Have you ever wanted to see what nine dehydrated limes look like?  Here ya go:

Chubby hand for scale.  Lime is something we use quite a bit of in Thai and Mexican recipes. The difference between the correct lime for those recipes and the one we have available here is of intensity, acidity and aroma - and Ta Daaaaa! my 1973 dehydrator comes to the rescue and saves me mucho cashola on kaffir or Key limes.  The secret:  use those small 'cocktail' limes, and let them get a little dried out first.  This does two things - decreases the acidity and eradicates the white pithy stuff almost entirely. Contact me for more Lime Secrets.

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  Does anyone out there remember the name of the little diaper mousie ^^^ that used to hang around with Jerry?  I could go online and look it up, I guess, but I wanted to see if you were pregnant.

We Are All Coyotes In The Future

I have been reviewing cookbooks, is where I've been. Thank you for asking. I have also been out and about taking pictures of

FLUFFY FLUFFY BABY BUMBLEBEES!!!!   

 

This is the fluffiest of all the fluffy fluffy baby bumblebees. Here he is all 'First!' and that is zackly where he belongs. This guy is extra super fluffy - he even has a fluffy NOSE. Yes that is his nose there on the right! 

Yes I know all worker bees are females. I simply do not care.

OMG look at this super fluffy little ginger bee!  He is the size of my pinkie fingernail and is all rusty red and SO STINKIN' FLUFFY!

This little guy is the most laid-back of the bumblebees. You can touch him -gently, please - and the most he'll do is lift a tiny foot in mild protest, like  'Whoa, dude.'

Here is a bumble butt, which is to say, The End of our bee gallery.

These are all 'first brood' Spring worker bees, the tiniest of the year, and each one is as perfect and jewel-like as a little Faberge egg. They are so eager that they spend as much time giving away the entrance to their nests as they do scurrying around trying to obliterate all traces of same, scuffling up the bark mulch and dust with their feet and then just as quickly messing it all up again as they come bombing in en masse from a nectar run. I did not get any pix of that because I may be weird bu -no, I am weird; but I am not stupid. That's what I mean to say.  

Bumblebees drop that surfer dude persona the closer they are to their Magnificent Queen (haay.)

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In today's busy fast-paced world you may find yourself in need of laundry detergent. And in today's busy fast-paced world you would then hop on down to your local Fred Meyers grocery store and ask one of the clerks to unlock the case for you. 

They have to keep the laundry detergent locked up. Yes they do. Behind inch thick security glass and bar steel.  

Shoplifting gangs were running in doing blitz raids on the detergent aisle and then selling their ill-gotten soap online, which says something about the price of Xtra I guess. Now Fred Meyers assume you're a shoplifter -

...unless you are very very tall indeed. 

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I like to read books way, way after the hoopla is done. I proved the rightness of this stance during the Anne Rice hullabaloo, when it was all about Lestat and Ramses the Damned and tragic castrati and so  forth.  'Interview' was a fun read, but I mean come on people.  In fact don't even get me started about Anne RiceANYWAY. Anyway.

Anyway.

Rudolfo Anaya wrote 'Bless me Ultima' back in 1972, and eeeeeeeeverybody was reading that thing. It was promptly banned, so of course in liberal-as-fuck Oregon it was proudly on the shelves of our school library, where I ignored it, and Jane Austen, despite six years of urging from various teachers. 

It's a meaning of life story set in the Southwest painted with a big, bold, red brush. It's very violent, and pretty frank about race and class, but it was the bold pagan stance it took that earned it a banning, I'm certain - Mr. Anaya is not a big fan of Catholicism. At all. 

'Bless Me, Ultima' came back strong in the 1980's for some reason, and by then I had me a damn life so I gave it yet another miss. 

Last week I picked up a copy at the Humane Society Thrift Shop and...you know what, it's not bad at all. Quite a bit better than anything Ms. Rice might have pulled out of her yallup, although it's just as fraught.  

Why do I endorse it? 1. Frequent  mention of chili peppers   2. There's no romantic content at all, which pleases me. Further, this isn't one of those Southwestern themed 'fiction with recipes' crap. There is a lot of deep meaning going on. Like, you know, symbolism and shit like that. A lot of sandstorms and bloodshed and big emotions. And owls. 

See, this is the problem I have with writing reviews. I don't want to give away the story, but I don't want to sound like a goon, like I did when I reviewed The Pentateuch on a certain library site. Therefore I have given up trying to be all Miss Perfect Book Review Lady for good.  I have been reading since 1964. I read because I love to read, period - and I trust my own taste.

You should too.

If I say something is worth reading, then get right skippy on that shit. Dear old FirstNations would not lead you wrong. Bless Me Ultima is absolutely worth a read. You can read it for enjoyment and not miss a damn thing and be entertained.  You can read it for meaning and find all kinds of fucking meaning and shades and tones and themes and references - not all of which I got - but which were presented so well that it made me want to know more. 

Now go read this book dammit. 

                                                           And quit calling me Heddy.