in the beginning -

Well, can you imagine - ‘The First American Cookbook’! It may be a facsimile of the original “American Cookery,” 1796, by Amelia Simmons, but it is true facsimile, looking the same as when it came hot of the press so many years ago.

This copy was published by Dover Publications in 1984. I’d like to quote from part of the description of it on the back cover of this edition which states that -

‘This facsimile of the first American-written cookbook published in the United States is not only a first in cookbook literature, but an historic document. It reveals the rich variety of food Colonial Americans enjoyed, their taste, cooking and eating habits, even their colorful, language’.

The style of the writing is a joy to work through, forgetting to read "f"' as "s" occasionally tripped me up.  But the manner of writing itself is charming. The gracious style of relating to the reader in a type of common sophistication that has long gone, and which we find, in this age, amusing. But this is a cookbook, and as such is filled with homely advice, interesting methods of preparing many foods and a keen observation of the seasons and the produce available during those times.
I’m going to quote two recipes, and forgive me if I infringe, but the bravery of the cook and the quantity of ingredients in many recipes, particularly in baking cakes etc., would be highly intimidating to most cooks of today.
                                                                     Diet Bread

     One pound of sugar, 9 eggs, beat for an hour, add to 14 ounces of flour,  spoonful of rose water do.(ditto) cinnamon or coriander, bake quick.

Beat for and hour!?!

and                                                   Soft cakes in little pans

     One and half pounds of sugar, rubbed into two pounds of flour, add one glass of wine, one do. rose water, 18 eggs and a nutmeg.

No further advice or cooking time given

 This delightful and historic cookbook is a must have for anyone truly serious about cooking and the history of cooking – especially in America.

Myself, I love cookery books. I read them like novels. What could be nicer than lying in a hot bath, luxuriating in its comforting warmth as the soothing scent of pine (pick your favorite) wafts over you. All the while sipping a glass of Merlot, or perhaps a Shiraz, as you peruse a thick - possibly newly acquired  - cookbook, chock-a-block with recipes and luscious photographs.
I have a great number of them, as well as  stacks of recipe oriented magazines. Scores of collected recipes, gleaned from here and there, burst the seams of their respective folders. Then there are the stuffed notebooks and weighty ring binders filled with recipes from sites all over the internet which have been gathered over many years. Although I am fully aware that it is a miniscule collection compared to many other recipe aficionados.
A while ago – oh! dear, trying to remember when certain things happened and recall them accurately makes one feel like a suspect in a police interrogation room, time too often lives in the nether world of limbo. Two months ago, two years ago, who knows ago, anyway a long time ago I became a fan of of cooking Blogs. There are the most amazing amount of them out there. Thousands and thousands. Talk about blowing the mind. But! And here we go, some are so far removed from others by their layouts, their descriptive patter or just their friendly, inviting attitude and honest affection for their readers they lead the pack. Or (I prefer what I said in the last sentence, though the following one has merit), maybe it’s simply because their recipes and in your face pictures leave you salivating like any canine who finds a luscious, juicy bone dangled before it.
                                        
Strange are the ways of life. I had just finished writing that last bit when I decided to say a word or two about my favorite food Blog, TasteWithTheEyes and of its founder and chief, Lori Lynn, the whiz behind this really great site. Sooo I stepped into my RSS feed to have a gander (I get it in my Google Reader each day) and lo and behold I find that Blogger Blog had just chosen Taste With The Eyes, as the Blog of Note for today, Thursday, November 26th, 2009!  Kudos, kudos, kudos and double kudos because Lori Lynn is herself a woman of note, certainly to the hundreds of people who regularly follow her blog, and to me especially. And here’s why:-
few months ago I had written to Lori;  it was a request for Julia Child’s Yorkshire pudding – the photo of it looked so great. (Forgive me one and all, it’s true, I do not have Julia’s cookbook on my shelf, mia culpa, I will make amends). I also make this festive dish - a few times each year - and collect all kinds of recipes of same. I have a couple that are really good, (so many variations of so few ingredients), but Lori Lynn’s photo did such great service for above said humble but delicious pud  that I wanted to give it a try. To make a long story short, this lovely, very busy lady took the time to email me the recipe. Her reply to my query was not one of those very short get this over with replies but, though not long, had the sense of the sender having taken time to write it, and answer with thought and care. Lori finished her reply with a request of her own, to let her know how it turned out. Well, I certainly shall. It is on the menu for Christmas dinner and I’m sure it will be scrumptious. A toast to Julia! And a warm thank you to Lori, most generous of bloggers.    

                                                        Fruits of the Seasons!

  

  Just Joey,  the most beautiful of roses and my favorite of favorites.







             

The Music of Life

And so the seasons

Why did summer go so quickly, was it something that I said? etc.,. . . may be an old song but it keeps coming back like a. . . (should I risk it?). . .ahem. . . song. Well, look at it this way; I'm in the 8th decade of my life and suddenly summer, having blazed across the weeks of its allotted season, slipped by me when I was looking the other way, leaving only a few sad, brave roses to remind me she had been. Autumn came along, stepped  over the  doorstep and stood beside me as I looked out from my window, admiring her  handiwork. I wondered again how this new season came into my embrace while my arms still ached to hold, if but for a day, the deserting love of summer past. Oh! the beauty and scents of summer! Oh! the colours and forms of autumn! The seasons! How infinitely lovely, how infinitely lucky we are who live each one in its entirety. Autumn, as we watched together suddenly left me without comment, surprising in her haste. I glanced at the door she passed through, shrugged and looked again towards the sea and saw no longer the glorious colours  of a moment before but mountainous waves, stinging slanted rains blown in mad confusion by the wind. What a devil this Autumn was leaving us to contend with such unwelcome and unfriendly days. Ah! Well, coming soon to a garden near you, stroking his frost woven beard, waiting impatiently around the next corner is Old Man Winter, ready to slam the door on Autumn and eagerly blow upon one and all his fiercely white and terrible winds. Frosting trees and shivering lands with crystals of snow he pokes his icy fingers into every unprotected nook and cranny; laughing as we dream of warming fires and season's cheer shared with friends and family. But at last, his time run out, the Old Man  slips and lags behind, unable to hold back the racing child who leaps and bounds ahead, happily thawing ice and snow with eager sun and warming April rain. Joyous Spring, full of boisterous youth, bursting with the promise of renewal, scatters his cornucopia of wonders over a waking world. Though all the seasons of the year are loved in their fashion, and some hold a place more dear than others, it is Summer, the maiden of light, who wears the crown.

                                                   Summer is a-coming in,                               
                                  Sing a loud "cuckoo!"
                                  The seed grows, the mead blows
                                  The wood springs anew.
                                  Sing, cuckoo!

                                  For her calf lows the cow;
                                  For her lamb bleats the ewe;
                                  The bull rouses, the buck browses,
                                  Merrily sing, cuckoo!

                                  Cuckoo, cuckoo, O, sing you well, cuckoo;
                                  Nor let your song be through:
                                  Sing cuckoo, now, sing cuckoo;
                                  Sing cuckoo, sing cuckoo, now.
                                                             (An ancient English song)

Oh, glorious summer, you've been, you've gone and how dearly we long for your return, but your siblings who bring in the seasons must have their day; and as always, they lay the way for your return.

And now - forgive me but I must  give due where it is due. The above tribute to the Wonder of the Seasons was brought about by the remembrance of a certain  poem by Ezra Pound, an American poet of the early years of the 20th century. I will not go into his varied history but with the freeze of winter coming my memory launched said poem into my tottering mind.

                                                                    Ancient Music
                                                                                  by Ezra Pound
                                         Sing goddamn, damn. Sing goddamn!
                                  Sing goddamn, damn. Sing goddamn!
                                  Winter is i-cumin in,
                                  Lhude sing goddamn!
                                  Raineth drop and staineth slop
                                 A nd how the wind doth ram
                                 Sing goddamn!

                                   Skiddth bus and sloppeth us,
                                An ague hath my ham
                                 Freezeth river, turneth liver,
                                Damn you, sing goddamn.
                                Goddamn, goddamn, tis why I am goddamn,
                                So gainst the winter’s balm.

                               Sing goddamn, sing goddamn, DAMN!

Love him or hate him he sure hits the nail on the head with this!

 Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.

Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!


Rule 2 : The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.


Rule 3 : You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.


Rule 4 : If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.


Rule 5 : Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.


Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.


Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.


Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.


Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.


Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.


Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

The great successful men of the world have used their imaginations... they think ahead and create their mental picture, and they go to work materializing that picture in all its details, filling in here, adding a little there, altering this a bit and that a bit, but steadily building -- steadily building.

                                                                          Robert Collier

                                                              American Writer, Publisher