i love cookbooks. have too many of them and only use one or two.

how many do you have, Wolf?

i lost count. and then there's the recipes i clip out of mags, so i have no clue!

how about linear feet of shelf space to hold them all?

I think this is leading to the fact WERs collection dwarfs yours...

i think so too! but you're a chef, wer!! that's not fair *grin*

(that is not where I was going... I was actually trying to hold a conversation and keep it on topic but am once again shown how inadequate I am in that arena...) What are the titles of the ones you use the most, Wolf?

ready for this? Betty Crocker. my husband has several cajun cookbooks and i have a bunch of better homes and gardens cookbooks. oh, then there's the cake bible, my german cookbook, holiday cookies cookbook (which is the one i use making gingerbread). The Cake Bible Rose's Christmas Cookies Pirate's Pantry Cajun Revelation The Chesapeake Cookbook Crockery Cookbook Eating Healthy 1990 Best Recipes (BH&G) 1989 Best Recipes (BH&G) Best Holiday Foods & Crafts (McCalls) Homemade Cookies America The Majestic, Pictorial Cookbook Fast Fixin' Kids Recipes Hors d'Oeuvres The Cuisines of Germany What to Cook

wait, you asked me which ones i use most. none of them. my husband cooks for us (and isn't that just the greatest)!

I asked that cause you said you use only one or two earlier... I wonder if Ree would will me here Boer cookbook... or maybe we should do a Spring cookbook...

i like the idea of the spring cookbook! you could add that to food and we could all share our favorite recipes! wer, you're a genius!!!!!

*blush*

you're so vulnerable when you blush *grin*

yeah, yeah, yeah... it's done, the topic's up...

does that mean you're not vunerable anymore?

good deal!

(stacey, you slipped me, now that sounds so funny!)

with the right weapons, all of us are vulnerable...

weapons??? *sigh* that's NOT how you're supposed to use it WER!

use what? praise or blushing?

that's so violent, i thought getting someone vulnerable was a little more subtle!

Wolfie got slipped again, methinks!

now this conversation really makes sense *lol*

doesn't it just!

shoulda put in 'screwed'...

hmmm...

and/or philosophy...

Nobody's been here for a while I see. Well, I'm doing penance right now for all my cookbooks. We're doing the sort out and I don't want to let any go. But - i hate cooking, well, ordinary things anyway. I particularly love chinese cookbooks, and my favourite and most used is my jungle camp cookbook.

Do all of the recipies in your jungle camp cookbook begin "take a large pot big enough to fit two missionaries"...?! I seem to see a huge kettle in my mind with the handle entwined in sticks and suspended over an open fire. I have a real Chinese cookbook which is only slightly translated. It is funny to read but just about impossible to use for cooking. Even with our large Chinese population and produce in the stores readily available, none of the things they use are in the places I have been. *sigh*

Maggie - thanks for bringing this place back on topic. The children were teasing each other, it appears. I wonder if I will ever find one in which this poor man was left alone to let his intelligence show rather than....oh, never mind! Sometimes it gets very frustrating...*growling menacingly*

hey! i thought only i growled!! i've got a complete german cookbook, which i love, but it doesn't come near to duplicating my oma's recipes. the german potato salad that i'm used to doesn't contain bacon.

and german chocolate cake doesn't contain coconut either (the kind i'm used to)....

Only in modern times did coconut come into cooking in the western world. It was too hard to obtain...but, then...so was chocolate. Over here we use Macadamia nuts *grin* Nuthin compares with home cooking of someone who has done it for ages and modified it each time she made it. I know...My mother's recipes I am still trying to modify to figure out how she got the particular flavor she did. Nope...I growl when I feel the need, too

luckily, mom gave me the german potato salad recipe and the german black forest cake (my fave). but the bread dumplings in the book is the same, thank goodness and so are the birds (thin breakfast steak rolled with mustard and pickle, simmered in a pot for several hours, delicious and melts apart)....oh, and spaeztle, which i have my very own press....i use a low fat/cholesterol recipe, but the real one is very thick, rich, and hard to press through that contraption. (spaeztle are flour and egg noodles) oma still uses a knife and board to make the noodles.

oh, plus we're from swabia which probably alters some of the recipes.

Only wilted greens with hot dressing has bacon in it. The German potato salad shouldn't have it...I'll see what I can find here.

right! the swabian recipe is made with potatoes (duh!), oil, herb vinegar, and vegetable broth (dry) and served hot. it can be eaten cold but hot is better! but the dry vegee broth sold here isn't the same. oma has sent me packages with the stuff in it but am trying to find a site that sells it in dollars and not marks (maggi-nestle has the stuff on their website but it's german and they don't plan to offer a translation-i emailed and asked) and then the fondor sauce, which you can use to season everything.

Ooo...I'm getting really hungry! We had veal birds, but veal tends to be tough for me.

we didn't have birds very often (and for those who don't know why they're called birds, they look like bird bodies when you cook them up, round and plump, not made out of birds, no way)

Yup! decapitated birds...rather an odd name, actually...! We had them for dinner and they had bread stuffing in them at Penn State (whose dorm cooking was excellent and the food fresh off the pastures outside the buildings.)

you didn't have to worry about preservatives, huh? bet you knew why it was taking so long to get the dinner to you! *laugh* we often joke that when we eat out, the meal is taking so long cuz they had to catch the fish, pluck the chicken, or get the cow!!

*lol* We think they have to catch the chicken, make it lay the egg, hatch that sucker and feed it till grown before we get it at some places we eat. Not at Penn State. Green milk in the spring, onion milk a little later on...ah yes!

Hey Wolfie, my colleague who lived in the gambian village (she was a nurse) was Schwabisch. her parents came to stay once and although i can understand some German I couldn't understand a word they said!! the other nurse was swiss german, but they spoke Engish together because E. refused to speak high german! I did a whole round of the village once with another swiss german friend before she realised shed'd been speaking in german to me all the time. I guess I answered in the right places!!! Talking of chickens - we had a load we got as free gifts from the supermarket (rmember that story?) well H who was about 9 at the time made her dad a little hood to put over the chickens head when he was executioner, we couldn't stand to see the imploring eyes! Too soft i guess.

And all this while I though you grabbed the chicken by the head and spun it around your head till its neck was wrung. Was someone telling me tall tales?

don't think so, they still do it that way.....

Good...I like to know that what I think is so really is so! I have never done it and think I'd have to have starving children to do it, but I'm sure we know those who have. My grandmother, for one (but I did not know her)...

Can you really imagine my very english husband swinging a chicken around his head?? Sorry, it was the machete every time!

Now that I know Tony a little better and have conversed with him, I imagine he would think the entire process a bother and rather brutish for his tastes. Poor Dear that he is...it is their time-honored chore. I think plucking and singeing off the feathers is not much better!

Boy did he struggle with that one! (It sort of ranked with (culturally appropriate) holding hands with his men friends as he walked them out of our compound and along the street - quick look over my shoulder to make sure he's not looking!)

Oh My!!! That would hit up against the male-appropriate and inappropriate behavior. I am sure he was most uncomfortable. Old time Japanese think kissing is disgusting. They just have not kissed the right guys, apparently *lol*

I guess it's a different perspective if you're a guy!!! *grin* It was culturally appropriate for me to hold hands with my friends too, but that didn't cause me any problems. I'll tell you more elsewhere! My jungle camp cook book was my first US cookbook. I'd never used cups for measuring before, only scales. I got converted. for African village living it was ideal. My favourite recipe I used while living in a village in Cameroon was Navaho fried bread. I also baked real bread using a milk can laid on my paraffin stove with a piece of metal inside to lay the bread dough on. Somewhere I've still got the 'cook book' I wrote out from someone's copy I borrowed. There's an updated one now, but it's not called the same. I use it the most, even here. Sorry no iron pots, I won't say about the missionaries!

LOL....I won't be seeing you in a huge pot, then? Good! The cookbook sounds interesting!

I got both my girls a copy. Is there somewhere to post recipes I have a few that I could write up. (now is this thesis avoidence technique? - I'm good at that!)

you could visit the food topic....

Yes...In The Spring Cookbook http://www.spring.net/yapp-bin/restricted/read/food/42

we're gonna have to publish that thing. i'd buy a copy....

So would I. The closest thing I have is Cooking Under Way which is cooking on a stove on a sailboat for long distance sailing. That's where I got the recipe for the homemade yogurt and that reminds me I promised the recipe to Stace some time ago. Gotta get on that.