Cookbook Envy

A couple of decades ago, my mom wrote up—and illustrated—a cookbook of her own favorite recipes. This cookbook contains all of the special treats that only my mom made/makes, and whenever I ask for one of these particular recipes, I’m denied with the reply, “It’s in The Cookbook.” I know that she has left this cookbook to me in her will, because she has told me in no uncertain terms that I cannot have it before she dies. And not a moment before. Cheery.

She lost the cookbook a few years back. No idea where it disappeared to, but confident that it was around somewhere.

The Boyfriend and I have been working on excavating the basement, which used to be living space before it became overrun with Stuff. We’ve set aside a large pile for VVA (and conveniently arranged pick-up through pickupplease.org), most of which consists of FIVE BOXES of books that my mother has left here for 9 years. Of course, my mother has gone through all of these boxes in her hunt for The Cookbook, but I invite here over for another peek to make sure there isn’t anything else in there that she wants.

She picks out a few keepers, and lo and behold finds The Cookbook! It turns out that it has been in my own possession all this time! AND I MISSED OUT. She won’t let me see so much as the cover. She does, however, donate the following to me:

Romantic and Glamorous Hollywood Design at the Met, Nov. 1974
Romantic and Glamorous Hollywood Design at the Met, Nov. 1974
Inventive Clothes 1909–1939 at the Met, Nov. 1974. Were an age-similar show to be curated today, it would be The 50s, The 60s, The 70s.
Inventive Clothes 1909–1939 at the Met, Nov. 1974. Were an age-similar show to be curated today, it would be The 50s/The 60s/The 70s.

And for that, I’m grateful. In the meantime, if I really want a dish of her frozen creamy raspberry swirl stuff, I’ll just have to beg my mother to make it for me.

 

Crash and Burn in Under 30 Seconds

In 1990, this NeXT Computer used by Sir Tim Berners-Lee at CERN became the first web server.
In 1990, this NeXT Computer used by Sir Tim Berners-Lee at CERN became the first web server.

Mom: Do you want these? A friend gave them to me in the ’80s. You can keep them, or sell them.
(hands me a Ziplog bag containing two holiday-themed brooches which are most definitely not her style)
Me: Sure. They might sell. Thanks.
Mom: I know she bought them online.
Me: Online?
Mom: Yes.
Me: Then it wasn’t the ’80s.
Mom: Yes it was.
Me: The Web didn’t exist yet. She didn’t buy them online, or it wasn’t the ’80s.
Mom: I had a computer in 1989.
Me: That’s entirely possible. But you weren’t shopping online from it. Email didn’t even become massively popular until ’95.
Mom: Believe whatever you want.

“Believe whatever you want.” Now that there is a good rebuttal to remember for the future. I have no way to get around that one, because it’s apparently my PERSONAL BELIEF SYSTEM that is preventing me from, well, believing that this unnamed friend of my mother’s miraculously bought two costume-jewelry brooches online, years before any publicly-accessible online marketplace existed. (For anyone dying to know, AuctionWeb, which later became eBay, was founded in 1995 as part of a personal Web site.)

Grrrrr.

Furikake

Yes, as a matter of fact, it does look like fish food. But furikake is actually a seasoning for rice, and it comes in even more varieties than fish food does. And thank goodness for that, because when I made my decision to go mostly vegetarian, it occurred to me that a basic ingredient in furikake is bonito flakes. Enter: yasai fumi furikake. Vegetarian furikake! And, can I tell you? Delicious. Absofrikkinlutely delicious. I’m oddly fond of rice in the first place, but this stuff is like rice-crack. Available at your local Asian grocer, I buy mine from Pacific Ocean Marketplace for $2.99/jar.

I’m heading off to the wilds of semi-rural New Jersey for a few days, so I’m taking this moment to predict that I may not create a Friday post. Then again, I may. Woo, can you handle the suspense?