COOKBOOK LOVE

I'm squeezing in a post before a crazy weekend.  Today is the first day of sunshine that we've had all week.  It makes me want to go out and play in the dirt!  But it's the same old, same old with getting this house back in order.  Thank you, all of you, for your ideas for making some changes in the living room.  Who needs decorating magazines?  Within the next 3 weeks, my new chairs will be delivered as well as my area rug and I am going to start off with a clean slate.  I am really leaning towards a small section for a gallery, I saw some ledges at Pottery Barn which will keep the pictures from "floating"...more of a shelf~like look and I'm sold on that.  I seem to like order, probably because I am so mentally scattered! lol!

Anywho, with the gloomy weather I hunkered inside and worked on my kitchen.  I lugged all of my cookbooks back into the kitchen and lovingly cleaned each and every cover with soapy water to get the accumulation of gunk from the stove off them.  I went from the six piles that you see above to three, giving away a lot of them.  It really was a walk down memory lane for me.  If any of you are cookbook/recipe lovers, you know how these books become your friends, a sort of scrapbook of your life.  Crammed inside most of them were recipes torn out from newspapers and magazines, grocery lists and menus.  It was a very bittersweet moment when I came across a book that I used to cook from when I was making meals for my Mom and Dad years ago.  My Mom was losing her struggle with cancer and my Dad didn't have a clue how to cook, even if he had had the time, so I would make meals over the course of a few days, enough for a few weeks and freeze them.  I would bring them bag fulls that they could pick and choose and microwave.  Well, in this much used, stained and tattered book I found the menus, my notes, little stars by the dishes they loved and it really choked me up, especially now since they are both gone.  I put a lot of love in those meals and they so appreciated it, they gave me a lot more credit for my cooking abilities than I deserved and I would do it all over again if I could have more days with them.

Onward.  I don't know if you have ever heard of Charlie Trotter, a world renowned chef who had restaurant in Chicago named after himself.  Well, he was my idol and this was back in the day before celebrity chefs on television, popping up with multiple restaurants all over the place.  The Husband bought me this book, the year was 1997, and he made reservations at the restaurant for my birthday.  I was beyond thrilled!  I remember picking out a brown velvet dress to wear and thinking I was going to be too excited to eat!

Well, not only did The Husband make the reservations, he made arrangements for me to meet the chef himself!   OMG!  So this is me and Charlie, posing a little awkwardly (gotta love that 90's hair on me!).

And he signed a book for me, "After love, there is only cuisine".  What a night that was, I don't even remember the food!  I still follow him in the society pages, he closed his restaurant last year after thirty years and is doing some philanthropic work.  Did I ever make anything from the book?  Well, can you say, "Morel Flan with Black~Eyed Peas, Roasted Baby Fennel, and Herb~Infused Chicken Stock Reduction"?  Nope!

This weekend Emily and her fiance move into their new house.  Have I mentioned it is next door to Papa?  Isn't that great that she will be living next to her own grandfather, they can keep an eye out for one another!  And Mike's parent live two doors down, how's that for closeness?  As I said, Emily grew up on this block with her Nana and Papa living there so she knows everyone.  Tomorrow is the closing and then they are going to get right in.  She came home from work last night they moved gifts from the shower into their cars and then she started to box up the things in her room.  I nearly had a meltdown right then and there.  With all the wedding plans and craziness going on around here, I never fully realized that my little girl was leaving and starting a new life away from home.  I mean, I knew it, but it hadn't really registered until I saw the boxes of her clothes and all of her personal things from her room, which will soon be empty.  I know it's a new beginning for us, she is going to become a wife, homemaker (is that an outdated word?), and mother, and it's a happy time.  So why do I feel so sad?

Tomorrow I will be shopping for the Easter menu, the traditional ham and all the fixings, we have a small group here for dinner and dessert and I have just started to think about the dishes and centerpiece.  I have looked at so many pretty tables over the last few weeks, I'm kind of excited to do something elegant and spring~like.  Dinner is a no brainer, but I am going to try to make something delicious and new for dessert.  I'll share that with you next week when things are much more calm around here.

From my family to yours, wishing you a wonderful and blessed Easter! :)