Vintage Cook Books
In pursuit of a two-year-old New Year’s resolution (never surrender!), I’m going to try to be a better blogger this year. Not because I think anyone is waiting with bated breath for my musings, but because I know regular writing is really good exercise. To ease myself into it, I have two regular topics to fall back on in addition to anything that occurs to me. One will be downstream Favorite Things Friday, a nod to Barbara O’Connor’s Things I Love Thursday posts. My first Favorite Things Friday item is Greater Sudbury VINTAGE BOOKS!
I am charmed by most aspects of vintage books: typeface, vocabulary, silky pages, fancy end papers, charming spot illustrations, old-fashioned spellings. Cookie looks so much cuter spelled cooky as it is in my 1930’s cookbooks. I especially love vintage advice books, and not just for the actual advice, some of which is very practical (wash windows with white vinegar and newspaper. No streaks, no lint!). I love what they say about the author and the way they provide a kind of snapshot of society at that point in time. Sometimes old advice books have helpful suggestions. And sometimes the most useful takeaway is not to behave as the book would have you do!
Today’s favorite thing leads me to what will be my other regular feature: Vintage Advice. I will select tidbits from my collection of advice books and share them with anyone who needs to know how to plan a fantastic (!) party for teenagers, improve their complexion, refine their bedside manners, and/or become a better dancer. There’s more, so much more, but you’ll have to wait!
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- A few choice titles from my vintage library
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- Min Have Bog (My Garden Book)
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- Vintage Cook Books
Looking forward to reading your Friday posts. I used to have a number of vintage cookbooks, which I gave to the booksale at the library when we moved. AGGGH! I wish I knew you collected…I kept just a couple of my favorites… Hope to see you (and Michigan) soon.
I can visit your cookbooks when you’re back in town. (Don’t come yet, it’s frigid and snowing!). I have resigned myself to the fact that I can’t own all the vintage books I covet, so I am quite happy to have friends who support my habit vicariously!
I have been waiting for this!! Can’t wait for your first bit of advice. What if I have been doing something the wrong way for years?
Lisa, I’d like you to approach this from a different angle. Look for the things you’ve been doing RIGHT all these years! xoxo, Hope
Ohhh, I love old books too! For me it’s astronomy (of course) and travel. I love looking at the old maps and pictures of places as they once looked. Anne Gonnella and I went to the Baltimore Smith Club Book Sale over the weekend (a massive event) and I found an old Paris guidebook (no date, probably 30s or 40s) with lots of folded in maps. It was $15, a bit steep even for me, but it’s delicious, and hey, I’m “helping the school.” 😉 I also found some vintage knitting patterns from the 40s — sweaters with super-boxy shoulders! Might be a new obsession developing there.
Don’t you enjoy seeing how science has changed over time? I’m jealous of your book sale! I have put myself under a book-buying moratorium until I clear out some of my many to-be-reads. Of course, there are exceptions, including books I can blog and one-of-a-kind ephemera. I went to an estate sale this weekend that had tons of travel books — German, French, Italian, Portuguese…most of them with lovely little scraps tucked inside: postcards, to-do lists, restaurant receipts, subway maps, etc. So hard to resist! There was also tons of gorgeous original art at good prices, unfortunately I have nowhere to hang it.