The power of persuasion

[susandennis]

The other day, the top of one of my feet itched like crazy when I got home from my walk. The next day it was worse. I blamed it on the worn out shoes. Then I talked to my brother. He said he had taken Losartin - the same Losartin I take - and it caused him to itch all over. He stopped taking it and the itching was gone in 3 days. Today, after my walk, the tops of both my feet itched so badly I had to put cold compresses on them.

Is it Losartin? Or my imagination? Probably the latter but we're going to test. I take it for hypertension. So I ordered up a blood pressure monitor. I'm going to monitor my blood pressure for a week. Then stop the Losatin for a week and compare. Yeah, I could just ask my doctor to switch me to a non-itcher but what's the fun in that???

Then I was reading my LJ Friends list and somedayseattle mentions spiral bound church cookbooks. OMG These were such a thing - all over the South and, also the Midwest. Maybe they still are but not in Seattle. And they were always so good.

So, off to eBay. Lots of options. I finally decided on a $10 set of three from Indiana. This is cracking me up since I really do not like to cook and have a whole internet of recipes if that changes.

Today's other thrills will include taking a load of garbage and recycling down to the dumpster. Oh and finishing the reading of the morning paper - tree version. I'm enjoying dragging it out.

I made myself a proper 2 eggs/potatoes/toast/and bacon breakfast this morning so there's that to clean up.

Thrills and chills around here as usual.

Biggie's gathering strength.

Comments

[lenine2.livejournal.com]

My grandmother's church published one of those books in the mid-70s. The church is in Wisconsin. There was a caterer, Mabel Wormeling, who was extremely popular in town. Like my grandmother she was a member of the Women's Club (requirement: two X chromosomes and a checkbook), Schubert Club, and the Lutheran church. Mabel submitted about a dozen of her best recipes. There is a copy here at the Family Vacation House. The two of Mabel's best are Baked Chicken Salad and German Potato Salad. The potato salad recipe begins "Fry a pound of bacon. Reserve the fat for the dressing." YUM!

It's a kick reading them, too. Sometimes there aren't even amounts of various ingredients given.

I'm sure you'll enjoy your trip through mid-70s Indiana.

I will be anxiously awaiting the outcome of the Itch Experiment.

[susandennis]

Wait... Schubert Club??? OMG bill_schubert did you know about this?? We have a club. In Minnesota! (Schubert is our birth name but my brother did not change his when he got married.

One of my Mom's favorite recipes calls for a can of salmon (29 cent size). I am looking forward to the old recipes.

[lenine2.livejournal.com]

Wow! And here I thought we were honoring the composer! Now the ritual with black cats and sewing patterns makes a lot more sense.

[bill-schubert.livejournal.com]

Completely unaware that we had a club chapter in Wisconsin. Well, or anywhere else, but good to know.

[carriea31.livejournal.com]

I have several of those church cookbooks that I've picked up over the years. They are hard to resist! My favorites are the ones with hand drawn illustrations. :)

[fauxklore]

Not just the South and Midwest. Two churches near where I grew up on Long Islandn(and at least one synagogue) published those community cookbooks. The most interesting one was from the Greek Orthodox Church in the town my high school was in.

I really need to go through my cookbooks, since I use so few of them. It’s so much easier to just look up recipes on line.

[mairi-dubh.livejournal.com]

Can't recall now which celebrity chef it was except that this one was male, but he said his favorite cookbooks are these church ladies', women's auxiliary, [ethnicity] society ladies', or, in the case of my own grandmother simply " [small town's name] Cookbook" cookbooks. Perhaps oddly or perhaps totally understandably, the recipes in them are generally sure-fire pleasers.
One of those cookbooks obtained a contribution from every U.S. State's First Lady at the time of publication, which had a sort of cool factor to it.

[maju01.livejournal.com]

We had those recipe books in Australia too.

[rhodielady-47.livejournal.com]

One of my aunts was once politely requested to gather recipes for one of those fund-raiser spiral bound church cookbooks.
She wasn't really happy to have been put on the spot by her minister, as she put it, in front of God and everybody, but she agreed to do it. Naturally she didn't get a bit of help with it either.
My aunt got her pound of flesh for her unpaid work though!
Not a soul in her church dared withhold their prized family recipes from her and even the men were called upon to give up their deer and other wild-game recipes.
The kicker arrived when the cookbooks came in--my aunt had included a lot of tart sayings and tongue in cheek remarks beside many of the recipes.
My mom naturally bought herself a copy of her sister's cookbook and then giggled while she read through it.
One poor man's deer roast recipe began with a note saying that you had to go out and get yourself a deer first.
Another man's squirrel stew recipe remarked that you needed at least six fat squirrels in order to make enough stew to feed four adults.
One recipe with the title of Grandma's Best Baked Beans was proclaimed as having been donated by Grandma.
One old biddy couldn't be bothered to write out a clean copy of cake recipe and gave it to my aunt with the cake ingredients mixed up with the frosting ingredients and only the vaguest directions.
My aunt came up with her own version of directions for it though! Her directions named each of the ingredients in the order it was to be added to the cake batter and then she remarked that all the leftover ingredients were used to make the cake's frosting!
:^}

[siglinde99.livejournal.com]

I have a bit of a collection of those spiral bound cookbooks. I still buy them when I can.

[meowmensteen]

I used to have two of them. One wasn't actually made by church ladies, it was women who worked in a particular industry. I can't remember which one. It was published in the early 70's. My favorite thing in that book wasn't even a recipe, it was instructions for a festive and entertaining table piece. It said to fill up a large glass vase with carbonated water and then put several moth balls in the liquid, then to cover the top (to keep down on the smell). It described how exciting it would be for your dinner guests to watch the moth balls bounce around in the fizzy water.

The one I still have is hand written and bound together with yarn. The cover is made out of plastic cupboard liners. It was made by the hippie/commune church my parents lived at in the 70's. I've used several of the recipes since I was a child.

[msconduct.livejournal.com]

I adore community cookbooks! NZ being a remarkably godless society, however, ours aren't church ones but school ones (sold for fundraisers). I have one I treasure that my mother bought in the 70s.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

I have 2 or 3 of those cookbooks from over the years - I think the oldest was sold in aid of a hospice in Newcastle in the mid 1980s, and my most recent is from a local church and community centre bought about 3 years ago.

But some years ago I found the text of a 'collection of recipes from the congregation sold in aid of Patrick Church*' circa 1860 so they have been around on both sides of the Atlantic for a vert long time!

*Patrick Church is the parish church for, of course, Patrick which is a parish on our island, not a gentleman with a nice name!

[somedayseattle.livejournal.com]

I love all these stories about cookbooks!

[susandennis]

You started it... and thanks!!