"No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of cooks present, and the wisdom of cookbook writers". -Laurie Colwin

 

My Mother-in-law has decided it is time to move into an assisted living facility and when we were visiting her yesterday she was asking if we wanted anything. When I asked her if she was taking her cookbooks with her she said no and told me I could take any that I wanted. I was super excited to see she had the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook! To me it ranks right up there with the Betty Crockers cookbook as a must have to answer all your cooking questions and traditional recipes. 

You can see that Avis has used it over the years and I love that! I can see which recipes have been her favorite and love seeing notes she has added to the book. 

I love all the completely outdated/vintage pictures in each chapter.   

Notice that they only have the man cooking when it is outdoors...the feminist in me wants to roll my eyes at this but also it just makes me chuckle. After all, we all know that Rick now does pretty much all the cooking in our house. We have no "traditional" rolls in our house :) 

  

I remember the days when I was in 4-H learning how to set a table the right way. A useful skill now days ...hahaha 

I am going to treasure this cookbook even with its outdated ideas and sections because it also has so many good things in it. And mostly I am going to treasure it because I know that my Mother-in-law has used it and loved it over the years and now I get to do the same thing.  

Learning from the past is a good thing....

Sharon