I am rushing to get this post out under the cut off time. Sherry from Sherry’s Pickings hosts a friendly community of bloggers who post monthly (or less) about their kitchens and/or kitchen gardens. It is a collection from around the world detailing what is new related to food, or kitchen gadgets, or simply life in general, over the past month (and sometimes longer). Click on the link to Sherry’s Pickings to read them all. Following is my own summary from the past couple of months.

Spring is finally here, but with a very slow start. It’s been cold and very wet, my vegetable garden does not look like spring. I was reminiscing over some photos of it from a few years ago, it’s a sad comparison. I was hoping to be able to cut salad greens before we leave for vacation in the middle of this month…it’s not going to happen. A dry warming trend is on schedule for the end of this week so I may be in luck when we return at the end of the month.

I have been cooking more vegetarian meals over the past couple of months as a result of being told my cholesterol is too high. Our daughter has also been spending more time with us and doing a share of the cooking, which is wonderful but probably not good for my cholesterol level. Her latest recipe has pasta cooked in the sauce rather than separately, something I have been meaning to try but not gotten around to.

It was delicious, quite rich.

My husband has also been taking a turn in the kitchen. It’s tough to beat his bruschetta with cheese, sliced tomato and avocado. If we have leftover chicken or some prosciutto, those go on as well.

We have been, up to now, able to get some lovely organic tomatoes at the market. But they are looking rather pathetic at the moment.

In My Kitchen my own efforts have tended more to salads and vegetarian meals.

 

 

 

 

I was recently reminded of a cookbook written by the late Judy Rodgers from the Zuni Cafe in San Francisco. One of her most famous dishes at the restaurant is brined and roasted chicken served atop an arugula and crisp bread salad. I was surprised to realize that I had never tried it at home. It was a big hit.

It’s fun to go back and explore history through a personal collection of cookbooks. There was a recent post on the blog Menu Mistress that inspired me to take a look at my own collection. I started with Julia Child, Michael Field, James Beard, and Roy Andres de Groot. Looking over those books again I was struck by how meat centric they were and how much cooking (and eating) has changed in the last few decades. The author de Groot even added MSG to most dishes, not something you would see today.

I have arranged my cookbook collection in the bookcase by topic, I wonder how it would look like if I arranged them on a timeline of influence and acquisition. Something to consider. We need to repaint the bookcase and they will all need to be removed for that project at some point this summer.

There are also the books that are as much memoirs and essays as cookbooks. My favorites are by the authors…M.F.K. Fisher, Betty Fussell, Laurie Colwin, Ruth Reichl, and Alice Waters. Ella Risbridger belongs in that group as well although she is much newer.

My latest cookbooks are more are vegetable, vegetarian, and salad centric.

And then there are the gardening books.

It’s a good thing that my husband has a bookcase in his office because books on cooking, gardening, and travel have pushed most other things out of the bookcase in the living room. It might be time for a purge.

It’s difficult to part with any of them.

And finally…

Did you know that this sweet and innocent looking puppy is a heart surgeon?

Heart Surgery…

It is her passion to remove each and every squeaker from her toys, usually with great precision and skill.

 

Although sometimes it takes some work to get it perfect.

This toy was labeled ‘indestructible’.