Happy Thanksgiving! This year, we at A Book of Cookrye are thankful for libraries.
In our little household island of introvertedness, the holiday season almost ceases to exist. Last week, I stopped at a gas station and wondered why they had Christmas muzak in mid-October. While Mom and I had talked a tiny bit about Thanksgiving plans, I thought the holiday was still a month away until last Tuesday. In other words, I had only two days to figure out what I was making for Thanksgiving.
Our Mom of Cookrye asked us to bring desserts. I wasn't sure what to make this this year (one tires of making the same things every year). So I reached out to friends for advice. Gabby (who has fearlessly shown up for three Pieathlons) solved my indecision immediately.
I knew just the recipe to use: the Lemon Loves from The Cotton Country Collection. I only remembered them because of the charming name. (Also it's hard to go wrong with recipes from a southern Louisiana community cookbook.) Unfortunately, the book's spiral binding failed, and it was summarily discarded. I should have saved out the pages with recipes I use. Then I thought to myself "I'm sure I wrote about it..." And it turns out I did!
But as I was rereading the ingredients, I thought to myself "That baking powder measurement seems.... off." The recipe, as I typed it up, called for half a tablespoon of baking powder in a tiny little layer of lemon filling. I also added in a footnote that I forgot to add the baking powder and the lemon bars came out fine anyway. However, I wondered: If one measurement is (probably) off, did I type anything else wrong in the recipe?
Unfortunately, I could not check the book since (as aforementioned) it fell apart and was then sent to the municipal hereafter. Nor did the local library have a copy. And so, I looked up the book on WorldCat and called the first library listed that had a copy. The librarian who answered very kindly went to the shelves, pulled down their copy of The Cotton Country Collection, and read the recipe for Lemon Loves over the phone. She was very professional and mercifully didn't ask "Is this a prank call?" Truly, we do not deserve librarians.
I said "Thank you! It seems like Thanksgiving snuck up on me this year!"
"It does that every year," she replied.
Most of the recipe that she read by telephone was identical to what I posted. But turns out I made a tiny yet crucial error back when I typed it up:
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| One stray letter B can ruin a recipe. |
I cannot believe I've had a booby-trap recipe lurking on A Book of Cookrye for nine years! What if someone made them as written, adding half a tablespoon of baking powder instead of half a teaspoon, and ended up with weird, chemical-tasting Lemon Loves? A half-tablespoon is three times as much as a half-teaspoon! I often say that I follow recipe directions so I can blame the writer, and this time I must blame myself!
Now that we have corrected the original recipe, if you want to make the Lemon Loves you can be assured that the recipe was double-checked and will come out just right.
And so, this Thanksgiving, I'm sure my entire family will be thankful to the librarian who answered the phone, whether they know it or not.
Now I'm wondering how many times that librarian has taken calls requesting that they find a cookbook and read off part or all of a recipe. Part of me feels like that probably wasn't the first time. I've taken some pretty strange calls over the years in various jobs. We could usually tell when someone was pranking us. You knew the book and recipe you wanted. That's too much work for a bored kid to come up with. I don't even know if prank calls are a thing anymore given caller ID and the fact most people hate talking on the phone.
ReplyDeleteI did get the impression that I wasn't her first unusual reference call. I kind of miss getting questions like that from when I was a student worker at the school library. My favorite was someone asked where was the nearest place to purchase Ray-Bans.
DeleteHappy Thanksgiving! Our usual host has decided this year that he is old and doesn't feel like cooking any more, so our turkey and dishes came courtesy a caterer. I'm a little disappointed--it's the first year in ages I haven't helped make something. Still, it was all good, and the older relatives only ranted a LITTLE bit about The Kids Today.
ReplyDeleteAnd my dad decided to make peanut butter cookies, just because, anyway. So it all worked out.
Holiday catering! We did that one Christmas. My parents got the entire feast from a French restaurant and had all the aunts and uncles split the cost. None of them could believe that it was actually cheaper than getting all the ingredients and doing it ourselves.
DeleteBut I definitely agree that it's not the same. I didn't necessarily miss the turkey and ham, but I really missed my aunt's lasagna. (Her recipe is to follow the directions on the noodle box.)
The Cotton Country Collection must have had terrible bindings because mine failed too! I never throw anything away, though, so both my failed binding copy AND a still-okay copy that I got in a lot of other cookbooks are both here somewhere....
ReplyDeleteThat would explain why my interlibrary loan request is taking so long! I may have to simply drive to the nearest city that has it in the library and take pictures of the recipes I want.
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