domesticity

So I moved the list of books that I've been wanting to read - onto the sidebar. Unfortunately, I accidently deleted the post about them. Wonderfully - I found two of them at Belhaven's library and now they are in my room waiting for me: The God Who is There by Shaeffer, and Neither Riches or Poverty by Bloomberg. I started Shaeffer's book and so far it is deep. I like that. However, I got sidetracked by a book that my roommate checked out from the library called I Don't Like My Neck (or something to that degree) by Nora Ephron. She wrote the screenplays for movies like When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, and You've Got Mail. It's a light hearted, easy to read, funny but candid book about woman growing older. I'm hoping, that, because it's short and light, I can quickly read through it and get back to Shaeffer without being derailed too much :-]

In the book, she talks about life in New York and (so far) cooking. Caroline (my roomate) noted that everything she knows about New York, she learned from Nora. I've had the chance to visit New York personally and so I have a sense with which to compare Nora's observations of New York Life - but, there is something wonderful about New York City that it seems Nora can capture - which I can't. It makes me want to live there one day. I digress. The cooking is what this post is really about.

Nora speaks about the different cookbooks she's encountered and lived with through the years and the recipes she has loved, hated, tried, ambivelent, used for company, and cooked for certain poeple (friends or other cooks) etc. It made me think of my own cookbooks and the experiences I've had with them and their recipes, invariably though, my favorite recipes to cook are those that i've "accidently" discovered on my own or have been taught by a friend - my meatloaf dish being a prime example. Elizabeth Manley taught me that recipe, she also gave me my first casserole dish - which I still use everytime I make her meatloaf. Elizabeth is very wonderful. My friend Jon found her and married her and brought her to Texas for the rest of us to enjoy. I don't really know her all that well, but I appreciate her domestic guidance for the few months where we lived in the same region. In fact, there are four poeple who inspire me domestically speaking (and that's a feat!) they are Katie Abbot, Elizabeth Manely, Anita Dick and my current roommate Caroline. *warm fuzzies* thank you gals. Whenever I cook, I think of you. Never settle.