Nostalgia...

We all have our "go to" cookbooks...the ones we've most recently acquired with the slick, beautiful photos (and no grease stains!).  Somehow our old friends like The Joy of Cooking or the Time Life Foods of the World series get relegated to the bottom shelves or packed away in a box and forgotten, their dated pictures and over-the-top calorie dense recipes replaced with the latest food trend.

The other night I was reading David Lebovitz's blog and he has stirred up quite a pot of nostalgia with his latest post about Masterpieces of French Cuisine, how he acquired it, then lost it, then got another copy, and the memories it evokes for him of an old friend who used to visit the kitchen when he worked at Chez Panisse.  Reading the post and the many comments sent me searching through my own collection of books and magazines, like this one I bought many years ago in a used book store and from which I made my very first batch of crepes...

And this one that made me want to visit Paris, which I did....twice.

 

And when I was there I ate here...

And I've often wondered if the Tante Marie above is the Tante Marie after which this Bistro is named...

I still use the shrimp creole recipe in the one on the left that my parents bought me when they visited New Orleans...

And the recipe for Millionaire Chicken from the Pleasures of Chinese Cooking is one of THE best buffet dishes for a crowd...

Then there's the magazines...the early large format Food & Wine like this one (May 1994) that I just couldn't bring myself to part with, so I kept it along with many others that continue to delight each time I read them.

And Gourmet  (September 2008 and November 1994)...

Where even the advertisements were fantastic (January 2007)....here's one for Electrolux Convection Ovens featuring Nancy Silverton...

Eric Ripert...

And Tom Colicchio...

It was in Gourmet (January 2007) and not on the Create Channel that I first encountered Lidia Bastianich ...

And in this one issue of Food & Wine (May 1991) were featured stories by and about Julia Child, Patricia Wells, Kermit Lynch, and Richard Olney...it just doesn't get any better than that!

 Every summer when the berries are in season I pull out these for inspiration (July 1991, 1992, 1993, and 1994)...

All purchased for the princely sum of $.50 each at the Gullah Flea Market on Hilton Head Island.  Check out that goose feather pastry brush!

Let's not forget these old friends....

 And these....

And back in 1982 Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins of New York's Silver Palate brought us this.  How many of you still have your copy...or have added one to your collection?  Still one of my all-time favorites and much used.

Where did it all start for you?  Did your mother or grandmother pass on to you an inscribed family cookbook or a box of handwritten family recipes?  What inspired you to cook?  What evokes your favorite food and cooking memories?