My Word with Douglas E. Welch

Archive.org has a host of old cookery books (from mid-19th to mid-20th Century) available in many formats and on a host of topics. I happened across a few in my Pinterest feed and gone completely down the rabbit hole in this treasure trove of information. Sure some ideas might be out of date, but you never know what you might find when you explore these books. I’ll be sharing more books as I find them in the coming weeks. –Douglas

Historical Cooking Books: The college woman’s cook book by College Woman’s Cook Book Association (Evanston, Ill.) (1923) – 10 in a series

The compiling and publishing f this book of recipes has been the work of a group of college women, living in and near Evanston, 111., most of whom are graduates of Northwestern University.

A portion of the profit accruing from the publishing of this cook-book is to be given each year for the support of a summer camp in Michigan, where unfortunate kiddies from the cities are given a real vacation.

Over 2,500 college women, most of them housewives, were asked for their best tested recipes. From those submitted, 500 of the best and most unusual have been selected and published in this handy volume. By following the names under each recipe, it will be observed that leading colleges in all parts of the United States and Canada are represented.

 CREAM SCONES

2 cups flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
3 teaspoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt

Sift three times. Rub in four rounding tablespoons butter with tips of fingers. Add two eggs beaten (reserving small amount of unbeaten white) with one-third cup sweet milk. Toss, on floured board and pat to one-half inch thickness. Brush over with egg white; sprinkle with sugar; cut and bake fifteen minutes in quick overi.

Helen Binnie, Kenosha, Wis. University of Wisconsin.

Available in PDF, Text, JPG formats, and more

Learn more about cooking history with these books

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* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

Alabaster Statue

King Tut: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh

We toured the King Tut Exhibit at the California Science Museum. It is a wonderful exhibit and I will be featuring photos here over the next several weeks. 
You can see the entire collection of King Tut photos on my Flickr and Facebook pages.

See the complete collection of my photos from this visit on Flickr

 and Follow Me

Learn more about King Tut with these books

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* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

Crook and Flail Closeup

King Tut: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh

We toured the King Tut Exhibit at the California Science Museum. It is a wonderful exhibit and I will be featuring photos here over the next several weeks. 
You can see the entire collection of King Tut photos on my Flickr and Facebook pages.

See the complete collection of my photos from this visit on Flickr

 and Follow Me

Learn more about King Tut with these books

†

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

Statue

King Tut: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh

We toured the King Tut Exhibit at the California Science Museum. It is a wonderful exhibit and I will be featuring photos here over the next several weeks. 
You can see the entire collection of King Tut photos on my Flickr and Facebook pages.

See the complete collection of my photos from this visit on Flickr

 and Follow Me

Learn more about King Tut with these books

†

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

I’ll be highlighting books that I am reading (or re-reading) on all sorts of topics this year — Douglas

Reading – Reveille in Washington: 1860-1865 by Margaret Leech – 20 in a series

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* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

History is fascinating, but the smaller, more intimate stories of historical events can often get lost among the “big picture” history of other books. Reveille in Washington is a book that focuses one small, yet infinitely important, town during the American Civil War, Washington, D.C. We are led through the streets of Washington as war begins, cannons are heard on the horizon and a seemingly endless flow of men arrive, are mustered into the U.S. Army, sent off to battle and, for many, return horribly wounded to try and survive in hospitals surrounding the capital.

We learn of secessionists who pack up and leave for the South as the battles begin. Some cheer Confederate victories, run supplies and information through the Union blockades and, in some cases, find themselves locked in military prisons with no hope of release.

We learn of the mud, the stink, the heat, the humidity, the disease-carrying mosquitos that haunted the swampy city each summer. We follow politicians as they come and go, battle on the Congress floor and fight among themselves in Lincoln’s Cabinet Room.

Reveille in Washington reveals the day-to-day reality of Washington during the Civil War and allows us to reflect on a new angle of that conflict.

From Amazon.com…

1860: The American capital is sprawling, fractured, squalid, colored by patriotism and treason, and deeply divided along the political lines that will soon embroil the nation in bloody conflict. Chaotic and corrupt, the young city is populated by bellicose congressmen, Confederate conspirators, and enterprising prostitutes. Soldiers of a volunteer army swing from the dome of the Capitol, assassins stalk the avenues, and Abraham Lincoln struggles to justify his presidency as the Union heads to war. 

Reveille in Washington focuses on the everyday politics and preoccupations of Washington during the Civil War. From the stench of corpse-littered streets to the plunging lace on Mary Lincoln’s evening gowns, Margaret Leech illuminates the city and its familiar figures—among them Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, William Seward, and Mary Surratt—in intimate and fascinating detail. 

Leech’s book remains widely recognized as both an impressive feat of scholarship and an uncommonly engrossing work of history.

Previously in (Re)Reading:

• Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson
• The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever by Michael Bungay Stanier
• This is Taco! by Andrew Cangelose (Author), Josh Shipley (Artist)
• Toast and Jam by Sarah Owens
• Girl Code: Gaming, Going Viral, and Getting It Done by Andrea Gonzales and Sophie Houser
• The Old-Fashioned: The Story of the World’s First Classic Cocktail, with Recipes and Lore by Robert Simonson
• The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South by Michael W. Twitty
• Cinemaps: An Atlas of 35 Great Movies by by Andrew Degraff and A.D. Jameson
• The Woman Who Smashed Codes: A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine Who Outwitted America’s Enemies by by Jason Fagone
• The Beginner’s Guide to Starting a Garden: 326 Fast, Easy, Affordable Ways to Transform Your Yard One Project at a Time by Sally Roth
• Raised Bed Revolution: Build It, Fill It, Plant It … Garden Anywhere by Tara Nolan
• Bread Is Gold by Massimo Bottura
• Mozart’s Starling by Lyanda Lynn Haupt
• Milk Street: The New Home Cooking by Christopher Kimble
• The Wildcrafted Cocktail: Make Your Own Foraged Syrups, Bitters, Infusions, and Garnishes by Ellen Zacho
• 3-Ingredient Cocktails: An Opinionated Guide to the Most Enduring Drinks in the Cocktail Canon by Robert Simonson
• Chemistry: A Novel by Weike Wong
• Back Pocket Pasta by Colu Henry
• Steal like an artist 10 things nobody told you about being creative by Austin Kleon

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Crook and Flail

King Tut: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh

We toured the King Tut Exhibit at the California Science Museum. It is a wonderful exhibit and I will be featuring photos here over the next several weeks. 
You can see the entire collection of King Tut photos on my Flickr and Facebook pages.

See the complete collection of my photos from this visit on Flickr

 and Follow Me

Learn more about King Tut with these books

†

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

King and Queen Statues

King Tut: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh

We toured the King Tut Exhibit at the California Science Museum. It is a wonderful exhibit and I will be featuring photos here over the next several weeks. 
You can see the entire collection of King Tut photos on my Flickr and Facebook pages.

See the complete collection of my photos from this visit on Flickr

 and Follow Me

Learn more about King Tut with these books

†

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

It doesn’t matter how old you get, there is always something new to learn. Sometimes these new things are words or concepts you have heard all your life, but perhaps you never understood. Learn Something New is a series that will highlight some of the things I learn, big and small in the coming days. — Douglas

When you picture Benjamin Franklin, what do you see? A lovable mad scientist flying a kite in the rain, perhaps, or a shrewd political strategist haggling at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Maybe you imagine Franklin schmoozing with the French, brokering deals, or hurriedly setting type in the offices of the Pennsylvania Gazette. What you likely do not envision is Franklin the gardening whiz and gourmet, writing excitedly from London on the subject of a mysterious Chinese “cheese” called “tau-fu.”

Between all the juice bars and health food stores today, Ben Franklin would have fit in with the organic, earthy-crunchy crowd. He supposedly introduced tofu and kale to America, two ingredients that have maintained their popularity (kale chip, anyone?). HipCityVeg in Philly serves up a tangy Kale Lemonade, a twist on a Fourth of July staple. But he wasn’t a total health nut. Ever see those tacky T-shirts that say “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy”? Well, Ben Franklin actually said that, and boy are we on the same page.

The earliest document seen in which an American mentions tofu is a letter written by Benjamin Franklin (who was in London) to John Bartram in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on January 11, 1770. He sent Bartram some soybeans (which he called “Chinese caravances”) and with them he sent “Father Navarrete’s account of the universal use of a cheese made of them in China, which so excited my curiosity, that I caused enquiry to be made of Mr. [James] Flint, who lived many years there, in what manner the cheese was made, and I send you his answer. I have since learned that some runnings of salt (I suppose runnet) is put into water, when the meal is in it, to turn it to curds. […] These … are what the Tau-fu is made of.”

Archive.org has a host of old cookery books (from mid-19th to mid-20th Century) available in many formats and on a host of topics. I happened across a few in my Pinterest feed and gone completely down the rabbit hole in this treasure trove of information. Sure some ideas might be out of date, but you never know what you might find when you explore these books. I’ll be sharing more books as I find them in the coming weeks. –Douglas

Historical Cooking Books: Woman’s City Club cook book by Woman’s City Club of Chicago (Ill.). Library Committee – 9 in a series

A PERFECT CHICAGO

1 good Mayor, 31 incorruptible Judges,

50 upright Aldermen, 1 intelligent School Board, (be

1 efficient Chief of Police, sure this mixes smoothly),

An unlimited number of active Civic Organizations.

Moisten these ingredients thoroughly with the milk of
Human Kindness; flavor well with Honesty, Wisdom and
Steadfastness; stirring in at the same time a large measure
of Civic Spirit. Pour into the mold of the City Beautiful, and
let stand until firmly set, testing, from time to time, with the
straw of Public Opinion.

If followed carefully this recipe cannot fail.

COUNTY COMMITTEE CAKE
Mrs. Wm. Harrison Cade

1 cup sugar % cup milk

% cup butter 2 cups flour

3 eggs 2 tsp. baking powder

LEMON FILLING

1 egg V2 cup water
1/2 cup sugar 2 tbsp. flour

Juice of a lemon Butter size of a walnut

Melt butter, stir in flour. Add water and sugar. Boil gently
five minutes. Pour on beaten egg and add lemon juice.

Available in PDF, Text, JPG formats, and more

Learn more about cooking history with these books

†††

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library