Betty Lives!

Betty Crocker’s All-Time Favorites
The best recipes-by popular demand 
1972
This just looked so snowy and beautiful in the book that I couldn’t resist:

It’s really a fruit salad that consists of one can of cherries (I got the all-natural Oregon brand, in water); two 13.5 oz cans of pineapple tidbits (I used fresh); three oranges, pared […]

Helen Gurley Brown’s Single Girl’s Cook-book
1969

As much as I loathe reading Brown’s prose, I was on a hunt through my collection for “meals on a budget” that did not involve meatloaf.  Desperate times, desperate measures and I find myself back with Brown who has a chapter called “The Cheapest Little Dinners on Earth.”
I decided to […]

The Mike Douglas Cookbook
Mike Douglas and Dan Morris
1969

This book is similar in format to the Dinah Shore cookbook, although much larger and more varied.  I never, ever watched the Mike Douglas show but apparently he cooked with celebrities in each episode and this book contains all of those recipes plus additional ones contributed by his […]

General Foods Kitchens Cookbook
1959
I grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in the 70’s when New York in general, and that neighborhood in particular, were considered gritty and blighted.  But the community that lived there  - people the media liked to call “the Upper West Side Liberals” - knew something that suburbanites […]

Game Cookbook
Geraldine Steindler
1965
A truly unusual book by an author whose other culinary work is The Shooters Bible Cookbook.  There are tips and preparations for absolutely everything that humans have ever been able to shoot, trap or hook including doves, pigeons, coot, beaver, muskrat (”a dark-meated bonus from the trapper”), possum and porcupine.  She draws the […]

Eat Italian Once a Week
Vernon Jarratt
1967

Doug and I joke that when we check out at Costco our cart always has the least amount of stuff of anyone who shops there.  When the kids were little I bought diapers, wipes, crabmeat, racks of lamb and, at Christmas, a rib roast.  Now it’s the same list minus […]

Betty Crocker’s Dinner for Two Cook Book
1958
I’m taking some solace this week in the tried-and-true recipes of my beloved Betty.  Chicken cooked by this method is remarkably crisp and tasty and served alongside some cream gravy and cranberry relish it cannot be beat.  Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees at the same time that you […]