So I have spent many hours over the past few years going through cupboards, drawers, shelves, boxes, you name it – if it’s capable of holding ‘things’ it’s able to be surveyed for reduction. These days I’m even more decisive than ever when it comes to decluttering/tossing/recycling.  Anything and everything comes under scrutiny – if it’s sitting still long enough I give it the once over 🙂
My mother was not the best cook and certainly didn’t encourage us in the kitchen so I had nothing to build my cookery skills on, which meant when I married I had to learn to cook pretty quickly. Â I used to copy recipes out of the paper, then later pick up used cookery books from the op shop. Â Once I was back at work the buying progressed to big glossy ones about all sorts of ways and means of turning raw ingredients into delicious looking meals. Â It sort of got out of hand and like Topsy the piles of them grew.
About this time in 2011 things came to a head the day this happened and I had to turn my eye to decluttering even my cookery books.  Even now I grimace/laugh when I look at the pictures in that post 🙂
https://cranethie.wordpress.com/2011/01/23/cookery-books-anyone/
Move on to this past Sunday and we were enjoying a visit to a son we didn’t get to see at Christmas when he asked me if I could use various things as he was having a clear out – ‘oh no, thank you very much says I, but I’ll put them in the op shop for you”
Then he turned around and presented me with these. Â Five basic 500 recipe books (circa 1960s) I gave him (from my shelves) when he moved out many years ago.
“Oh, he said, and I found these in the clear out. Â I certainly don’t need them anymore so I thought you’d like them back.’
Simple Family Meals but full of ingredients we don’t seem to use these days – like proper butter, tinned potatoes, tongue, haddock, belly pork, pigeon??
Does anyone anywhere cook tongue these days?
Still Waters 