The joy of cooking...and reading!

Serendipity (ser′ən dip′i tē))

The instance of making a fortunate discovery by accident.

Serendipity is such a beautiful word. It's a word which conjures up images of all those blessed times in our lives when we, quite accidentally, stumble across someone or something that changes our lives for the better.

Although the arrival of these moments tends to be beyond our control and comes when we least expect it, there are certain places where we can go, and certain things we can do to try to encourage a little more serendipity in our lives. For me, one of these places where these magical serendipitous happenings occur has always been the bookstore. There is nothing, after all, that can trigger profound inner and outer change quite like a good book.

As wonderful as the regular bookstores can be, there is something about a second hand bookstore which adds an extra layer of mystery and magic to the experience of book hunting. Second hand book stores add an extra layer of beautiful chaos and disorder, and present to you books which are not just bound by the popular fads of the day, but have been gathered throughout the years. Regardless of whether or not they are to your taste, each one of the books, at some stage, belonged to someone who thought that were worth purchasing.

It was while meditatively rummaging through such a pile of musty, dog-eared books in my favourite used bookstore in St James (stocking up right before the most recent restrictions), that I stumbled across a delightful cookbook which has been giving me endless hours of calm evening reading in these quiet times. I know that cookbooks are not usually the sorts of things that you can read for enjoyment, but this one really is something quite special. The Joy of Cooking is one of the all time classic cookbooks of the English speaking world and contains well over four thousand recipes as well as tons of useful (and still relevant!) information about the art of home cooking.

That the book, which was first published in 1931in the midst of the Great Depression, even exists in the first place is a tribute to the tenacity of the author, Irma Rombauer, who wrote the book during the worst financial crisis to ever hit the United States. Rombauer had recently lost her husband who had tragically committed suicide after losing all of the family's funds in the terrible stock market crash. With little time to grieve, and left with nothing but her own practical wisdom and desire to create something useful for others, Rombauer went about collating her famous cookbook and infusing every page with her own unique and charming personality. Almost 90 years later we are still profiting from, and enjoying this wonderful book.

Although I still have so much more of the book to dive into, what I have really been enjoying is the author's brief introductions to her recipes. Like all good books, reading these passages feels like engaging in a conversation with the author, and gaining insight into her world view and unique personality. Her quiet sass is sprinkled throughout. Before delving into her chocolate section, she feels compels to warn the readers about it's lack of nutritional value and laments that, “It really pains us to speak evil of so distinctively delicious a drink, but chocolate with its high fat and sugar content...may create an imbalance in the diet.” Don't you just love the honesty? Then of course, there is the historical interest that comes from reading a book that is near to a century old, and there is bound to be much that would shock the sensitivities of the modern reader.

It's time to head to the kitchen and give one of these recipes a try. Surely 20 million people can't be wrong.

Cream Scones

Here is a recipe for one of the book's most celebrated recipes – cream scones. These are best enjoyed with a pat of butter, clotted cream, or sweet fruit jam.

Ingredients

1 1/3 cups sifted all purpose flour

2 1/4 tsp baking powder

1 tbsp sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup cold butter

2 eggs

1/3 cup cream (Nestle cream is fine. If not you can just use full cream milk)

Directions

1) Preheat oven to 450. Sift the first four ingredients together in a large bowl. Cut in the cold butter with a pastry blender, or two knives, until the butter chunks are the size of small peas.

2) In a separate bowl beat 2 eggs. Set 2 tbsp of this aside for a glaze. Into the remainder beat in the milk/cream.

3) Make a well in the dry ingredients. Pour the liquid into it. Combine with a few swift strokes. Handle the dough as little as possible. Place it on a lightly floured board. Pat until 3/4 inch thick. cut with a knife into diamond shapes or wedges. Brush with the reserved egg, and sprinkle with a bit of salt or sugar.

4) Bake for 15 minutes

Recipe taken from The Joy of Cooking (1964 edition) by Irma S Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker