Speaking of Mom.....
You know how much she liked to cook. She loved cookbooks. Dad told me once that she had a library of over 200 of them. She read them from cover to cover, and learned lots of interesting things about different countries and cultures from the introductions and chapter headings.
So, it was natural that when birthdays or Christmas or Mother's Day came around, my thoughts turned to kitchen gadgets and cookbooks. When VCRs were new, I think sometime in the late 1970's, I found what I thought was an inspired Christmas gift: a Videocassette tape of Julia Child demonstrating some of her recipes. The day after Christmas, Mom and I sat down in front of the TV to watch the tape. It was all about desserts. Each recipe started with the list of ingredients, including a picture of each one: 2 cups butter (picture of 4 sticks of butter), 1 1/2 cups sugar (picture of measuring cup containing sugar), 2 cups flour (picture of flour), etc. The first recipe or two were fun to watch. When the third one started, once again, with the obligatory butter (5 sticks), we giggled a little. Then the next one started with 4 sticks of butter and we laughed out loud. And when the last one had 6 sticks, we couldn't stop laughing--it was the funniest thing we'd ever seen.
I saw a trailer for Julie & Julia "there's no such thing as too much butter...", and it made me think of that day. Wilt and I saw the movie over the weekend and I laughed and laughed and thought of Mom. Check it out. You'll find the theater full of older couples and groups of women of a certain age who remember Julia Child's TV shows and cookbooks.
Bon Appétit!
