A Blog Post About Cookbooks and Bonus Recipes

Cookbooks--old and new alike--always come with a bonus. Occasionally I'll find a recipe card bookmark in a novel, but it's far more common to find not one or two or three but dozens of cards stuffed inside used cookbooks. And it's perfect, really. I'm to the point where if I don't come across one I assume the book was never used.
     Recipe cards are a boring find. They're straightforward; they're predictable, and, even though they're in someone's handwriting, it's very possible to find the exact same recipe in a book or on a website. However, because of the handwriting they remain one of the things that I wish I could give back to the previous owner. It's a wonderful thing to be able to go through your Grandmother's old recipes, find something that you want to make, and then try desperately to decipher what she meant by "take it out when the coil pops three times steady." It may feel like you're suffering through making that meatloaf together!

Hand-written, recipe cards are becoming a thing of the past. Sure it's possible to find them in old books (see above paragraph), but when's the last time you wrote one? I know that I went through a phase about five years ago where I felt the need to document some of my funnier recipes (see old blog post), but I would never sit down and record every, single recipe that I have floating around in my head. Why? Because I have the internet. And that, as majestical as it can sometimes be, has made me lazy. If I want to know how to make an appetizer that will impress my friend's friends, I'm just going to type "I want an appetizer that will impress my friend's friends" into the almighty Google. Something will come up. Something always comes up. All hail, Google.
     So when you're trading in the family cookbook collection for something more modern, take the recipes out of the books. They're a great testament to what your relatives had to do if they wanted one to stay handy, and they're a nice keepsake to pass down to your kid's kids. Who else is going to write down that info for them? Google? Not yet, anyway.

Not yet.

Don't Do This

Act I

A man sets foot inside a gigantic bookstore and looks around quizzically before walking upstage to a wooden, sales counter. A lonely bookman is seated behind a desk that is piled high with all different types of books. Music, by Vivaldi, is playing faintly in the background. These two men are the only two people in the store, at present. 


Man (forcefully) : You buy books?

Bookman : That depends. What kind of books have you got?

     The Man reaches into his backpack and removes a very good condition History book. 


Man : Interested?

Bookman (without hesitation): No, I'm sorry. We're only interested in local history at the moment.

Man : Come on, man? Ten bucks? Cheap.

Bookman : No, I'm sorry.

Man : Come on?! Five bucks? Pause Two bucks?

Bookman : I'm not interested right now.

Man (angrily) : Well, what the hell am I supposed to do with this?

Bookman : Have you already read the book?

Man : No.

Bookman : You could read it.

Man : I don't want to read it. Looks around, frantic You got a garbage can?

Bookman (surprise) : What?

Man : I'm just gonna get rid of it.

Bookman : Look, man, what you do with your book is of no business of mine, but I'm not going to let you put it in my trash can.

Man : Why?

Bookman (crying huge tears on the inside) : Just donate it somewhere.

Man : I'm sick of carrying it around.

Bookman (dying inside) : Again, I can't tell you what to do with it, but it is a bit offensive if you throw it away in front of me.

Man : Why?

Bookman (crushing emotions down into a tiny ball) : Numerous reasons. Lots of reasons. Can you please just donate it somewhere?

Man Exits.

I won't always be able to buy your books, but, if you bring a few in and that ends up being the case, please don't threaten to throw them away in front of me. 

Spin Spin Sugar

Yeah, that's right, I rock the vinyl. And you best bet I'm gonna be rockin' the club tonight when I roll up on two rims with this: Little Golden Records (featuring The Sandpiper Chorus) "O Christmas Tree/Joy To The World." So before a punk points out "that it ain't Christmas," I want to point out that this record is as relevant as it is yellow. Dig?

Sooooo, yeah, a whole 45. Normally I find receipts, ads, junk...but today I definitely found an entire record lurking inside an old magazine. Which is kind of funny, right? I can't tell you how many times I've attempted to mark my place and the only thing available to mark my spot was a 45. Or the record just "accidently" found its way into the issue. More probable but not nearly as funny. That is why we're going to stick with the bookmark answer.

And while we're on the topic of records, I think it's fair to ask what it is that you listen to, oh, great peoples of the interwebs? Me? I enjoy anything that makes me want to create art. Which has significantly narrowed down my list of recommendations over the past ten years. It's not like it was when I was in High School and I just dug it if it was angst-ridden. Now I crave this foolish (and highly subjective) thing known as "substance." Who listens for substance? Answer: Someone who appreciates "art," a.k.a Snobs.

So here it is, these things that I can't bring myself to stop listening to. Some of these CDs* have even been spinning for years on end.

In no particular order:

1. Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes - Up From Below (Not only is this the perfect album to paint to, it's also the perfect soundtrack to have playing when you realize it's gorgeous out and you should be outside)
2. Laura Marling - Anything (No, that isn't the name of the album. I literally mean Anything she's done. Ever.)
3. Amanda Palmer - Who Killed Amanda Palmer (She has my life. A weird thing to admit, but she married one of my favorite authors, and she's so creative. So creative and so incredibly talented. So now you understand.)
4. The Kills - Midnight Boom (Last Day of Magic is, hands down, one of the best songs I've ever heard. I've listened to it hundreds of times. And so have my friends. And my roommates. And my neighbors. Sorry?)
5. Kelli Ali - Psychic Cat (I thought I loved her when she was with the Sneaker Pimps, but I was kidding myself. Both acts got better when they went their separate ways.)
6. Sneaker Pimps - Becoming X (Totally, completely, and tragically underrated. From the very first song you're hooked.)
7. Spoon - Gimmie Fiction (The whole album is great, but the lyrics to "I Summon You" are without fault. Plus, it's impossible not to bump up and down to "I Turn My Camera On.")
8. Fiona Apple - Everything. (Again, not an album title. I just mean Everything.)
9. Nine Inch Nails - With Teeth (I've been revisiting a lot of albums lately. NIN is still one of my favorite bands of all time.)
10. Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness (Maybe the only album I own that sums up my teenage mindset while still allowing me to dream of great things to come.)

I could go on. 

*Stands for Compact Disc. These have been replaced by little magicians that live inside your iPod and telepathically play whatever you have selected in your catalog. It takes three magicians to achieve this, hence, (M)agicians (P)erforming in Threes. MP3s. 

Days of Free Tickets and Tops Markets

If I win I'm gonna go crazy, I'm gonna jump up and down, I'm gonna tell all a' mah friends, I'm gonna...wait, when does this expire? August of 1982? Damn it. Well, what are the odds that Tops would still honor this? What? The Three Coins Restaurant is no longer around? Double Damn.

This ticket made me laugh. On one of my favorite episodes of The Simpsons, Bart rents a car and decides to travel cross-country with Milhouse, Nelson, and Martin. Their destination? The World's Fair. Along the way they pass by a club whose featured guest is Andy Williams. Nelson, the "bully", is so taken that he has to stop and watch.

Did I really need to tell you that Nelson is the bully of the show? Of course I didn't. Why? Well, because you're so great! And when I win these tickets* guess who I'm taking? That's right!

SIDETRACK:

I do this a lot. I list something, and I get sidetracked--one of the reasons I have trouble posting daily. But I have a question to ask all of you native Buffalonians:

Who won?

Stores advertise contests all the time, but who wins? Someone must. Maybe you know them? Maybe you know someone who knew them through someone? I don't know, but I'd like to know.

Where'd ya'll find it: Inside Michael Harrison's Fire From Heaven: A Study of Human Combustion in Human Beings. (Why was there a need to say "Human Combustion" and "Human Beings?")


*Disclaimer: Tickets will only be obtained through time-travel. If time-travel is not present at the time of blog posting, it never will be. It's paradoxical. It's best to hope for robotics.

Remember! You Must Remember!

"Stop judging and you will not be judged." A simple enough statement, but one that has been largely ignored in...well, every single decade ever.

Shameless Plug #2

                     Yes, friends, the time has come, yet again, for me to exploit your readership. 

Manny Fried's The Elegy For Stanley Gorksi

March 15th thru April 7th: Thursday, Friday, & Saturdays at 8:00 pm

at

The Manny Fried Playhouse/Subversive Theater 

We are located inside the Great Arrow Building on Great Arrow Street. 

On behalf of this wonderful cast, I'd like to extend a welcome to any and all interested in seeing our show.   And, if you can't make it, if your schedule's so full that you can't allot the time to have your world rocked by a cast of Political Theatre's finest, then spread the word. Shout it from the rooftops.

Your favorite Lonely Bookman--and his wonderful cast (did I mention wonderful?)--thanks you. 

Bookz In The Hood

Dang, it feels good ta be a gangsta...

Just kidding.

And if you were able to read today's find, you'd know that gangs are no laughing matter.


I grew up in white, rural America. When I was in my early adolescence, the word "gang" was exciting to me because it was so foreign. I can recall several kids in my class (trust me. there were not a lot of kids to recall.) making an attempt at starting a gang--a "real gang." I can't remember the name, but I'm sure it was something like "Bad Boys" (without a Z) or "The Killers." Yes, yes. Please, go ahead and laugh.
     I was probably the sixth inductee into this gang, and, to celebrate, I went straight home and rapped about it with my Momz. Mom, ahem, was not happy  and reacted accordingly to her son's nonchalant, "Yeah, I'm rollin' wit a posse" by threatening me with the reality of being grounded.

That ended my career in a gang.

This pamphlet was actually a nice find. I assumed it was going to talk at length about how evil gang members are, but, I was wrong and was reminded of an age old adage, "Don't hate the gang member hate the gang." Which IS what this pamphlet preaches. Sort of. After you finish reading about all the psychological horrors that gang-warfare can do to a mind, you are treated to the blunt, simple statement: "You can't treat the effect and ignore the cause." Basically, gang members--real and rural--are people with differences and those differences stem from the environments they grew up in. Youth, without proper guidance, are more likely to end up in a gang because it adds the sensation of "family." Not a revelation, I know, but I do appreciate anyone who looks at the Why? instead of the What!?

"Cuz no matter what you believe, you gotz ta believe in reasons, son."
                                                                                 -TLB

Today's pamphlet was brought to you by The National Bank Note Issues of 1929-1935. Riveting reading. Trust me.

"How Much Is My Book Worth?"

I receive a few calls a day from folks asking how much their old books are worth. It's become a common question but remains one that I cannot answer over a phone. Determining the value of any book--not just one that's ''old''--is close to impossible if the book is not within the hands of the appraiser. There are simply too many factors that play a part in what makes a book valuable. Today, I hope to explain some factors and make a couple jokes doing so. The following are questions or statements that frequently come up.

Question: "My book is old. It's got to be worth a lot, right?"
Answer:   "Not necessarily."

A book's value is determined first and foremost by it's availability. A long time ago, before the days of the all mighty Amazon, books were only sold by new bookstores (duh) and used book resellers (double duh) which limited the availability of certain titles. Example: Books that aren't immediately aimed at the best-seller list are either a publishing house taking a chance, a book that's aimed at a particular demographic, or a little bit of both. When a book on how to make costumes is printed, it is done so on a very limited print run simply because it will not have the same kind of audience that Sue Grafton or James Patterson does. So, back in the olden days, if you were too late to catch that book on costuming when it was new, you would have to rely on your local, incredibly handsome, used Bookman to come across the title for you. This process could take years, and the cost placed on said book reflected that. It's supply and demand. Plain-jane simple.
     Now, in the high-tech tweeting world of the future, Amazon sellers (and all like it) have narrowed that margin of availability: If you want something--be it old or new--you can find it online. This forces the value of the book to decrease.

Question: "My book says 'First Edition' on the copyright page. Doesn't that make it valuable?"
Answer:   "Not always."

Most books are First Editions (it's true) so what matters more is the printing. Sound confusing? Lemme break this down: Modern books are printed with a number line. If you grab a recent publication from your bookshelf and look at the copyright page, you may see a sequence of numbers that looks something like this: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1. If a 1 is present, you've got yourself a First Edition, First Printing (1st/1st). If the 1 is omitted and the first number is a 2, then this is a second printing and so on and so forth.
     "I have a 1st/1st of The Deathly Hallows. That means it's rare, right?" No. Scholastic--the company that published the US Harry Potter series--knew that a lot of people were going to buy it, thus, there are thousands of 1st/1st copies floating around on the interwebs. This ties in with what I mentioned earlier: A book is released to the public knowing it will sell a million copies, a million people buy it, and then 3/4s of those people try to resell it. This is why you can purchase the book on Amazon for less then $5.00. Right now the supply does not meet the demand, and it will take a long time (if ever) for that to happen.

Question: "Ok. So my book is old, not readily available, and a first edition. Now it's worth money, right?"
Answer:   "Maybe."

Another key factor to determine worth is condition. A 1st/1st with a missing dust jacket, cracked hinge, missing pages, grape jelly stain, etc. is going to worth a lot less than a 1st/1st that doesn't have these blemishes. Someone who is willing to fork over the cash for the book is going to be far more hesitant to do so if the spine is messed up. Additionally, restoration can be very costly. In most cases, it is cheaper to buy a better condition book elsewhere than to pay someone to repair your beat-up copy.  

These are not all the questions, and I definitely don't have to time to list all the answers, so I recommend asking someone in the field if you're unsure. Just remember: Just as a car dealer can't determine the price of your trade in over the phone, neither can I do that with your old books. Not until Amazon releases their book teleportation device anyway.

"Even the great Edgar Cayce couldn't determine the price of a book over the phone."