Everyday Food editor Sandy Gluck yesterday posted a tweet asking followers about kitchen gadget collections. That post got me thinking about my cookbook collection which is composed of mostly vintage editions procured at garage sales, online and used bookstores. I’ve been fascinated with the books since I was a kid. I was that odd child people talk about. On weekends when my peers were watching cartoons I would watch Julia Child on PBS. And in between the Nancy Drew novels I would peruse my mother’s cookbooks.

The first, and most often used, was Betty Crocker’s Cookbook, the 1972 edition with the ‘red pie’ on the cover (1). I remember pulling out the book one day when my mom was out running errands and deciding I would make an apple pie—I believe it was around 4^th or 5^th grade. I can’t remember how it tasted—let’s hope it was tasty.

We used the cookbook mostly for baking; cookies, cakes, brownies and quick breads. Many weekends were spent in the kitchen fighting with my brothers over who would lick the mixer paddles. I actually can’t recall any ‘meal’ made from the book. Instead, most dinners at our house were put together from family recipes long stored in our heads.

And this is how I thought about cooking—Italian family recipes mixed with some ‘Americanized’ deserts—until I was a Jr. in High School. I spent the summer between 10^th and 11^th grade in an exchange program in France, and when I returned I was enamored of all things French. I wanted to be French, speak better French, live in France and most importantly eat like the French. It was upon my return back home that I discovered a strange cookbook that I had never touched before. It had been sitting there on the kitchen bookshelf my entire life with its Fleur de Lys, the roast beef on the cover and the black and white picture of chefs on the back. Of course I’m talking about Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child. And even though Julia mesmerized me on TV, it had never occurred to me to open the book and actually cook those dishes.

But there it was full of foods I had never heard of and ingredients we never stocked in our house. My first conquest was Mousseline au Chocolat-chocolate mouse. Pages 604-605 are forever blemished with my chocolate fingerprints. I’ve since taken the book off my mother’s shelf and it now lives with me.

I made the mousse for a French class project–filled my mother’s mustard yellow Tupperware bowl with the mouse, boarded the bus and brought it to class. Mind you this was 1990/1991. The cool kids were certainly not reading French cookbooks, instead they were discovering Seattle grunge and skateboarding. Just another reason why I was very happy when high school was over. And while both Julia and Kurt Cobain are gone, I still have my chocolate mousse, onion soup and boeuf bourguignon recipes.

(1) Mom, it was the 1972 edition, right?

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What Einstein Told His Cook by Robert Wolke. Just a few diagrams of triglycerides and other molecular structures. Yes, I did nearly fail out of high-school chemistry — perhaps my teacher should have made us eat our work. Then I may have had a chance.

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