This year, being the first time in four longish years that me and all my stuff has been in the same place and has had room to be unpacked, I've begun an exercise in sorting. Even downsizing, although I'm not sure that what I'm accomplishing can really be called downsizing...
I did manage, this past weekend, to go through 4 of my bookshelves and take out a whole box of books. Plus I created a pile of "books to be reviewed" which is just a fancy way of saying...
"Read them in the next 6 months or they're gone next go-around."I have not yet managed to convince myself to get rid of any of my cookbooks, or any of my coffee table books, and it is truly debatable which pile Mrs. Beeton's instruction manual belongs in.
Originally published in 1861, it is now approximately 74 chapters and 2000 pages long.
Yesterday, staying home sick from work and taking the opportunity to attempt a monthly menu plan, I looked at all my cookbooks, and was distracted by a chapter on veal and how incredible a mother cow's instincts are...
847. THE COW GOES WITH YOUNG FOR NINE MONTHS, and the affection and solicitude she evinces for her offspring is more human in its tenderness mid intensity than is displayed by any other animal; and her distress when she hears its bleating, and is not allowed to reach it with her distended udders, is often painful to witness, and when the calf has died, or been accidentally killed, her grief frequently makes her refuse to give down her milk. At such times, the breeder has adopted the expedient of flaying the dead carcase, and, distending the skin with hay, lays the effigy before her, and then taking advantage of her solicitude, milks her while she is caressing the skin with her tongue.
The Book of Household Management, Mrs. Isabella Beeton
Also, there is a whole section that has meal plans (including table setting layouts for each course) for a variety of meals - casual family dinners up to 12-course meals... for a whole year!!! The more I think about it, the more it becomes a coffee table book.
