Back in 1986 at my bridal shower my cousin Charlott gave me a cookbook….I used it lots and lots. Some of my most used recipes came from there….pancakes, waffles, baking powder biscuits, french toast, oatmeal cookies, split peas soup and many more. It’s been so used…
It’s been years without a binding.
This is the favorite page..can you tell?? Much of the destruction of this page is courtesy of Kelli..as a kid she cooked lots but she would always keep the recipe book right next to the mixing bowl. Things would splash and spill.
The last time I pulled it out to make pancakes I had decided that I either needed to copy these recipes down or I would soon be regretting it. The pages are truly just slowly rotting wasting away…but did I copy the recipes down…no.
So the very next time I was at the local thrift store, look what I found…. HAPPY!!!!!!!!!!!!
I gladly paid my $1.50 and took it home with me. By the way, this is what the well used page is suppose to look like. This is an oldie cookbook but surely a goodie.
I am thinking I have 28 more good years of cooking in my yet and I’ll be glad to be taking this cookbook with me.
I just want to say thanks to cousin Charlott for giving me the original as a shower gift. We’ve obviously loved it!!
I made sure my boys left home with Betty Crocker. The only one I refer to more for basics is Fannie Farmer. But the new one my kids gave me a couple of years ago doesn’t match the old paperback that was falling apart. I need to copy my favorites before it turns to dust.
Good find! I love mine, too. The peanut brittle recipe is awesome. I have made the butter breadsticks for years when there’s nothing in the house to serve with spaghetti. :) My Dad loved the broiled cake frostings.
I was married in 1978 and got one of these then, although it has a different type of binding. Our favorite (most used) page is the one with the brownie recipe!
Oh, yes — also love that book to pieces! The other well-loved and used book is the “Betty Crocker Cooky Book” — so many favorites in that one.
I was married in 1968 and I, too, received this cookbook as a gift. I have used it a lot. I have used the pie pages a lot. It is a great cookbook. I also used the Better Homes and Garden cookbook a lot……both gifts from 1968.
You bet, BC’s pancake recipe is the best–once in a while use home churned buttermilk. :-) I think one of my sister’s gave me mine in 1971; notebook pages, but similar condition as yours! Great find, and I’m sure Charlott doesn’t mind the replacement.
I was married in 1964, my husband gave me the Better Homes and Garden cookbook for my birthday a month before we were married. Great hint. Still using the cookbook, still have the same husband. His Mother gave me her Mother’s cookbook from the late Eighteen hundreds. All kinds of cures in the back. Headaches, consumption, rheumatism. Those old remedies are still being used today. Good recipes and good advice. Enjoy your new old find.
When I got married in 1976, I was given this exact same cookbook — but the cover didn’t say “New and Revised.” Decades later, when it started falling apart, I adopted an extra copy which my mother-in-law had squirreled away.
I loved the recipes for buttermilk pancakes and waffles. Before I got married I used to think that I didn’t like pancakes. Turns out I just didn’t like pancake mix. The real thing is delicious.
Me, too! Mine dates to 1959. Its cover is a ring binder, whose front and back covers are hanging on by threads. My favorite recipe is the Apple Brown Betty.
I have this exact cookbook too! I must not cook as much as you since mine looks almost brand new!
I do have a bookmark on the pancake page and spills on the sweet bread page.
What a blessing! I love hearing about thrift store finds such as your cook book!
I was married in 1978, have that cookbook and it looks as well used as yours! I love it and refer to it all the time. It is now falling apart. I wish I could find a new old copy but living in Sweden that is kind of hard! I did buy a newer version for my kids a while back but it does not have all the basics in it. I will go thrifting on my next US visit and maybe I will find one:)
A familiar treasure to many of us. My mother bought 6 copies of this exact Betty Crocker cook book with some kind of trading stamps or something when I was young. She put each of us 6 kid’s initials on the spine of them and said she planned to give each of us our copy when we left home. It is still my favorite to this day. I took the time to read it cover to cover many years ago and learned a lot of basics. The can’t live with out tip that comes to mind is how to make gravy without lumps. Cindy
wow! funny- my BC cookbook looks exactly like that! and I even knew (without looking) that that was page 198!
Great find!!! Now that you have this lovely recipe book, do tell if there is a recipe for meatloaf with a homemade BBQ sauce? I lost my recipe book and can’t find my favorite recipe for meatloaf with homemade BBQ sauce…5 ingredients in the sauce…ketchup, lemon juice, brown sugar and I don’t remember the other two!!! Maybe one day I’ll find that book again! So glad you found a new one for you!!!
I got mine as a Christmas gift in 1977 six months before I was married. The same page in mine is in pretty bad shape from 36 years of making biscuits. My grandmother actually thought my biscuits were better than hers, which was quite an accomplishment.
I can’t remember if it was Top Value or Green Stamps, but I bought my Better Crocker cookbook with grocery stamps 43 year ago! I still use it and I have a couple of pages that need to be copied. You made me smile when I read your blog! Thank you!
What a fabulous stroke of luck! I traded my copy of one Betty Crocker for the exact one of my Mother’s when she passed on; she was not quite as frenetic a cook. I kept the first one I got, in 1967, and I also have a really early one that my Grandmother used. Each of them has different covers, and lots of different recipes, which seem to follow food trends. I keep them because they have so many treasured recipes made from scratch, but I continually look for “newer” old ones.
That is too cute! What a lucky find. :)
-Brittany
Lots of treasured memories lie between the pages of a cookbook like that!