MENU PLAN THIS (OR HOW COOKBOOKS FAILED ME)

ONE more week and the last of our lot heads back to school for his final year. One more year, ya hear that? One more year of school terms a...


ONE more week and the last of our lot heads back to school for his final year. One more year, ya hear that? One more year of school terms and school holidays and the kind of routine that rolls with them because you know what, it’s boring, isn’t it? No, go on, it is.


Maybe it’s another wet weekend that’s done it to me, but I am bored to snores with the routine of our busy household. The chores are all done and there’s always food in the fridge but man, oh man, I’m kickin’ against knowing what’s going to be on the table three days ahead of time and eating the same portable lunch day in, day out because it travels well on the two-hour commute, doesn’t leak and doesn’t smell. Kickin’, I tells ya.


I swear the growing collection of old cook books is about looking for that perfect recipe. You know the one? It’s the one where all the ingredients are in the cupboard. The one everyone will like: the vegetarian, the meat-eater who hates vegetables, the diet-conscious and the carb-loader. The one you can whip out for guests and have on the table looking like it was no effort at all. Every time I bring a 50c cookbook home from the op shop, I scour it for some wisdom of the past, reading menu planners, ingredients and quantities like I am consulting an oracle.


So many cook books come out each and every season, and we, chumps all, buy them but, truth be told, the two cookbooks pulled from our shelves more often than not are old kindergarten and school fundraiser. Each one of those recipe bears the name of a women who’d baked and boiled and broiled and mashed and marinaded until she could do no more and turned instead to that one true fool-proof, time-saving, cost-effective dish – and bless her, she shared it.


What’s your one dish wonder?



 

The Family Cookbook: (Published on behalf of Stork Cookery Bureau, 1971), 50c, Vinnies
Kitchen Fun For Everyone: A cookbook for boys and girls: (Published on behalf of The Australian Dried Fruits Association, date unknown), $2, House of Stuff
Tooled leather purse: 50c, Vinnies
Willow Australia pie plate: $4, Salvos

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