Throwback: The Right (Cook) Book at the Right Time

Over the years, I’ve dabbled in cooking Mexican recipes in an effort to make at home what we couldn’t easily find here in the Midwest. Along the way, I discovered Diana Kennedy’s amazing cookbook The Art of Mexican Cooking. I make her pan de muerto and rosca de reyes recipes every year. Her recipes have become a part of our family tradition. It’s a beautiful cookbook full of recipes as well as background and cultural information for each recipe or chapter. It’s a little bit like traveling Mexico through Kennedy’s eyes (or stomach).

Throwback: The Right (Cook) Book at the Right Time

I received The Art of Mexican Cooking as a gift a few years ago. It wasn’t long before I was hooked on her writing and recipes. Though calling it a ‘cookbook’ hardly seems to do her justice. I coveted Kennedy’s other cookbooks, but couldn’t justify splurging on myself when I already had a perfectly lovely copy of The Art of Mexican Cooking.

A few nights ago I was looking for an authentic horchata recipe for my son’s class project. I didn’t find one in Kennedy’s cookbook so I went back to my bookshelf. I found a cookbook given to me by my mother-in-law- Cocina Yucateca, Tomo 1- but I wasn’t up for translating the entire recipe for a class cookbook. Then I stumbled across an unfamiliar cookbook- Recipes from the Regional Cooks of Mexico by Diana Kennedy. What? I didn’t remember buying it, but I cracked it open and settled in, thrilled to find I had a new Diana Kennedy book to discover. A few pages in I found this note.

Throwback: The Right (Cook) Book at the Right Time

The note is at least ten years old; about the last time I talked with Woody. I met Woody, a retired veteran with an enormous appetite for the written word, while working at the library. Each time he visited the library, I’d learn a little more of his incredible life story. He was a born storyteller. I was a writer. It was inevitable that we would connect. I invited him to coffee where I proposed he tell me his story and I would write it down. He agreed and we met every few weeks. His life unfolded onto my notebook.

He was a master of language. A word magician. I reveled in his stories about studying at the New School for Social Research in New York, a cold and wealthy philatelist father, and a mother who everyone called Johnie because “you had to give her a male name. She was hell on wheels”. I wanted to capture every story that came out of his mouth.

The only difference between a rut and a grave is depth {Life as a Field Trip}
A favorite quotation used often by one of Woody’s teachers at the New School for Social Research.

Sadly, I didn’t get to record more of his life. When I became a mother, we lost track of each other. He sent me cards and letters occasionally, but I haven’t seen him in many years. I miss those talks over coffee.

Until this week I hadn’t thought about Woody in ages. How serendipitous that I would find this cookbook (and a flood of memories) when I could appreciate its value. It really was ‘Terra’s book’. I just didn’t know it until now.

 

 

 

 

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