The Retro Cook Book Bonanza!

I waited for the 'Friends of the Danbury Public Library' book sale all year!  This isn't your typical book sale - it's huge and raises bucket loads of money...bucket loads.  This event occurs usually during the first or second weekend in October and is publicized widely for weeks beforehand.  There is a rare book section, videos, music and ephemera of all kinds!  I attend with the sole purpose of hunting down the reference books that add fuel to this blog and fulfill me in some very odd way.  These are books like no other!  Below is a pic of the vast athletic center filled with books that have been categorized by teams of volunteers that staff and run this sale selflessly every year. 

Danbury PAL building

At the front door of the PAL center facing Candlewood Lake

 


On the day the sale opens they charge admission for serious collectors and prices are the highest but as the days go by, the prices drop and by the last day you are allowed to fill a paper bag with books, videos or music for $5.00!  For parents of young children and teachers it is a windfall!  For someone like myself who is hunting for that perfect cook book it's all about the hunt.  I'm happy to say that I was able to secure a Meta Givens cook book from 1953.  It didn't have a jacket and was not the 1942 edition I was looking for but I felt like I had won a prize!  I did walk away with a 1926 cook book by Alice Foote MacDougall called 'Coffee and Waffles' and another cook book by Lily Haxworth Wallace called, 'Just for Two' (subtitled A Handbook of Cookery for the Small Household).  That one was published in 1942.  I was also thrilled to run across a small book by Joan Reardon titled, 'M.F.K. Fisher - Among the Pots and Pans'.  If you're serious about American food history then you know that Fisher is a food writer extraordinaire.  It's part biography but mostly a celebration of her life as a food writer.  Perfect.  I picked up other gems that I'll share with you this month.  Let's just say I'm not done talking about Chafing dishes yet...at all.