SC - Book on Cordials?

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Hi, Huette

>Yes, I am a librarian.  I have access to my library's
>inter-library computerized catalog.  This is called
>RLIN, and comes from UC Berkeley.  RLIN stands for
>Research Library Information Network.  Only libraries
>subscribe to it because it is mega-expensive to
>subscribe to.  I don't know the exact figures, but it
>is somewhere (IIRC) about $100,000 per year.  I have
>access to it because I am an acquisitions librarian,
>but it really is a cataloging tool.

Yeah, that's definitely beyond my budget.

>  > I got "In a Caliph's Kitchen" by David Waines
>>  through my local public
>>  library via ILL after unsuccessfully trying to find
>>  a used copy for
>>  around 9 months. The librarian said he was only able
>>  to locate 3
>>  libraries in the US with copies.
>
>I have a copy of this cookbook.  Want me to xerox it
>for you?

Thank you for your generous offer. They managed to get it from U-Minn 
and i photocopied it.

>As for other libraries that have it, there are copies
>in Yale, University of Minnesota Minneapolis,
>Columbia, New York Public,  and University of
>Pennsylvania.  Harvard has two copies of this in
>Arabic.

The librarian said it was missing from at least one of the other 
libraries he contacted. Alas, i don't read Arabic, but i'll be taking 
an all day class in it at our next Kingdom Collegium in May, where 
i'll be teaching knitting Medieval Egyptian socks.

For others who may be interested in Waines' book, it has a very 
useful historic information chapter at the front. Then the rest of 
the book has his redaction (with which i don't necessarily agree) on 
one page facing a page with a color photo of his dish below which is 
a translation of the original recipe in English. Since every two 
pages has just one dish, the book doesn't present a massive amount of 
recipes.

Although i prefer to blunder my own way through the dishes, i find it 
instructive to look at the "redactions" of others and compare them 
with mine (sometimes raving at the ridiculous way the other person 
made the dish :-) as well as with the original recipe.

Anahita al-shazhiyya