SC - Hodgepodge of recent culinary acquisitions

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Hullo, the list!

I had the painful duty to help break up and find homes for a lot of
property in the home of an old friend, now, sadly, unable to care for
herself or be left alone for any length of time, and the degree and
nature of the care required necessitated putting her in a full-time
residence for the elderly.

Some of the items less easy to find homes for, or convert to cash for
the lady's care, as in the case of the thousands of dollars worth of art
books, were left in the lady's apartment after the furniture was
removed. Much of it went to the old folks' home, and then some of it may
have been absconded with by certain unscrupulous apartment building
functionaries -- not my call, my decision, or my problem; I was not the
Living Will executor, just a strong back and a weak mind.

It seems the stupidthieves saw fit to remove things like a color
television and an electric meat grinder still in its unopened box. Left
behind were only _worthless_ items like several cast iron skillets and
grill pans, six matching, tinned, corrugated, thin sheet-iron cookie
sheets, several cake cooling racks made before 1950, several matching
tinned copper mugs (maybe beer steins), _several_espresso services with
the old-style pots you have to turn over before pouring, a Wedgewood
cheese pot, and _numerous_ cookbooks. These include what may, for all I
know, be a complete set of the Time-Life International Cookbook Series,
with the separate little spiral-bound recipe books: I think there are 28
volumes and 28 little recipe supplements, plus another 28-volume set of
Time-Life Basic Cookery Course books, with exciting titles such as,
"Veal," and "Pastry." Oh, and the 1955 Luchow's German Restaurant
cookbook, and an unopened, still-wrapped-in-plastic copy of the 1985
American edition of the Larousse Gastronomique. 

I had extremely mixed feelings about all this; it was a little creepy
stealing Mr. Scrooge's sheets, as it were, but I suspect it would be
better for these items to go to people that would love and care for them
than to some nameless, faceless profiteer.

Of course, at this point I no longer have a living room ;  ) ...
 
I just had this little movie play in my head where a bunch of SCAdian
and non-SCAdian cooks are going through this kindly little old lady's
things, and saying, "Hey, that's a nice new color TV. I hope you find a
home for that; it looks expensive, it would be a shame to have it go to
waste, but I don't especially want it. However, I'll knife-fight
_anybody_ for the Time-Life cookbooks..."

Adamantius, after a long day which probably shows...
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com