“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is: ‘What are you doing for others?’”–the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King

xo–me

I spent the next weeks reading the recipes and and tips within.  Clearly the dishes are all created with butter, eggs and all the decadence of 50′s and 60′s recipes.  Each time I returned to the book, I found myself rereading the introduction.  It is a fascinating outlook of life in this era.  She speaks of her kids listening to records and of bureau drawers.  I love it and found myself rereading today and I decided to share.  Here it is in it’s entirety for your reading pleasure.

Introduction

I believe that the ability to prepare and serve good and attractive meals is a delightful feminine virtue.  The importance of this and of being a good housekeeper were drilled into me from the time I could walk. 

Like most Americans, I am a mixture.  I am Dutch, French, English, Irish–but in appearance and personality, strongly Dutch and for six generations my Holland heritage has been preserved reasonably intact.  On one hand, I had the influence of my mother, a third generation American of English and Irish descent, who strongly needed around her all of the aspects of gracious living but who found them difficult to achieve without servants.  She loved to entertain and liked cooking if it was part of this entertaining. 

On the other hand, in our household, almost from the time that I was born, was my aunt, brought up in the New York-Dutch-American tradition wherein a woman must know all of the household arts whether or not she has servants to instruct.  My Aunt Louise was the best housekeeper I have ever seen and one of the finest cooks.  Her bureau drawers were always ready for inspection and her closets a delight of organization.  My handsome grandfather, who looked like Charles Evans Hughes and lived to the rip age of ninety-five, was also a part of our household from my very early years.  His very firm opinions and ukases in the matter of food and the running of a household impressed and almost terrified us all.

The men in our family were all quite sure of their roles as men, which in my opinion is the way it should be.  My father and grandfather were never to be found in the kitchen mixing a cake.  They did, however consider it their proper prerogative to purchase and carry home from the Washington Market every bit of meat the household consumed.  The buying of meat, they held, was not a woman’s business, any more than was the carving of it.  I still think the art of carving belongs to the male, but I am willing to agree that women have had to learn how to buy meat, just as many of us have had to learn how to carve, either because the men in the family won’t or because there are no men in the family. 

When I was very young, about six, cooking was presented to me as a privilege.  You had to be responsible and orderly to be allowed to proceed in the kitchen.  I was permitted to prepare my own breakfast on Saturday mornings–but I had to clean up afterward. 

My own three sons are given the same privilege, although they are not held to the rigorous cleaning up that I was held to–if they stack their dishes and put the post in the sink, I’m satisfied.  They lend me their masculine talents in many ways–by changing fuses, by running the tape recorder for my writing, by taking out the garbage.  I taught them how to feed themselves well, but I don’t want them to become unduly taken with their culinary skills to the neglect of such masculine ones as wood chopping, for which they are better adapted than am I. 

Many people have said since the publication of Amy Vanderbilt’s Complete Book of Etiquette in 1952, that it should be followed by a complete cookbook.  For, of course, I can cook.  I enjoy preparing any kind of meal, but I prefer meals that have a special meaning–meals for guests.  I even manage to feel a little guilty if I don’t have some part in the preparation of every meal for guests.  No matter how tired or how busy I may be, I always rise to the occasion when a party is in the offing. 

Like my Dutch ancestors who daily went to market as European women do today, I, too, like to see the food I am buying for my household.  Not for me, except in an emergency, is the telephoned order.  I plan, of course, to use fruits and other foods in season to keep my food budget always at the proper point.  When entertaining runs a little heavy, I counterbalance it with economy meals for the family.  I am careful to see that leftovers are used, and perhaps because I have such a dislike of waste, I allow my considerable  family of pets to consume the scraps which otherwise might go into the garbage pail in another family. 

My children and I, despite my career, have a warm and loving relationship.  This comes partly, I believe, because they know that their mother, when necessity arises–and it certainly does–is able to run the household and feed them good meals under cheerful, happy circumstances no matter what happens.  Children get a great feeling of security knowing just this: that despite her necessary and often greatly enjoyed outside activities, a mother considers her children’s welfare first and is willing to contribute to it with her own domestic talents. 

The running of a home and preparation of food is creative.  This is something that too often is missed entirely in the education of our American girls.  In our increasingly intellectualized society, there is too little stress on the sound satisfactions there are in being able to put on the table an attractive, nutritious meal without strain.  Perhaps, however it is encouraging to see that the kitchen, at one time compressed to a mere cubby hole, is now expanding warmly into the “family room” where the mother and family are together in the preparation of meals.  The mother is no longer isolated. 

I have such a kitchen myself, where my children sit and do their homework, look at television, listen to records, read by the fire in an atmosphere free of “don’ts.”  Part of one wall is solid with cookbooks of every kind including some meant just for boys and girls. 

My training in cooking began at about the age of six, but in my early teens, I was sent to school in Europe to the Institute Heubi in Lausanne Switzerland.  There at the graduate school, the Villa, I studied home economics under expert tutelage before going on to college preparation at the secondary school, the Chateau. 

This was doing it the very hard way indeed, for in the graduate school all of the girls spoke excellent French.  In fact we were not permitted to speak any other language.  I began my culinary notebook in French not knowing what I was writing.  My cooking classes thus greatly depended on my home-trained ability in the kitchen, for I was there for a good three months without being able to talk with my instructors or with my fellow pupils.  It was the only three months in my whole life in which I knew what it must be like to be both deaf and dumb. 

In my school I learned not only haute cuisine, but all the arts of housekeeping, even to the pleating of nightgowns with a pleating iron.  For us there were not shortcut, no scouring powder (we used brickdust), no canned, dehydrated, or frozen foods.  Perhaps because of this training, I was once able to make a perfect zabaglione on a kerosene stove by the light of an oil lamp in a Virginia cabin! 

We sometimes hear complaints that women spend too much time in the exchange of recipes, that this is a very trifling activity indeed.  If this is so, then I am very guilty.  Many of the recipes in this book came to me in exchange from friends all over the world and, have become part of my own cookery repertoire.  When the routine of running house and office becomes irksome, I get out my recipe file and pull out one or more of these recipes that I have collected.  As I knead my Irish soda bread (I often use the mix that is available–imported form Dunloaghaire now), I recall the morning that I literally hung by my heels to kiss the Blarney Stone in Cork.  When I serve our fresh sweet corn, I fill the little individual butter dishes that I bought at the Vista Alegre porcelain plant in Portugal. When we prepare Swedish smorgasbord, my sons and I remember the lesson we learned in Stockholm–eat first the fish (herrings and seafoods), then the hot delicacies and meat, and finally the salads and cheese. 

I know many people so frightened of entertaining that they have one or two standard company meals and these they serve forth every time they have guests.  This sad poverty of cuisine is not for me.  I like to adventure in the realm of food.  I want my children to be able to accept a new dish, try it and, if possible, enjoy it as much as I do the serving of it. 

Although I find the actual preparation of food–from scratch–interesting, creative and challenging, I by no means, as you will see in the pages of this cookbook, spurn the use of quick methods.  The commercial cake mixes are wonderful and in most cases can be enjoyed even by the calorie-watcher.  I love the idea of being able to pick up from the freezer department of the supermarket find sauces from Maxim’s in Paris, baby brussels sprouts quick-frozen in Holland, or pastry quick-frozen in wonderful Copenhagen. 

The United States is a fine place for gourmets–for anyone who likes good food with or without having the technical knowledge of preparing it.  Or for anyone with a penchant for the exotic.  I was pleased when my then twelve-year-old spent some of his allowance on a jar of chocolate covered bees!

I hope that as you work from these pages with me, you will travel to many of the places I have been and enjoy the specialties of some of the fine restaurants where I have been a guest.  Often where there is a very personal reason for my including a recipe in this collection, I have told you why in a footnote to the recipe. 

My own training as a cook has been technical in a different way than is the technical training of a home economist in this country.  I was, however, for many years a food editor and am very familiar with American cookery methods and the developments of food preparations in this country.  However, I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Miss Florence Brobeck who has tested these recipes in her capacity as a trained American home economist.  A tyro in the kitchen can produce any recipe here successfully.  The cooking time is exact and the number of portions are indicated.  Possible difficulties in the more complex recipes are carefully described. 

No cookbook fills all needs.  If there were such a book I would have it and not the 300-odd books now in my collection.  I have tried, however, in my own cookbook to compile one that will help the beginning cook and be a constant inspiration to the woman who must plan and produce three or more meals a day and meals for entertaining.  There are things here that will challenge the very good cook indeed, but on the other hand there are many, many easy recipes for the cook who must hurry.  The technical discussion on the purchase and preparations of certain foods are Miss Brobeck’s, the result of her own fine professional background and experience.  I have learned much from this contribution of hers. 

Like my etiquette book, this book has taken years of preparation.  Its production as given me much pleasure.  I hope that you will enjoy it, too. 

Amy Vanderbilt

I know it’s a good bit to read but I hope you enjoyed the journey back in time.  I really enjoyed the vision in the kitchen as a space where family would gather while the meals were being prepared.  Oh how Ms. Vanderbilt would have loved our modern spaces.

xo–me

As long time readers know, I turn to Nany for recipes, household knowledge, and general wisdom as I think she knows the answer to just about everything.  Thus why there is an entire category entitled “Nany Knows“.  Her slippery pot pie is my favorite and as I have traveled the world, tasting others pot pie, nothing compares to hers.  I have yet to perfect the recipe, my ribbons of dough never have the flavor they should.  It is my goal this year to figure out what I am doing wrong and share that recipe with you.

I know many of you are lucky enough to have grandparents in your life today.  I am very fortunate to have had grandparents my entire adult life.  I even had a great-grandmother until my mid-30′s.  Today, like every day, I feel blessed to have Nany.  She is my moral compass and my dear friend.  I turn to her for advice, a smile or a wonderful hug when my day is blue.  Her lessons in my life are too abundant to count.

Today I celebrate the birth of a wonderful lady, friend and teacher.  Happy Birthday Nany.

xo–me

My 2011 has been the most unexpected year of my life.  While I thought that honor would go to 2010 when I moved from Los Angeles to NYC, it paled in comparison.  I spent most of the year wondering how I would ever find my way back to the things I once loved, including this site.  I hope I am able to turn the page with the dawn of a new year and come home here to write for you much more frequently than I did in 2011.  I do hope you will return with me.  Your emails mean the world to me.

There are many New Year’s messages floating around today online, on TV, and as headlines in the papers.  Most are wishes of success and for the greatest year of one’s life.  Many of you will use this new day on the calendar as a reason to set goals and change your behavior for the better.  Some of you will find yourself quitting a bad habit or working to develop good ones.  Not me.  Not this year.  Don’t get me wrong, I wish all those things for everyone and want each of you to have exactly what you wish in life.  This year, I am only focused on two areas of my life.  This year I will be wishing/praying/willing-it-so-with-my-Jedi-skills for what I believe to be the only two things that truly matter in life.  Health and happiness.  I have traveled a year without those two things and I must admit, I took them for granted.  I also never realized how two elements of one’s life permeate every layer of one’s being.  Lesson learned.

So today I raise my glass of Dom with health and happiness in my heart.  Here’s to a wonderful new year.

xo–me

As I have in years past, I am putting the spotlight on a man who I believe is a magnificent father–my brother.  I have written about him many times here so many may be familiar.  For those who do not know, my brother and I were born on the same day, four years apart.  We were siblings growing up but became friends when we became adults.  Last year when he was diagnosed with brain cancer, our relationship moved to an entirely different level.

Garnet is father to young William or as I like to refer to him as–the Holy Terror.  He is three and discovering everything.  Nothing is off base for his very intelligent and inquisitive mind.  He is loving, articulate and frightfully sharp.  I believe he is this dynamic little man because of the hard work of my brother (and his wife, who I consider my sister).

Almost every week, I get to have Will TV time and read to my nephew.  Garnet makes sure we have some giggles,  Will tells me some stories and Will remains engaged for at least 5 minutes.  A lifetime for 3-year-old.  It’s a gift I cherish more and more with each passing week.

Garnet is patient and kind.  He uses every ‘situation’ as a teachable moment for William.  He can play and clown but is a very serious disciplinarian.  All the ingredients of a compassionate and perfect father.

Happy Father’s Day Garnet.  I can’t wait to see what each passing year brings for you and William.

xo–me

In the meantime, here is my tip for a Friday.  I mean, I can be my own friend, right?

Freeze-dried berries are the perfect ingredient for fillings or frostings.  They add a punch of flavor without the extra liquid.

Enjoy the weekend!

xo–me

I am guilty like most of taking our freedoms for granted at times.  I can’t imagine not being able to go to church where I wish, believing as I choose.  I can’t begin to ponder dressing as a government dictated.  I never think of most of the daily actions I make because they are so routine to my every day life.   I am sitting here tapping away on my laptop. listening to great music–all of my choice.  All of these things I do, believe and live are because of our country’s freedoms and how they are protected every day by the men & women in uniform.  I hope I am always grateful to them for their sacrifice.

Today I am reflective of the men and women who have given the ultimate sacrifice for me.  They will never again hear the sweet sound of a bird chirping at 5AM at their parents home.  Never again will they take someone on a date for a cold, refreshing ice cream and lemonade.  They won’t get to take their nephew to the park and spoil him rotten.  Nor learn how to make apple dumplings from their Nany.  The one moment I have been taking for granted lately is my heart’s greatest burden.  The soldiers in those caskets won’t ever be able to support their brother in his fight against cancer.  I take so much for granted, I find myself ashamed.

Please thank a soldier the next time you see one even if you are a total stranger to him/her.  The smile will be the largest you have ever seen.  Be prepared to put on your sunglasses.

xo–me

I have been silent for a long time.  When I look at the last time I shared a word with you, it has been many, many weeks.  Much too long for someone who likes to share and chat every day.  I hope you will accept my apology for being so quiet.

As you know from this post, my brother Garnet is fighting cancer.  After doctor’s appointments and research on these recommendations, Garnet started chemo and radiation and found his new normal. I found myself not caring much about anything other than him, his wife, his son and our family.  I had no energy for cooking, baking, entertaining or sharing my view of modern manners.  No energy nor interest.  It’s funny how something you love and cherish each day can be tossed aside in a moment.  I now know that I need this site and you to help me battle these demons I have in my heart every day.

I need to build my new normal as Garnet continues his journey of winning.  I hope you will stay with me and continue to support Hey Amy!  It’s a big part of my life and something I am proud to share with you each day.  Thanks for having me back!

xo–me

My brother, like most of us, has great health insurance.  Unfortunately, being ill in America means you have to be Donald Trump.  I cannot imagine what families do when they don’t have insurance.  My eyes have been open to so much in these last few months.  Regardless of his coverage, his bills are beginning to mount.  Throughout this process I have done my best to relieve any stress from his life and one area that a need existed was becoming clear to me–money.  I encouraged him to allow me to create Team Garnet merchandise so his friends and family could show public support with gear as well as giving him a few dollars to help with the bills.  Today we say goodbye to radiation and hello to Team Garnet uniforms.  The store launches today and I hope you will pick up something that surely will be the fashion statement of Spring 2011.  If you don’t need a uniform, you can give something that doesn’t require a single dollar.  Go to my brother’s blog and give him some words of encouragement.  It doesn’t matter if you know him or not.  As I see it, we are all connected here in our journey.  Be good to one another.

xo–me

It should be thick and heavy, with a lip for pouring away surplus fat.  It should never be washed until it is well seasoned but should be wiped out with absorbent paper towel while still hot.

Food can be prevented from sticking by ‘proving’ the pan.  Melt a little fat in the bottom, remove from the heat, add a handful of salt and rub it thoroughly with a rough cloth.

Nothing beats having a cast iron skillet.  Find one online or at an estate sale.  Or perhaps you will be very lucky and inherit one from your grandmother.  Be good to your tools and retire them when you need to.

xo–me