I love cookbooks, even ones without photographs. (Although I do prefer ones with them.) So when Earl gave me a cookbook assembled in 1998 by the congregants of St. Peter’s United Church of Christ in St. Joseph, Michigan, it reminded me of other quirky cookbooks I’ve collected over the years.
The St. Peter’s version is titled “Sharing Our Best”; and since many attendees at this church were German, their influence is truly seen in this cookbook. It’s also a sad note that the church itself is currently for sale and many of its members from 1998 are long gone.
Still, the cookbook remains a special legacy. There are multiple lasagna recipes, multiple soup recipes with the same ingredients, and multiples of other recipes too. Nobody was left out. I like that.
Years ago, my friend Judi belonged to a church that also created a cookbook in 1981. It was called “A Measure of Love,” and I still cull recipes from it. Then there is my own upstate New York family’s favorite recipes, organized in 1995, into another cookbook.
These three volumes are all comb bound, a great thing. They open and stay opened to the respective page, where other – fancier, hardbound – cookbooks can’t. They are all solid and un-fancy in presentation. And they are treasures not to be found in giant bookstores or on Amazon.
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