THE SEEK AND DISCOVER MISSIONS NEVER CEASE -

SOME OLD COOKBOOKS BUT A VOID OF HANDWRITTEN GEMS

In the antique and collectible trade, you live by the saying, “never say never!” There are windfalls and droughts in the collecting enterprise. Since beginning this site about a year ago, it has been one of those hiatus periods dealers and collectors dread but anticipate. Without warning you will frequently run into dry-spells that can last a week or several years between big finds. As an art collector.....who sells numerous art pieces annually, I can usually find ten or more good quality paintings every month, out on the normal day to day hustings. Nothing requiring several hundred miles of motoring or extreme exertion on our part, to make quality finds. Just passive, enjoyable travel between source businesses and yard sales. Not going to an art auction or even art gallery exhibit. I can’t afford their prices but I can usually find some high quality pieces in second hand shops, flea markets, yard sales and a few moderately priced antique shops. It’s the same now as cookbooks and handwritten recipes. I expect to find some each month. At the very least, a couple of old cookbooks done by church groups as fundraisers. Here’s what happens.

Take for example, Martha Stewart books. As they relate to home entertaining and an interesting array of seasonal recipes my wife likes to collect, I started a mission to acquire all of her books, and I didn’t mind duplicates. The holy grail would be a signed first edition of “Entertaining,” from the early 1980's, which can sell for around $200 and up. I’ve sold a couple of unsigned first editions before I got this idea to collect all her work. When I began this Martha campaign, I could find her books all over the place. I was finding one or two a week. I was even turning down those in less than pristine condition, because I assumed with the abundant supply, I could afford to be picky about things like condition.

I wrote a column about my interest in Martha Stewart first editions, for a feature publication, “Curious; The Tourist Guide,” which is available in Central and Southern Ontario, via many gift and antique related businesses. I got many kind comments and praise for this tribute to Martha Stewart, and her contribution to home entertaining, food preparation, decorating and the antique business particularly. Her creativity expressed in these books, has certainly helped businesses like ours, selling vintage decorator pieces, antiques and collectibles.....from kitchen ware to vintage glass and pottery. And what happens when the writer / antique hunter gets too liberal with enthusiasm for a subject, usually ends the same. I didn’t know my readership was that high. Shortly after the article ran, last spring (I believe), the shortage of Martha Stewart books became quite noticeable on the shelves of the same places I acquire most of my vintage wares. Being excited about what you collect, and publishing this, often leads to copy-cat purchasing. I’m delighted to promote her work but disappointed I’ve created a new interest in her earlier first editions. Such that there are now many more hands reaching for those few remaining editions. Vendors are putting up the prices and even old book shops are keeping Martha’s books in stock because of growing demand for her earlier works. Even the unauthorized biographies, while annoying to her, have done quite the reverse for cookbook collectors. Those who find her a fascinating study and amazing personality, despite the “tell-alls,” her own books get even more attention. With more interest the more you expect price increases, especially for first editions in pristine condition.

“Entertaining,” is a sweetheart of a book, because it was landmark in the creation of new interest in an old theme......the dinner party, with a new and exciting emphasis. It wasn’t just for the wealthy. It was for any one with a devotion to good food, elegant presentation and a genuine interest in sharing with others. It has gone into reprint many times, but this milestone book, as a first edition, becomes more valuable over time. Obviously there are many folks turned-on by her myriad of books that have been on the market since “Entertaining” was first released. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve showed up at the check-out counter, at some regional second hand shop, with a Martha Stewart cookbook in tow, and been asked by someone else line; ‘Where did you find that book......I’ve been looking everywhere for that one......you’re lucky. Say, you don’t want to sell it, do you?” I might agree, at this point, to sell one from our home collection if it’s the lesser of the two in terms of condition. My mission is to have a pristine copy of each of her books, and a signed “Entertaining,” which I’m presently in hot pursuit of one on the market. The others I will sell off eventually through our on-line old book enterprise.

My point is this. As I have made a sweeping editorial move to promote handwritten recipes as paper heritage / heirlooms, suddenly there is an extreme shortage of material out on the hustings. While I’m not so vain as to believe it was my writing prowess and popularity that did this, I do believe that many shopkeeps, of businesses I check frequently, have probably re-considered how they sell-off these usual bundles of recipes pulled from old cookbooks and auction job-lots of vintage paper. I’ve educated more than a few of these folks, in other collectible areas, and it should have been obvious to me, when I wrote the blog-site and published the short series of articles in “Curious: The Tourist Guide,” that I would suffer some after-shock. Particularly the increase in prices for such random bundles that used to cost well under ten dollars for several hundred, to twenty and thirty dollars for about fifty beaten-up pieces of paper now. Some are even framing them as I suggested. While I’m always chagrined by these turns of capitalism, I’m delighted by the fact more and more people are conserving this historic paper that might have been discarded. The fact I’ve interested some folks to take better care of these handwritten gems, does make me feel better, even though I’ve had this hiatus thrown my way......that I should have expected but didn’t.

In the winter, when highway travel is often precarious, here in the snowbelt, Suzanne and I huddle about the kitchen, where something, these cold days, is always in some state of creation, and it is all very intoxicating to a man supposedly on a life-preserving diet. Suzanne has none the less, been whipping up some wonderful, low calorie meals and desserts, and I really haven’t suffered much at all, over the past two months of caloric reduction. And she very much relies on her grandmother’s handwritten recipe collection to get us from here to there.....and a lesser belt-size. Good old hardy food didn’t have to be crazy with calories. Suzanne has stuck with Canada’s Food Guide nutrition information for years. The only reason I have gained weight, is our weekly treat of going out to dinner. Treating myself got me to the point of being fifty pounds over my ideal weight. Suzanne’s kitchen moxie has brought me down twenty of those excess pounds in less than two months. I’ve been re-introduced to spinach which I gave up when my mother stopped lecturing me about “Popeye.” “If it’s good enough to help Popeye fight the bad guys, it’s good enough for you!”

I just wanted you to know I haven’t stopped collecting handwritten recipes, or vintage cookbooks when they pop up somewhere on the old-book-hunt. But as I have written about before, there are times when you just can’t get past the issue of supply and demand......and the fact there are only a few auctions a year, and only a small portion, actual estate sales, that would traditionally reveal kitchen heirlooms like family recipe books. Yet just as the drought commenced, it will end again one day soon, and for months on end, I will be able to make-up for the shortfall now. Keep watching this blog for more regular updates. During this calm on the recipe collecting front, I’ve been busy on my other blog-sites (you can check them out) and many feature writing gigs here in Ontario. Although collecting hasn’t been doing too good recently, writing has been at its peak. It’s been a snowy old winter, and my chair at hearthside has been a perfect writer’s nook since Christmas. My wife has a list of about a thousand improvements, to be made this year to her gardens, here at Birch Hollow, so I’m resting up where and when I can.

Watch for more additions to this site in the near future.