la cuisine de bonne femme

Having some extra time tonight since I am hiding inside from the cold I thought I might post tonight about the kind of cooking I aspire to. I saw the term in the introduction to Olney's Lulu's Provencal table and that term is la cuisine de bonne femme- the cooking of the good wife. In other words- good home cooking. I am not a good wife since I am no wife at all and never have been. I am too stubborn, opinionated,and fractious to have ended up as anyone's grandmother. But I am a good cook, though I am self taught. I love to eat and even though I only cook for myself I do not mind the effort. 15 years ago my passion was gardening, but now that I live in an apartment I must be content with a shady porch and a sunny foyer and the constraints of digging in containers. I love my plants, but my passion for them has dimmed into mere affection. Passion needs to burn somewhere, and now the conflagration is in my tiny kitchen. I do not know how many cookbooks I can stuff into this small space, but if it requires evicting my Library of America Faulkners I will do it. My father loved Faulkner, but one reading of Light in August was enough for me. I can always find the Snopes family at the library though probably not in the Bellevue branch which is entirely devoted to James Patterson and Ladyfiction. I opt though to keep Richard Olney and James Beard here with me. My cookbooks are now not only in the kitchen, but also in my little dining room. I have no doubt that they are headed by manifest destiny to reach the far shores of my bedroom. I once collected gardening books this way, but most of them have been sold off or given away.
When I moved here from New England I brought no cookbooks with me. I did have a blue LeCrueset skillet I bought for my first apartment when I graduated from nursing school. Now it hangs in my kitchen It is a well-travelled skillet. 2 years ago it travelled the Gulf Coast with me . I kept it in a cooler in the back seat. It visited Cape San Blas,St George Island, Cedar Key, Fort Morgan, and Fairhope Alabama. In fact I brought most of my serious cookware with me since most guest cottages stock only paper thin fry pans since people who live to cook on vacation are so rare-
The past few months have been my Golden Age of cookbook collecting because I finally discovered McKay's over on Charlotte Avenue. I will write about the wonders of this bookstore in another post. Lest anyone think I post and read and never share what I have cooked let me end by saying that today I made homemade mayonnaise under the guidance of James Petersen. I whisked it by hand then added garlic so I could claim two triumphs in one day. Aioli! Later I made 2 quarts of vegetable broth. If I could break my bondage to Hellman's, I could surely save money on Swanson's as well. Goodnight to everyone and to all the ships at sea. I will go to bed tonight dreaming of all the photos I will post as soon as I can persuade one of my friends Techno Whiz kids to teach me how to do it.