Cookbook Fever

One of the best things in looking through old cookbooks, IMHO, is finding the notes from cooks gone by. Sure, you can check out the official, professional-chef-tested recipes and/or quaint terminology of the printed text and appreciate qualities in those, but flipping open a really ancient tome and seeing scribbles and smears can tell you a lot about which recipes were tried more than once, and also give you insight into the person(s) who owned the book before you.  With some, it's almost as good as inheriting granny's secret recipe box. With the rest, it's at least a good excuse to flip through and imagine yourself with that person, stirring the milk for a batch of classic fudge…

I hope someday soon to have the entire book scanned for posterity, but in the meantime, have at these flyleaf/annotation pages, and enjoy.