The Silver Palate Cookbook! Memories.
Chicken Marbella is still in my rotation!!
My Aunt was a big fan of the ladies who started the company.
Have you told us about your aunt? There must be a story. . . (Sorry if I missed something up-thread).
The cookbook came out during a transitional phase, didn’t it? When it wasn’t easy to find quality ingredients in grocery stores. We were living in deep upstate NY at the time. It wasn’t easy to find olives (not canned). Kinda blew people’s minds.
My Aunt passed a few years ago. She was a wonderful cook. Her sister, my Mother, widowed at 36 went to work f/t and as you can imagine alot was expected of me to help out. My Aunt had alot to do with helping me learn how to fix meals when I was very young and clueless. Her kitchen pantry was filled with cookbooks of all sorts including SP books. I remember the books included illustrations of the ingredients. DIdn’t SP have a line of food products at some point too?
The first taste of many foods occurred at my Aunts kitchen table. She was fun to be around.
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They had a specialty shop on the upper west side in NYC. The founders, Sheila Lukins and Julee Rosso, were early ambassadors of foods that were exotic and unusual at the time. They made small batch products. Eventually a commercial line of food items was launched. The shop was eventually sold, then closed. The product line still exists.
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Interesting. I didnt realize most of that. I have no doubt my dear Aunt knew all about the partners.
For me it was the Betty Crocker Cookbook for Boys and Girls. I looked at the pictures over and over and so wanted to get in the kitchen and try some of the recipes. Alas, I wasn’t allowed to do anything in the kitchen, so the book kind of became a fantasy sort of thing. It’s in perfect condition and has a home on my cookbook shelves.
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I had the Better Homes and Garden Jr. Cookbook and cooked from it a lot. My mother liked to cook but always encouraged me to join in. It makes me feel sad that you weren’t allowed to. I hope you’ve been able to make up for it since!
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I grew up in the Midwest and had a solid school of cooking/baking under my apron. When I went to college at Ohio State, a friend and I signed up for an extracurricular evening class in Chinese cooking. We were introduced to a cuisine we loved but had no idea about. She took us to urban Asian markets, taught us about cooking tools and techniques.
My first cookbook was The Key To Chinese Cooking by Irene Kuo.
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Thanks for your kind thoughts! Yes, I have fulfilled that urge to cook, but maybe excessively so. As in having too many cookbooks, cookware, gadgets, full pantries, refrigerators and freezers. My friends refer to my house as a store. I can usually come through with having what they need, thus saving them a trip to the store. It kind of complicates one’s life keeping it all organized 
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Making up for lost time…
You need a culinary librarian to help you organize it!
Indeed I do! Would you like the job? 
