The Used Cookbook Sale at The Hollywood Farmer’s Market

On Sunday, my friend Ben Mandelker of The B-Side Blog invited me to the used cookbook sale at the Hollywood Farmer’s Market. As many of you know, I’m kind of a cookbook junkie (see here) so this was a no-brainer. When I got there, I found mostly generic cookbooks (many, many diet books) and old copies of Bon Appetit anthologies. But then Ben started to dig up some treasures, which I’ll share with you here….

First up, The Clintons at the Arkansas governor’s mansion cookbook:

I’m so mad I didn’t buy this. The sale was ridiculous–$1 for each hardcover–so even if this was just a novelty, it’s such a weird collector’s item, I feel like I missed an opportunity. I probably also missed an opportunity not buying this:

Maybe if I were more of a Northern Exposure fan. I mean: I’ve seen the show and really enjoy it, but do I really need to commemorate that fact? Probably not.

This may have been in my house growing up, my mom was such a Kathie Lee fan:

In fact, my mom once waited in a huge line at a mall on Long Island to get Kathie Lee to sign a copy of her memoir. So if we had any cookbooks in our house, this was probably one of them. (Though I’m pretty sure there weren’t any cookbooks in our house except diet books.)

Now one of you kind readers once told me that if I were to ever see the Miss Piggy Cookbook, I should buy it. You weren’t kidding.

This book is hilarious. First of all, any cookbook that has a recipe collaboration between Miss Piggy and Maya Angelou is a cookbook I want to have in my collection. There’s so much good campy stuff in here (Ivana Trump, anyone?) that I think this needs to be featured on a web show I’m thinking of starting called Cookbook Show & Tell. Stay tuned for that.

Ben got a big kick out of this:

I got a big kick out of this recipe inside:

Teehee.

As for what I bought, in addition to the Miss Piggy book, I purchased two Time Life books to add to my collection (one about the foods of Italy, one about the foods of Provincial France), then I bought this because I’ve heard so much about him but never saw his show:

And I bought this because it’s such a fascinating relic of a time period when veal cookbooks were possible (you’d never see a single-subject veal cookbook today):

Also, I loved the fact that there was this hand-written note inside:

Clearly, this person was planning a menu: scallopini, risotto alla Milanese. (Can’t really read the rest). Fun, though, to find that in there.

And that was it for the used cookbook sale, but I’d say I did pretty well. Now I just have to make room for these new additions on my shelf. Step aside Ottolenghi, Miss Piggy needs her space.