Where do these things GO?

We're having our annual tree trimming party on Sunday afternoon.  I'm going to make a couple of chocolate mousse pies to serve our guests.  I make a really good chocolate mousse.  Ask anyone who has had the joy of tasting my chocolate mousse how good it is, they'll tell you it's great.

I use the recipe from the 1997 edition of The Joy of Cooking.  I have multiple editions of The Joy of Cooking because each one is a little different. The 1961 editions I have include instructions on how to skin a squirrel and a recipe for headcheese, which looks damned disgusting especially when it's suggested to serve with creamed brains.  The 1997 edition is the only one that includes the mince pie Scott likes so much and this chocolate mousse recipe.

I got down my tattered cookbook so I could start my shopping list.  It's splattered with various drops of stuff I've cooked, pages are dog-eared and written on and sections have come separated from the spine.  As a matter of fact, the mince pie recipe fell out somewhere along the way.  But,  a friend of mine typed it out from her cookbook and sent it to me in an email.  I've printed it and I now have it in my personal recipe cookbook. 

Well, if you didn't see this coming, the chocolate mousse recipe is gone as well.  I don't know what happens to these pages.  I know if a page fell out and I found it, I wouldn't have tossed it.  I don't think Scott would either. Where do they go?

Do they go the same place bobby pins go?  Or washcloths?  Or screwdrivers?  Are all these items together at a safe house?  Did they all witness some terrible crime between household furnishings and have been taken into witness protection?  Did they get transported to a house in another neighborhood where they wouldn't be recognized and set up in a new utensil drawer? 

Maybe that's what's up with the shoes I see in the street, they were caught ratting out the hangers in the coat closet. 

Seriously, where do the shoes in the street come from?  There aren't any skid marks or signs of an accident, why are there shoes in the middle of the street?  I'm assuming they are flung from the window of a moving automobile as a joke or a punishment.  I mean, I can see that happening.

I tossed a few things out car windows as a teenager.  A couple of friends threw a couple of my things out of car windows but never my shoes.  Then again, I would have yanked that glass ashtray out of my purse and smashed the person trying to take my shoes in the mouth, so I'm probably a bad example.

And why do my children's expensive toys vanish while the Happy Meal playthings hang around for years?  The freebie carnival prizes will still be in this house when my grandchildren are coming to visit, but the fire engine that makes noises?  That'll be long gone or will surface in one of the neighbor's yards when they dig a pool.

But I digress, I still need my chocolate mousse recipe.  Lucky for me I know how to use the world wide net.  I not only found the recipe, I found a number of message boards where people like me discuss the pros and cons of the different editions of The Joy of Cooking.  There are a couple of sites I found dedicated to hard core collectors of not only the various editions but the first editions of each one. 

I prefer the broken in and messed up cookbooks from the sixties and seventies I find at the thrift store that feature photos of hideous dishes.  And yes, I most certainly have heard about the Gallery of Regrettable Food.    My friend Deb has a lovely collection of these she got from her family, she lets me leaf through them when we get together at her place. 

Sadly, none of them have a chocolate mousse recipe although they do include things like Sweet and Sour Tuna and cabbage in gelatin.

Now that I have my recipe in my hot little hand, I'm going to hit the store and I'll cook it up on Friday so that it will be appropriately set on Sunday. 

See ya!

Amanda's beauty tip of the day:  Be sure to wash the insides of your ears, a pimple in there really hurts.