This may be a fictional account.
I bought the More-with-Less Cookbook in the bookstore at Nyack College and gave it to my sister, Cindy, for Christmas. Then I took it back, since she wasn’t using it. I don’t think I replaced it with anything else, so I may have shorted my own sister out of a Christmas present. In my defense, I am the youngest child in the family, and well, you know what comes with that turf.
It turns out, I may be an unrepentant thief.
The book lost its cover some years back. Several pages are loose. And you can tell which recipes have been made over and over. I taught myself how to bake bread while still in college from this book. I continue to use the oatmeal bread recipe, my corrections carefully written on the deeply stained page. My favorite recipe for dhal is in here as well, right next to a vegetable curry that can feed a dozen people. The book was commissioned by a Mennonite committee in Pennsylvania, and those Mennonite missionaries brought home some interesting recipes to mix in with their solid, thrifty menus. I look through this book every time I attempt to get the household budget back into sanity, or when I’m feeling in need of something homey, and comforting.
365/radical elements 
I have the sequel to More-with-less. https://photos.app.goo.gl/ft7CyceDDy7BjJGL9
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YES. I love More with Less. And I use it the same way–when it’s time to rein in the crazy in the kitchen and the budget and get down to basics. It’s how I learned to cook dry beans and paired well when I had a subscription to a multi-farm CSA.
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I like your opening line.
And Opal is stunning (but don’t tell Seneca I said that).
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I love your cats! I’m not familiar with with subject book, but I thought I’d find some of mine on your shelves. I did, but minimally. I thought I’d find more. I see two Time-Life books. I had maybe six of those way back when. And I own Blue Ginger, but that’s only because I met Iris and Steve Tsai, Ming’s lovely parents, on a couple of occasions. I don’t think I’ve ever made anything from the book. Do you have a favorite recipe in it? I had to get very close to my monitor and squint in order to see that one of your volumes isn’t entitled Keeping Food Irish.
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Truthfully don’t think I’ve made anything from Blue Ginger either! Keeping Food Irish would be a very strange cookbook! Keeping Food Fresh is far more prosaic.
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Cats and a photo of your bookshelves! Impressive. I like any cookbook called The Art of Eating! And I love the sound of this. Interesting also to see Mexican cookbooks on your shelves, as Mexican food is something I know little about (beyond tacos and burritos and quesadillas and beans.)
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I could wax eloquent on Mexican food for days and days! In the US, far too much that is labelled Mexican is actually Tex-Mex, a sad corruption of the originals.
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Oh, and The Art of Eating is actually essays by MFK Fisher. I think about a BBC show I loved, Pie In The Sky, whenever I look through it. Detective Crabbe would have loved to peruse it.
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My parents cooked from More-With-Less! Grew up with it. Also, for the record, I always think of you whenever I see a Silver Palate cookbook.
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