laura k bray

I am standing in front of the old, wooden card catalog of the Washougal Library and am reminded of the card catalogs of my past. The first was in my elementary school library where we learned how to look up books using the Dewey Decimal System. I remember the sound the drawers made as I slowly and carefully pulled them out-a quiet creak of wood in a silent library. Then the smell would fill the air. It was the smell of old paper and the typewriter ink the librarian used to carefully catalog the books.             Now, I look up my books on a computer but today I am, once again, standing in front of the card catalog. I pull out the drawer and am surprised that the sound and the smell are still there, even though I am standing in a library 2,455 miles away from the one in my memory. The drawer no longer holds cards listing a multitude of books to be read, instead it holds small packets of seeds.      ...

I collect cookbooks.  I know I could look-up just about any recipe online, but I can't give up my cookbooks. I love sitting down with a stack of cookbooks and planning a holiday meal or dinner party. Sometimes, if I'm feeling bored or anxious, I'll pull a favorite cookbook off the shelf and just read it. I love the photos. I love to daydream about making the dishes. Sometimes they inspire me so much I get up and bake something. To me, cookbooks are so much better than cooking blogs. Is it just me or have they gotten impossible to navigate? First there's the pop-up ads that always seem to crash the website at the very moment I'm rushing to check how long the brownies are supposed to bake. By the time I reload the website, I have burnt bricks of chocolate. I also hate the long, drawn-out stories before I get to the actual recipe. Don't get me wrong. I love a good story behind a recipe. Heck, when I share my recipes, I usually give you a story. What I hate about mo...