Rewarded patience...or is it persistence?

I keep visiting a local used book sale -- hardbacks $1! paperbacks 50 cents! -- often, in hopes of discovering a treasure.

I was rewarded for my patience/persistence Saturday as I brushed the dust off not one but three gems. One is a collection of Depression-era recipes, another is an original Thornton W. Burgess -- "The Burgess Book of Nature Lore" -- and the third is a vintage homemaking book called "The I Hate to Housekeep Book: When and how to keep house without losing your mind" by Peg Bracken.

So far, the homemaking book is fun. I'm up to chapter three ("Stains, Spots, Blots, Scars and Dueling Wounds"), in which Bracken takes issue with "some housekeeping book or other" with its advice about avoiding embarrassment with your pastry brush.

I have been embarrassed by many things in my life, but never by my pastry-brush bristles. This is true of most women, I believe. Of all the things one has to blush over in this world, the color of one's pastry-brush bristles comes at the absolute tail end of the list. But this approach is characteristic of most home experts. They truly want to be helpful, but they go too far, and in doing so, they set up too many straw men to knock over.

Ain't that the truth! I look forward to reading more of her wisdom.

The children and I will enjoy reading the Burgess aloud, and as soon as I figure out the "slow" setting on my oven, I plan to bake a mean "Good Cake Without Frosting" as well. That's a pretty good store of advice and entertainment for the Low Low Price of $3.