A network of blogs about sisters and sisterhoods of all kinds.
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YES, We KNOW: technically, it is not summer. But we’ve got forecasts in the 80s, and darn it, it’s about to be Memorial Day weekend. For culinary inspiration, look no further than our own archives of amazing summer recipes. Some vintage, some our own concoctions, there’s plenty to tempt sisterly palates from simple to soignée…
By Paige Smith Orloff
MAY IS THE month where my garden comes alive, and one of the first things I start cooking is rhubarb. So what better time to take a look back, through our treasured cache of Ladies’ Auxiliary cookbooks, to see how our fore-sisters treated this ruby red delight? Have a look.
By Paige Smith Orloff
MOSTLY, I EAT summer corn with as little adornment as possible. I grill it, I boil it, add a bit of butter or extra virgin olive oil and flakey, crunchy sea salt, and–that’s it. I’m done. But there is this one exception…and it’s my contribution to Week 2 of the big cross-blog recipe swamp called Summer Fest. Hint: It’s a breakfast food that’s good anytime.
From 'The Betty Betz Teenage Cookbook', 1953
OUR SISTER PAIGE CAN’T BELIEVE it’s been a year since she first started, like Alice down her rabbit hole, exploring the crazy culinary world of the Ladies Auxiliaries….those crazy cookbooks created by church groups and charities and social clubs. If you’ve missed out, now’s your chance to see just what’s lurking out there. Join her, won’t you?
T HE DAY AFTER Christmas, Paige found herself hosting an accidental dinner party. In truth, she was cooked out, and even (briefly) entertained the idea of serving take-out pizza. But then she remembered a dinner served by a friend, a simple meal so delicious that everyone had seconds…get the soul-saving recipe.
CAN YOU BELIEVE that Thanksgiving is next week? Sister Paige can’t, not least because if Thanksgiving is next week, Christmas is less than six weeks away, and that’s terrifying. But rather than panic, she is going to drown her sorrows in cookbooks––specifically, those old standbys, the Ladies’ Auxiliary collection that seems to be breeding like rabbits (or maybe turkeys) on her bookshelves. This week, in preparation for, uh, next week, it’s time to consider the cranberry.
THE SISTERS DIDN’T SO MUCH AS DROP THEIR WHISKS when TSP’s Marion reached them while they are out on book tour. It seems they can type with kitchen utensils in their mouths, she says, while packing and running off to the next interview, making her adore them even more than she already did after reading about their new cookbook entitled Bite Me. Meet the Bite Me girls.
ARE YOU GRIEVING FOR ‘GOURMET’ magazine? Our Sister Paige was, but the new cookbook she scored is helping soothe the wound. Read over her shoulder.
TWO SISTERS PLUS ONE BOOK equals two soups. This is the sisterly cooking math Marion and Margaret did when their friend and agent Kris Dahl sent them both a new book, and two households went on a pretty much liquid diet. But oh, what liquid! Get the yummy details.
SISTER PAIGE HAD TO BREAK the news to her mother last night. A huge player in their shared history was gone. Mom’s face went white, and she looked like she might cry. As they sat down to dinner, she looked down. “I just can’t believe it’s gone.” She was talking, of course, about Gourmet magazine, a joint belief system between the two women, and millions of others. Read her story.
AS A WAY TO BRING the happiness back into her family’s world of pie, TSP Sister Paige suggested that she and her mother do a joint project: enter a local pie-baking contest, assuming Mom would beat her and the world of pie would be returned to its axis after a rough start this summer. So much for best-laid plans…read Paige’s not-so-sweet story.
WHEN IN DOUBT, DESSERT. It might be Sister Marion’s new motto. It would make a good T-shirt, wouldn’t it? Hmmm. Anyway, it certainly is a motto she’s using for her friend John, of Teaching John to Cook, the subject of an occasional series here on TSP on how to sister a guy-pal into the kitchen. Marion’s sweet latest installment is here.
IN THE GALLERIES: Photos by ALLISON MICHAEL ORENSTEIN.
First time here? Here's the idea: TSP is a network of blogs about the many facets of the word sister, and the concept of sisterhood. A sisterhood of sister blogs, you could say. Whatever sister means to you, from identical twin to sister-in-law (or in-friendship or in-feminism), we’ll make room to listen in about it or express it on TSP. Like the slogan up top says, “Don’t you have something to say to your sister?” We've got galleries of art and literature by and about sisters, and a Sisterpedia of sisterly trivia...but now we're getting ahead of ourselves. The quick study: Learn more about TSP, and how to find your way around. And oh—a giant, sisterly welcome.
As the suffix of its name suggests, TSP's Sisterpedia
is the reference section, one we’re hoping you’ll help us grow to maturity by adding your knowledge in the comments. Turn us on to new facts and figures, whether for the branch of our ‘library’ called Sistory (history from a sister point of view, from the Muses of ancient Greece to 60s Girl Groups and beyond) or the one called Sibling Science (what makes sisters tick, genetically and behaviorally). Or just click around and have a good read. See you there. 
No surprise, really, that sisterhood, often life’s longest relationship and always one of its most important, has been the Muse for so much creative self-expression by women, and also by men.
TSP’s Galleries were created to show off that outpouring of art and craft, poetry and prose. Come see a show or two—no ticket required, no lines to get in—and suggest others whose work we ought to showcase.
