The Padre Cooks: Recipes from Sea and Shore Carmel-by-the-Sea

The Padre Cooks: Recipes from Sea and Shore Carmel-by-the-Sea compiled by Carmel High School Class of 1951. Carmel-by-the-Sea, California 2001. Proceeds benefited the Class of ’51’s scholarship fund.

I do keep an eye out for books from places I’ve actually been. I went on an influencer trip sponsored by Dole years ago and we stayed in Monterey. I had an amazing room on the ocean with a fireplace and arrived early so I could go to the aquarium. One of the treats was eating in a restaurant in Carmel-by-the-Sea which was so pretty! This prettiness is reflected in the book as they included photographs of the area on the section dividers. I love little touches like that! The cover is laminated which is another nice touch, I really thought the book was much more recently published than it was.

I was intrigued to see Diane Lewis Hanger’s recipe for Lettuce Bread because the purpose of the trip was to visit am iceberg lettuce farm and we toured where they package bagged salads. I wouldn’t have realized it was such a lettuce rich area if I hadn’t been there before which is one reason why I like to collect books from places I’ve been. Maybe I’m missing something in books from places I’ve only heard about.

The book’s recipes are pretty wide ranging from Charles Grimshaw’s Light and Easy Lemon Broccoli Chicken to an entire game chapter with recipes like Carol Smith Rissel’s Frog Legs.

The recipe has headnotes which I love. They are written by the compilers (Carol Rissel and Diane Hanger) so they are charmingly in the third person. They include not only some recipe tips but some explanations and backstories about the recipes. Linda Bain Geiger’s Clam Dip apparently was a Latin Club favorite. Sue Salsbury Cogley had a “yen for chile verde, couldn’t find a recipe so she combined things ‘that sounded green'” for her recipe.

The book has a real local feel. This seems like should be true of all community cookbooks but honestly, some don’t. The recipes might be good but not all books feel as personal as others.

Please follow safe canning directions! Do not rely on these recipes. The Ball Blue Book of Canning is a great source of the basics.

Some of the recipes interconnect which is fun, you can poach the chicken for the salad. One tip was to put the chorizo enchiladas, chile rellenos and guacamole recipes you end up with the “whole enchilada”.

They also took care to credit sources either from friends or publications that they originally got the recipe they are sharing from.

I adapted and updated Diane Lewis Hanger’s Lettuce Bread from this book.