I enjoy reading old cookbooks. Actually, I enjoy reading all cookbooks, new, old and somewhere in between. But I enjoy the old ones the same way I enjoy old girls’ series books. They bring you back to a time when a woman’s place was in the home, and yet there were opportunities for her to make her mark if she was creative. I enjoy reading through the Cookery section of an early edition of The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, written by Fannie Farmer, because it explains how a cooking range works and how to build a fire in it using wood and coals. In 1918, an “electric range is desirable where electricity is inexpensive or cost need not be considered.” We’ve made a lot of progress since the times of recipes that never begin “preheat oven to 350 degrees.”