OED not contemporary or American; OT: Bonnie Slotnick cookbooks

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

OED NOT CONTEMPORARY OR AMERICAN

If it's in the New York Times, it's true!

(NEW YORK TIMES)
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/05/magazine/05ONLANGUAGE.html
ON LANGUAGE
Dictionaries
By BARBARA WALLRAFF

Published: September 5, 2004
(...)
I'll bet that I am the only nonlexicographer in the world to have looked up hundreds of things in each of seven major American dictionaries: the American Heritage, Merriam-Webster's Collegiate, Microsoft Encarta, the New Oxford American, the Random House Webster's Unabridged, Webster's New World and Webster's Third. (The Oxford English Dictionary is by far the best available resource for word histories, but I didn't compare it with the others, because it's neither American nor particularly contemporary.) I did all this to research my new book, ''Your Own Words.'' Even as a 25-year veteran professional user of dictionaries, I was surprised by some of the things I found out.

(Hm. Maybe OED needs an American editor? I don't know. All I know is what I read in the New York Times--ed.)

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OFF TOPIC: BONNIE SLOTNICK COOKBOOKS

I went to Bonnie Slotnick Cookbooks to chat about my articles this week, the Oxford Encyclopedia, the William Grimes book, and other stuff. Bonnie had one of those "No Smoking" signs, but it had a "W" across it. I assumed that she's no longer serving water.

Bonnie told me that she's on YAHOO! NEWS right now! Just below the hostages in Russia! Just above President Clinton's near-heart attack!


Old-Time Cookbooks Big Draw at New York Store
Fri Sep 3, 6:27 PM ET

By Maureen Bavdek

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Old cookbooks never die -- in fact, they are not often willingly surrendered. One woman even took her beloved Betty Crocker book to the grave.



Cookbook connoisseur Bonnie Slotnick has heard many of these tales, whispered or recalled with laughter, about women so attached to their cookbooks that they end up practically being "dragged out of dying hands."


"The bottom line for a lot of people is ... this craving for comfort that cookbooks supply," Slotnick said as curious customers browsed in her tiny Greenwich Village shop.


Often someone will be searching for the edition her mother or grandmother had because of a need to hold on to the comfort level it provided "though they wouldn't know it if you asked them," she said.


"It's all about nourishment and home and the outside world goes away."


Her store -- Bonnie Slotnick's Cookbooks -- is stocked floor to ceiling with some 3,000 books, arranged neatly by category. The average one costs $20 to $22, but there is also a $5 shelf and a $1 basket. Even non-cooks have left with vintage cookbooks to savor "like novels in bed."
(...)

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COMPLETELY OFF TOPIC

WHERE DID BARRY POPIK GO FOR DINNER?--Empire Szechuan Village, on Seventh Avenue, just two blocks north of Bonnie Slotnick Cookbooks. I'd been to other restaurants like it all over the city, but not this one. There has to be at least a dozen restaurants like this in Manhattan.

Two young women were sitting at the table next to me. "Excuse me," said one. Is it customary in this country for them to give you the check?"

I said that it was.

"We're from Canada, Montreal. You have to ask for the check. If they bring it to you, it's considered rude."

We talked a little more, and then I thought how ridiculous life is, and, what did I say them,...

"I was profiled in a Canadian newspaper this morning...I solved the Big Apple...It said I have relationship issues..."