Why Oh Why Didn’t I Buy The Mandy Patinkin Family Cookbook?

We all have regrets in life. I regret pulling out the chair from under Stacy Epstein in the 3rd grade. Can I go back and change that I did that? No I can’t. But I can go back and change one regret from a few weeks ago. I was at the used book store on my street and found, to my surprise, a copy of Mandy Patinkin’s Jewish family cookbook. Actually, it’s not his cookbook–he just wrote the Introduction–it’s Grandma Doralee Patinkin’s cookbook. That’s either his mother or grandmother, it’s hard to tell (she looks young) but the point is I didn’t buy it. And it’s still there. And I still haven’t bought it. What’s wrong with me?

The used book store on my street is full of cookbook treasures. That’s because the turnover is high so every few days, someone comes in and unloads a pile of cookbooks and I’m usually there, every few days, to see what I can find. Sometimes I hit gold, like I did the other day when I found this classic Paula Wolfert book which I almost paid $45 for in Echo Park; here, it was only $15:

Other times, you find books so strange you can’t believe they exist. This one blew my mind and a lot of people on Instagram got a kick out of it too:

But we’re not here to talk about Oral Sadism, we’re here to talk about Mandy Patinkin. The man who uttered these classic lines:

The man who paved the way for Antonio Banderas in Evita, going head-to-head with Patti Lupone:

The man who originated the role of George Seurat in Stephen Sondheim’s masterwork Sunday in the Park With George:

How could I not add his cookbook to my library?

Well, I hate to say this, but the recipes just seemed ok. Lots of Jewish stuff but I already have Joan Nathan’s classic Jewish cookbook so I’m not really wanting for that.

I suppose my not buying the Mandy Patinkin cookbook is just a choice I’ll have to live with, a choice not dissimilar to the choice here. Only slightly less deadly.