Share holiday spirit with woman who lost cookbooks in flood

Last week I received a phone call from a reader who was looking for a recipe for chili with no beans and no peppers.

She doesn't have a computer so she couldn't look it up on the Internet or receive e-mails.

I told her I would see what I could find and put it in the mail.

She was appreciative and her voice cracked when she told me how she lost all of her beloved cookbooks in last year's catastrophic flood.

The 79-year-old woman, Phyllis Kriz, has since moved to a condo on higher ground in Cedar Rapids after losing her home at L Avenue and Ninth Street NW in June 2008. Phyllis and her late husband, Lumir Jr., moved into the home in 1982 after living on a farm for many years.

In the Flood of ‘93, the Kriz's basement took on 3 or 4 inches of water. The Floods of 2008 weren't so kind. Floodwaters not only filled the basement, but rose 4 feet on the main floor.

Everything in the water's path was destroyed - furniture, appliances, and even a car. Necessities, yes, but replaceable.

It's the sentimental items Phyllis misses most - pictures, antiques and the bookcase of about 100 cookbooks she acquired throughout her life.

Two cookbooks were spared - the most recent Ellis Park Church of God cookbook and a book that belonged to her grandmother.

Immediately after the flood, Phyllis was in survival mode. Now that she has moved and finally sold her house, she has more time to think about everything that was lost.

“When I sit and think about it, I get emotional,” she says.

Among her collection were all of the cookbooks by Jim Lloyd, former host of the Open Line recipe show on 600 WMT-AM in Cedar Rapids. Other favorites were hardcover microwave cookbooks, church cookbooks and clippings from magazines and newspapers.

“There is just nothing like those old cookbooks,” she says.

Her daughter, Lynnae Kriz, who takes care of her, has been able to find some of the older hardcover Better Homes and Garden and Good Housekeeping cookbooks. But she hasn't had much luck finding the Jim Lloyd books or older freezing and canning books. Also hard to replace are the “great big” hardcover Litton microwave cookbooks and the cookbook which came with her Westinghouse oven.

I printed off some no-bean chili recipes and sent them to Phyllis. But I know what would really make her holidays happy would be finding some of the old cookbooks she lost - the easy-to-follow hardcover cookbooks that could never be replicated online.

If you have any of these you could spare or know where to find them, contact me and I'll get them to Phyllis.