My husband’s uncle John Bichakjian, a firm believer in healthy eating, presented Doug’s mother with a cookbook called The Complete Book of Yogurt, by Shaun Nelson-Henrick.

This book was passed down to me, but with so many cookbooks on my shelf I just tucked this one in between the others.

As I was reading up on yogurt for my blog, I picked up this cookbook because I figured there had to be Armenian connection – and there was. In 1976 Nelson-Henrick interviewed Hilda Attarian, an Armenian who owned a boutique in New York City.

Ms. Attarian offered advice on giving yogurt to infants as a way to remedy severe cases of diarrhea, and applying yogurt one’s skin as a relief for sunburn.

Luckily we never had to deal with the infant-related use of yogurt, but I can’t believe we wasted so much money over the years buying sunburn ointment when we had yogurt sitting in our refrigerator all along.

Live and learn!