SOLVED. Children's picture book about a man who goes to a friend's house while the friend is away and eats all the food. [s]

[Anita]

Children's picture book about a man who goes to a friend's house while the friend is away and eats all the food. He tries to make a soup out of random ingredients left over in the house, including candy canes. Needless to say the soup tastes terrible and he can't eat it. Then he goes fishing and gathers acorns. He makes pancakes out of the acorns. I was read this book in the late 80's early 90's.

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Anita, are you still looking for this or did you find it?

[Becca]

Looks like this is The Man Who Cooked for Himself by Phyllis Krasilovsky. There's a copy on archive.org - it's exactly as you remember. Here are some quotes:

When summer came though, the man's friend decided to take a trip. So he told the man to order everything he thought he would need for three weeks.
[...]
But a few days later he did not have much food left. All he could find was salt, ketchup, four peppermint sticks left from Christmas, crunchy peanut butter, an overripe banana, three pickles and an onion.
He mixed these things together in the pot and went outside.
When the man tasted the stew that night, he did not think it was very good. In fact, it was terrible.
[...]
In the morning he ate a delicious breakfast of acorn pancakes and applesauce.

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

No response. Moving to Solved.