I did a thing. It was 30 years ago, but it still is talked about with fond memories. It has dog-eared pages (some splattered with ingredients) and there may or may not be notes on the pages.
Our Mom more often than not cooked without measuring. She used the "dump" method - she knew what a tablespoon of this and a cup of that looked like without measuring. And then there was always that little bit more. She did have recipes that she got from friends on index cards or cut out of magazines and newspapers, and she had lots of cookbooks. But once she'd made a recipe a few times she had it memorized or had to "doctor" it up in the words of our Dad.
When my Mom wore lipstick, it was always red so I photoshopped a kiss on Dad's cheek.
She would experiment often with recipes and my Dad would usually be the one challenging her to come up with a version of something. Like the never accomplished version of a whoopie pie not the chocolate one she'd make, but a vanilla one. She'd bake and experiment, experiment and bake and never come up with one that was a soft as the chocolate whoopie pie, but it was fun watching her try. And there were many dishes she and Dad would cook together - peeking in to say that a bit more of an ingredient was needed. His vegetable soup was one of those dishes that was different every time but always hit the spot on a cold day.
We'd often sit at the counter in the kitchen watching her make her trademark dishes without any recipe and rolling pie dough with her to fit into our miniature aluminum pie pans while eating the cut offs from the edges. I thought we'd never be able to learn to crimp a pie crust like she artfully did with ease. Her mixing bowls were always one of the Pyrex ones. I have two of my Mom's bowls, the yellow and green ones. Someday I'll have the other two colors when I come across them while antiquing. My two children grew up using the yellow one as a popcorn bowl while watching movies and I still use them to mix a batch of this and a batch of that.
At some point we wised up and ask her to write down her recipes for the dishes that she conjured up and I'm glad we did. After our Mom passed 30 years ago and when we were able to go through her things the recipe box was one of the treasures. How do we share this box of memories with all nine of her children? I volunteered to take on the task of somehow duplicating all the recipes for my siblings. It turned into my first published book. I could do so much more with the design of its pages and am often tempted to, but for some reason there's a reverence to this first go at it that whispers "leave it alone".
I gifted my siblings copies wrapped with a pig cutting board that Martha Stewart introduced in 1994 - perfect timing. The cutting board was a memory of the ones handmade in shop (modernly called industrial arts) classes in high school. (Mom had three of them from my three brothers' handiwork.) And now both of my children have copies too and are continuing the tradition of Mom's favorite dishes.
Farm to table wasn't a trend when my Mom cooked and baked - it was the thing that you just did. Our meals were planned around the garden harvest and the local butcher. We gardened, picked fresh fruits from orchards, purchased eggs from the Mrs. Shradley the local chicken farmer, and canned and preserved for year-round freshness. The chicken farmer also had rows and rows of gladiolus in every color imaginable that I will never forget.
I still have the original recipe cards - I can't seem to part with them. Don't need too. Dinner is at 5 pm because that's when you found the table set and dinner ready to come off the stove every day of the week.
Be inspired to live your memories while creating new ones!
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