Recipes and Connections
The confession is, I don’t bake except for Florence who is 90 years old. I buy cookie dough from a grandchild and bring my “home baked” gifts during my regular visits. My daughters have no “ mom’s favorite” recipes. My forte is romaine. This is not to say that keeping recipes isn’t important. I value and treasure an old, now yellowed, weary, and stuffed recipe binder I received as a wedding gift over 40 years ago. Carefully inscribed in the inner cover is, “ Kissin don’t last but cookin do!” Pithy guidance I have chosen to ignore. I do pay attention to the collected recipes.
David’s mother’s potato salad recipe, carefully written in beautiful penmanship, mentions proper potato preparation and warns not too add too much salt. Since her death, I have missed her frequent hand written notes. Hidden in the recipe between peel and salt amount, hundreds of memories vividly return. I recall a blueberry dessert I made adding 4 teaspoons of salt instead of the 1/4 teaspoon recommended. I still see my father in law requesting another serving while I was trying not to throw up. No one else wanted any more.
My friend Barb gave me a copy of every amazing dessert she made. I read the recipes and hear the laughter that accompanied the many meals we shared. She made the desserts and I did the salads. Secreted away in the recipes with complicated ingredients I recall the many miles we ran together and the million tennis matches we played. Right there in her dessert notes I see the sea of women running on Mother’s Day trying to eliminate the cancer that took Barb’s life way too early.
Two English women I adored shared how to create cakes and trifles. The women are long gone from my daily planner. I read their recipes and wonder about their children and their life journey. The recipes clang old bells in sacred places now dark and desolate.
I even found the Puffer recipe my mother made when I was a little girl. She was from Dresden, Germany and made it every Christmas until she died when I was 12. The recipe is an inheritance I guess. I still recall the taste of the brown sugar on my fingers.
Recipes for me are not about the food at all. They are archives providing evidence of important moments in my life. My birthday card from Elizabeth stated, “ A good cook knows that it’s not what is on the table that Matters, it’s what is in the chairs.” My recipes remind me who were in the chairs. They are journal entries that evoke a sense of continuing presence of those so influential in my life.
David’s mother’s potato salad recipe, carefully written in beautiful penmanship, mentions proper potato preparation and warns not too add too much salt. Since her death, I have missed her frequent hand written notes. Hidden in the recipe between peel and salt amount, hundreds of memories vividly return. I recall a blueberry dessert I made adding 4 teaspoons of salt instead of the 1/4 teaspoon recommended. I still see my father in law requesting another serving while I was trying not to throw up. No one else wanted any more.
My friend Barb gave me a copy of every amazing dessert she made. I read the recipes and hear the laughter that accompanied the many meals we shared. She made the desserts and I did the salads. Secreted away in the recipes with complicated ingredients I recall the many miles we ran together and the million tennis matches we played. Right there in her dessert notes I see the sea of women running on Mother’s Day trying to eliminate the cancer that took Barb’s life way too early.
Two English women I adored shared how to create cakes and trifles. The women are long gone from my daily planner. I read their recipes and wonder about their children and their life journey. The recipes clang old bells in sacred places now dark and desolate.
I even found the Puffer recipe my mother made when I was a little girl. She was from Dresden, Germany and made it every Christmas until she died when I was 12. The recipe is an inheritance I guess. I still recall the taste of the brown sugar on my fingers.
Recipes for me are not about the food at all. They are archives providing evidence of important moments in my life. My birthday card from Elizabeth stated, “ A good cook knows that it’s not what is on the table that Matters, it’s what is in the chairs.” My recipes remind me who were in the chairs. They are journal entries that evoke a sense of continuing presence of those so influential in my life.
Labels: food, memories, relationships
posted by Ada at
7:25 PM
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