What I thunk . . .

The other day I helped a friend clean up some things that had blown over in her yard after a big storm, and as we were taking a break I noticed she had a few older local junior aid cookbooks laying around. She told me they were given to her at her wedding as gifts for the new bride. As I picked them up and looked through them I found that I knew quite a few of the contributors, many were clients of mine. Some of them are quite advanced in years now, but it was very interesting reading through the recipes they had contributed and were proud of. It made me imagine them in their homes preparing these foods for a special dinner party or for a family get together. Later in the week I was doing some work at one of their houses and brought up that I had looked at the recipes they had contributed. Suprised, she asked me which recipes and then said she had not cooked some of those things for many years. She went back into her kitchen and returned after a while with the original recipes from her collection and then told me where they had come from and the history behind the dish. A few of them were recipes that had been passed down from her grandmother and had been in the family for years. I could tell from the look in her eyes and change in her voice that she had fond memories of those times and the recipes had brought her back to those times. I remember the time my mom gave me a cookbook of all my favorite recipes she used to make when we were kids. She also found a book her grandmother had given her and passed copies of those on as well. The amazing thing is, whenever I make one of those meals it takes me back to when I was growing up. And if I make one of the recipes of her grandmother, it takes me back to the days we spent playing at her house in the morning and early afternoon before the big afternoon meal. If you cook food that others enjoy, think about writing down your recipes so that you can pass them on to your kids and friends. I think recipes are a kind of legacy between families, regions, cultures. They are a link to our past, a memory of good times, and legacy to our future. And they taste good too!