Food for thought.

My grandma passed away this year just after her 86th birthday in April. She was a lovely woman with a gentle soul, I never in all my life (46 years) saw her angry. Grandma was good at many things but the one thing everyone knew...is she was a FANTASTIC southern cook. I could show up at her house hungry, look in the fridge and think there was nothing to eat.  And in no time at all she would have whipped me up some homemade soup and cornbread. She was a magician in my eyes!

When she passed among her things that became mine were her wooden rolling pin, tin measuring cups, a pie plate and her recipe box. My Mom told me her rolling pin is likely be the only one she ever owned.  It is well seasoned from Crisco! I could feel and still smell the grease that had been worked into the wood over the years...she was a pie maker and would never dream of using a pre made pie crust.

A few days after Christmas I sat at the kitchen table and removed the rubber band that was around her recipe box. Her "recipe box" was really an old shoe box. Grandma kept most of her recipes in her head.  She didn't often use measuring utensils or cookbooks. She was the oldest child of 4 and responsible for cooking most meals in her household from an early age, and growing up in a time when people didn't dine out except for maybe a very special occasion meant she cooked 3 meals a day 7 days a week even after she married as well.  She didn't need Betty Crocker to tell her how to make meat loaf...truth is she probably taught Betty how to cook.

Once the rubber band was off the box and I was actually looking inside I was overcome with sadness. Knowing she would never again stand next to me in her kitchen cooking and baking with me is a hard thought to have. She taught me lots of tricks and shared many secrets with me over a recipe or two...and then I realized I wasn't crying out of sadness anymore but happiness. Happy I have those memories, happy she took the time to share with me the art of cooking. We live in a world where sadly many women do not know how to cook.  I'm very old fashion in my thinking,  I truly believe a woman should know how to cook, families should eat meals together and when possible they should be eaten at the family table. Nowadays everyone is plugged into a smart phone and barely takes the time to look up and acknowledge each other. Some of our best conversations are at the kitchen table over a home cooked meal and eaten only after saying grace.

I sat in my kitchen smiling and teary eyed,  remembering each recipe I found. The ones with stains on them I know are the well loved favorites and it was then I decided I HAVE to find a way to keep them safe. I need to put together a recipe book with them so that someday my daughter can flip through the pages and smile knowing they are long time family recipes, recipes that filled our bellies and our hearts and were preserved so that she too can call herself a good cook and hopefully tell her family of the times when she was just a child helping her mommy out in the kitchen. 

Grandma and my dad standing in my mom's kitchen...