Edible Memories

This weekend I made the trip back to my home town for the birthday party of a dear friend. While there, I stopped by my Grandmother's house to visit for a bit. My Grandmother has a recipe for the most delicious chocolate cake you are ever tasted (it has won a first place ribbon at the Missouri State Fair, no less!) and I had been meaning to get it for quite some time. So while I was visiting, I decided that there was no better time than the present.

As I was digging through her very large stack of recipe cards, I got to thinking that maybe I would take a few more recipes as well. After all, you can never have too many recipes (especially really goods ones that you grew up on!). As I made my way slowly through the stack I came across MANY recipes from my childhood and I began to notice that a few memories would pop into my head as I read over the ingredients for each dish. Who knew that memories of meals would bring so much emotion. In addition to remembering each of these tasty repasts, it also struck me how old many of these recipes were. They were all written in my Grandmother's nearly ineligible handwriting, and quite a few had already started to fade with age. There were even a few in there from her own mother. It got me thinking how precious these 3X5 cards really were. Needless to say, I walked out of there with a substantial stack of recipes that I am to copy (I think I'm going to scan them all so I can have them all in her handwriting) and bring them back this coming weekend. While my Grandmother is in great health for all of her 88 years, it brings me great comfort to have these memories in my possession. I, of course, fully intend on making each and everyone of them in the hopes that my own children will one day have fond memories of the same recipes that I loved as a child.

My challenge to each of you is to make sure to collect what you can about your family history, whether it be through stories, or as in my case, recipes. I had no idea how much these would mean to me until I started flipping through them, but it has inspired me to not only get more recipes from my mother, but to also hound my other Grandma for some of her memorable recipes (especially that fried chicken recipe!). There is truly no better gift to your families than to give them the gift of health in wonderful meals that were created in love.