12 june: recipe re-collection

Sometimes the best recipes are those that don't come from beautiful, well-photographed, graphically gorgeous, famous-chef endorsed cookbooks. Sometimes the best recipes aren't those which you've seen used in ritzy restaurants, culinary cafes or gourmet gustatory shops. Usually -- and correct me if I'm wrong here -- the best recipes you will ever try are those that have been given to you by someone.

Whether they're tried-and-true concoctions that have been passed down through generations and generations of your family, or something that you gleaned from an acquaintance at the last dinner party you attended, its bound to be worth making. Why do I say this? Because either they're recipes that you grew up eating and probably cooking or they're recipes that you specifically asked someone for. You know, the old "wow, that's a great [insert dish name here], can I get the recipe from you?" adage. Obviously you liked it enough to (a) compliment the person and (b) ask for the recipe...it's going to be a good one.

I've spent a lot of time in the past few months going through my mother's cookbooks -- stolen quite a few of them as well and trekked them back to our small apartment, so that if I want to use them they're at my disposal...much to her chagrin. I've also been perusing her binders and folders and envelopes of recipes; from magazines, the internet (my mom recently has discovered how great the internet is...) and some written on napkins, among fragile-looking pages with her beautifully cursive handwriting that she has kept for probably forty years, and even a cake box top or two as well as the package for chocolate chips...her favourite chocolate-chip cookie recipe.

Yesterday I conquered the unicorn, I believe, of her collection. A smallish green fabric-covered three-ring binder with the words "MY RECIPES" embossed on the fabric. Flipping through the pages I found some tried-and-true recipes that I recall from my childhood: her famous warm potato salad, McCall's Cherry Cheesecake, Beef Stroganoff, Salmon Loaf (a recipe I have tried numerous times to duplicate without success...now I know the secret!) and the piece-de-resistance (for me anyway), a recipe for which I have been searching for some time, the elusive Empire Cookie (which I am making tomorrow).

In and among these treasures were other ones, perhaps less related to cooking than to history. A list my mom wrote, probably in 1971, of things that needed to be done to the house (the house they still live in today). A small note in the corner of one page, written in her hand, quietly declaring her love for my father. A short list of kitchen supplies she wanted (oven-proof 9" skillet, electric deep frying pan, casserole pots, dutch oven, sundae dishes). A typed letter from her mother (because she had arthritis in her hands at quite a young age), written when my older brother was still young enough to have been playing with something in the back seat of her car (probably around 1974). Pages she tore out of the Buffalo yellow pages with telephone numbers for hotels (she loves to shop in Buffalo), and of course, a few "I love you " notes from myself, written, judging from the handwriting at around age 6 or 7 -- 1978 - 1979.

These sorts of things grab you -- they show a passage of time that at one second is standing absolutely still and at the next moment is speeding along like a race car. I hope someday I will have a binder (or maybe just this site), to show my children what life was like when cooking was something we all loved...and I still had the time to record recipes, lists and notes just like my mother did at my age.