Journey To A Cookbook

Let the madness begin! On January 4th, grandma and I officially started the journey toward creating her cookbook. This has been something we’ve discussed for years and even attempted a time or two, but life has always gotten in the way. It seems after losing grandpa, we realized how quickly time slips away. At the new year, grandma and I spoke on the phone and could hear the readiness in each other’s voices. The holidays have ended and I am unemployed, so good golly let’s do this.

We sat down to sort through each category of recipes from award winning pies to nostalgic blueberry muffins. Baggies and baggies of recipes are pulled to the table as grandma becomes more and more like Mary Poppins. Magazine clippings, newspaper articles, emails, and recipe cards empty her once bursting file folder system. I think I have underestimated grandma’s love for trying new recipes…

Now, grandma’s real work comes in choosing. Choosing from 3 versions of the same recipe and wondering “which one do I actually use?” and realizing maybe none are correct. Or cherishing everything from a 50 year old recipe card to a week old magazine clipping that “I’ve just tried and it’s delicious!”. My job of keeping this woman on track starts to seem impossible. We quickly become overwhelmed with the sheer volume of recipes and the near impossible task of deciding what makes the cut for a cookbook. But in the process, many adored items are retrieved and the memories are priceless.

A few treasured cookbooks

THE recipe

So after about 4 hours, we manage to make it through about half of the recipes. There’s so much to do but I’m so happy to finally be making progress. We do have a growing list of recipes that seem to just live in grandma’s head. The humblest of humans, she doesn’t realize how talented she is. I’m trying to convince her that “no, not everyone makes their own chicken broth”. We poor mortals need some help.