I'm feeling a little nostalgic. Losing my grandparents was the first time death left a huge hole in my life. I've lost many other special people since losing my first grandparent but nothing really ever prepares you for that "missing piece" with the loss of a loved one, family member or friend.
When my grandparents passed away, I longed to see pieces of them that they had left behind. Being the "sentimental" family member, I poured over old photos, scrapbooks and searched for pieces of them in various forms. What a treasure trove to have both my grandmother’s recipe boxes shared with me after their passing!
I loved seeing their elegant handwriting (or chicken scratch if they had hurried), their notes of how they adapted the recipes and even the splotches of cake or cookie batter, dried on the index cards. I imagined at what point in their life that this recipe became a favorite - when they were young newlyweds, new moms, empty nesters or when they were "my grandmas". I love recipes that tell a little back story about how the recipe was acquired or how a family came to make it a favorite and I hoped I could find those stories while thumbing through their carefully organized recipes.
I think I have mentioned it before but both of these lovely grandmothers were wonderful cooks. I am lucky to have recipes for their Clubhouse Salad, Top-Secret Apple Cake, Holiday Potato Rolls, Thanksgiving Stuffing and many others.
Through recipes, the passage of history and culture of what makes a family is shared amongst generations. A culinary history lives inside those recipe boxes depicting life when veal and lamb graced holiday tables and jello emerged as the hip fruit salad transformer paired with everything from nuts, cottage cheese, mayo (ick) and celery. A snippet of history is captured in their blue ink cursive and their words live on.
It's so strange that having shared countless meals with both sets of grandparents that the stand-out memory that comes to mind when I envision both of my grandmas cooking in the kitchen is them making me toast. Grandma Nadean made amazing toast and so did Grandma Rose.
Grandma Rose used her oven to toast the San Francisco sourdough slices just to perfection, ready to be topped with a slab of prosciutto and paired with fresh cherries and a glass of Welch's grape juice - all my absolute favorites.
Grandma Dean used the toaster and slathered the toast with Saffola margarine making sure that every single corner was covered. I spent many a day after school at her house and toast was often accompanied by a piano tune being played in the background by my beloved grandpa, Pop. Grandma Dean could make the best cinnamon toast! She often sprinkled a dill weed and parmesan cheese concoction that transformed the toast into a lovely savory treat that she would slice into strips, perfect for dipping into her Ham and Split Pea Soup (that I have yet to be able to recreate)!
It dawned on me that I need to work on my toast making skills as my kids don't seem to have an affinity for toast in any of it's forms. I know that my toast will never be as good as my grandmas prepared, but I sure better at least try. If only I had their techniques written down in a recipe!
Today, I challenge you to handwrite one of your favorite recipes or one of your family members’ favorite recipes and send it off to a family member or a favorite cook. If the recipient is anything like me, I promise that it will be a shared piece of you, treasured for years to come.
