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My Mother's
Recipe Box:
A Sentimental Journey
by Rachel Paxton
Remember the days
when cookbooks weren't so readily available, and you or your mother
relied on only one or two different cookbooks for cooking all of your
family's meals? I still have my mother's old cookbooks, as well as my
grandmother's. Each one is worn from age and use--if you flip through
the tattered pages it is obvious which recipes were turned to time
and time again. These cookbooks will always number among my most
precious treasures. When our mothers wanted to try new recipes, they
most likely didn't run out and buy new cookbooks. They often didn't
have the extra money to spend, and often there weren't very many to
choose from. So where did they get new recipes? From each other.
When I was a child
I remember my mother exchanging recipe cards with friends and
relatives and bringing them home and filing them away in her recipe
box. I always loved going through her recipes (although she often got
mad at me for getting them all out of order!)
All the years
while I was learning how to cook I went through her recipe box time
and time again, pulling out my favorite recipes and preparing them
again and again.
Seeing who the
recipes were from made them all the more special. I also love looking
back at all the recipe cards I prepared myself while I was a teenager
and spent much of my time learning how to cook. I still prepare many
of the recipes I used back then. To this day, all I have to do is
open my recipe card box, and I am instantly transported back in time.
My mother hasn't
exchanged recipe cards with anyone in more than 20 years. I have very
few of my own (although I hope to inherit hers someday!) But even to
this day there is no better place to find favorite family recipes
than in my mother's recipe box.
Twenty years from
now, I look forward to going through my recipe box with my own
daughter, telling her stories about where all of my different recipes
came from.
About The Author
Rachel Paxton is a
freelance writer and mom who publishes the Creative Homemaking Recipe
of the Week Club, a weekly newsletter that contains quick, easy
dinner ideas and money-saving household hints. To subscribe send a
blank e-mail message to FreeRecipes-subscribe@egroups.com. Visit
Creative Homemaking and in the Home and Garden section of Suite 101.
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