It's All About the Food

If you've learned anything about me from this blog, you know that I love food. Not just eating it but preparing it, reading about it, etc. You've probably also learned that I read cookbooks as if they were novels. I have scads of them in my kitchen. So many in fact that I don't have enough shelf space for all of them. You can find them in my cabinets and drawers as well as on my bookshelf.

I have a special fondness for vintage cookbooks. Several of the ones I own belonged to my mother and grandmother at some point. I love reading through them and finding their hand-written notes scrawled in the margins or seeing spattered pages and knowing that the recipe on those pages must have been a much-loved dish.

Food is a very important subject in our lives. Not only is it necessary for sustaining our bodies but we also have emotional attachments to it. Many times a particular dish transports us to a particular place in our lives -- a special birthday or a memorable family holiday. We use food to celebrate special occasions. We share it with neighbors and friends during difficult times.

Two years ago I purchased, what I would call, kitchen journals for each of my daughters. My thought was that at some point they will want to be able to re-create all the wonderful meals they've enjoyed at home.

I have a tendency to come up with these good ideas and then I have difficulty following through. Well, I pulled them out of my closet today (you can see that the price tag is still on them) and decided that I was going to start filling the blank pages. The point is to create for them one place that will hold their favorite childhood recipes and notes about special occassions that the dishes were prepared for. For example, the first entry in B2's book is the chocolate and peanut butter dessert she requested for her 13th birthday party. I also included in the margin the names of her friends who she shared the dessert with.

I'm not keeping it a secret that I'm creating these. In order for them to have real meaning to the girls, I want them to have a say in what recipes are included. It may be years before they appreciate what these books represent but I hope they will become a treasure to them and maybe to their future husbands and children. I guess time will tell. And, when they're in college and wanting to know how to make a favorite dish, hopefully, it will be included in this book and I won't be creating recipe cards.