Framed Recipes

Hey Yall:)

Although I'm NOT a recipe follower, I DO adore cookbooks. I could seriously curl up with a blanket and read a good cookbook like a novel, provided that I ever was blessed with that kind of time in my life!

I use them more for inspiration and ideas for meals and I think it always works out best to combine 2 or 3 recipes to make the dish my own. Recipes should be merely suggestions in my opinion! Unless, of course, you are baking. My favorite cookbooks are local ones featuring recipes from relatives and hometown friends.

Because I like to fill our home, especially the kitchen, with personal touches, I framed a few of my mom's recipes from an old church cookbook to display.

When you read the instructions and personal comments in a recipe from someone you know, it's almost as if you can hear them telling you what to do...like they are cooking in the kitchen with you.

These were simply photocopied and printed, but one day I will find the time to sift through what I believe is the BEST way to pass down recipes for generations...the handwritten 3x5 index cards with personal comments and only the most special of recipes. It's a special way to showcase someone you love whom, in sharing a recipe, also shared a piece of themselves.

Very few intangibles can be passed down and inherited through generations for all the family to share.

Only one relative can keep that priceless hand-painted piece of grandma's after she is gone, but everyone can share grandma's special spaghetti sauce recipe. And even fewer things in life remain constant and eternal, as everything in life changes with its season, but that sauce will remain the same for eternity when the instructions on that little piece of paper are followed. It can be comforting, when you think about it.

One night while living in Conway for college, in my little one bedroom apartment shared by only myself and a 22 pound puggle, I craved the smell and comforting taste of Nonnie's spaghetti like never before. NOBODY's spaghetti tasted like hers and I've yet to taste a sauce that even comes close to it. I pulled out the little square recipe and listened to every word she said. It simmered and bubbled and I wondered if I could ever do it the same. With my first taste of the wooden spoon, I yelled, "That is Nonnie in a pot!" Every little ounce of flavor was exactly as it was the thousands of times I had tasted it before. I was taken home.

I'd love to eventually accumulate a wall full of special family recipes. I'd love to see how the project grows over the years. Oh the stories they could tell!

Have a great day,

Katie

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