In January 2004 I lost my mother to pancreatic cancer. Although mom did not consider herself a good cook (she always compared herself to my grandmother who was an excellent cook) she really was. Mom believed that food should be done leisurely and flavours should be allowed to develop and mingle. Supper in your plate in 20 minutes was not in her vocabulary and it showed. The food was carefully prepared, with ample time for flavours to develop and cooked slowly.
One day, when she was a young newlywed, she bought a plain lined book and started lovingly to write down the recipes that she gathered from friends and acquaintances, the newspaper, magazine, dishes, cakes, puddings, anything that she thought tasted good enough to write down. On the inside cover, she wrote her name and the date - 1957.
I now have that recipe book. Many of those recipes I saw mom make over and over again. The pages have smudges, drops of hastily cleaned sugared mess, notes over the recipes showing adaptations she introduced, or how the dessert/cake/dish looked.
I have decided to test all of mom's recipes and the events of the food blogs are a nice way to present them. Not only will I be able to follow her steps in the kitchen, from a young bride to a beloved grandmother, but will also be an opportunity to share her recipes with friends and family who remember the flavours.
6 comments:
What a wonderful idea, Ana. It's the perfect way to pay tribute to your mother.
Fabulous. What a wonderful thing to have.
A great idea! I'm planning to do more or less the same thing this summer, and am also trying to get up the nerve to start a blog. I have my mother's recipe folder (held together by a couple of rubber bands). I'm thinking about collecting all the recipes we loved best in a family cookbook, for my daughters and my niece.
That is such a lovely idea. I lost my father not so long ago, and whilst he didn't keep recipes, he was a big foodie and definitely fostered my interest in food and cooking. So, I think what I'm doing with my blog is inspired by him and partly in tribute to his influence on me.
A wonderful gift, Ana.
I can very much relate -- my father is dying of the same cancer that took your mother, and my hope is that I can at least try to carry on his work in his garden, and keep up the love of it that he had. I'm with him now, caregiving, and my mom is still here with her big, messy collection of ancient, scribbled-on cookbooks, so when it's harvest time in the garden, I'll be pulling those out and revisiting the recipes of my childhood.
Ana,
This is such a delightful idea. I discovered your blog today and I'm loving it.
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