For almost three years now, I have been discarding books, clothes, papers and other relics of my life so far. I believe during this process I have been trying to discard physical bits while retaining the stories behind the things. I am just now finishing up a book about this process. My husband says the book is about mortality. I don’t know. You can read that book when or if it gets published. Today, though, I just wanted to go through the one remaining bag of books, magazines, recipes, and other oddments. I’m going to start with a packet of my mother’s recipes.
| Dream Bars ½ C shortening ½ C brown sugar 1 C flour Mix to a crumbly mass and pat into a shallow pan, 8 x 12 inch Bake in a mod. oven (375°) for 10 min Remove mixture from oven & spread on top a mixture of 1C brown sugar ½ tsp. baking powder 2 eggs ¼ tsp. salt 1 tsp. vanilla 1 ½ C shredded coconut 2 Tablespoons flour 1 C nutmeats Bake 20 more minutes Cool slightly & cut in barsHermits 2 eggs 1 cup sugar 1 Tbs lemon juice 2 ½ cups pastry flour (sift before measuring) 1 tsp soda ¾ tsp cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, salt ¼ tsp cloves ¾ cup butter or shortening melted 1 cup seed raisins Beat eggs, add sugar, lemon juice. Mix flour & dry ingredients, sift into egg mixture & beat until well blended. Add butter and raisins. Drop by tsp on baking sheet Bake at 375° 10 to 12 minutes.Date Nut Bread 2/3 cups boiling water 1 pkg pitted dates ¼ cup butter 2/3 cup sugar ¼ tsp salt 1 ¾ cup flour ½ tsp salt 1 cup walnuts Put dates, butter, sugar in bowl, pour water over—add flour, nuts line with wax paper Boston bread pans: 4 in diameter, 3 in deep, 5 in long 350° i hr. |
I’m quite sure that the dream bar recipe was written on the index card in my mother’s hand and with her recipe-writing narrative style, but I think the hermit recipe might be written by my aunt. When my aunt died a few years ago, my sister-in-law gave me my aunt’s recipe collection. I think through these years of winnowing, reorganizing, and moving, maybe I’ve inadvertently mixed some piles together. Like all the ladies from way back in the last century, both my mother and my aunt wrote a fine hand, but I think my aunt was probably more likely to have used a fountain pen than my mom was. (Another clue is the recipe for Normandie Cake I see in the pile. If my mother ever made Normandie cake, I missed it, and that would never have happened). I don’t think it matters and what am I doing writing to you about cookies anyway?
Note: Like some others of my own generation, I am somewhat uncomfortable providing certain specific types of information on the Internet. So, I just deleted my aunt’s and my sister-in-law’s names from this text. It reads better with their names, but, at least until I am more comfortable with this format, I’m going with general terms. I seem to want to spill my guts for the world to read, but, at the same time, remain vaguely anonymous.
I want to throw away these remaining scraps of paper, but I do not move It is another day and I plan on throwing away all of the index card recipes except for the one for dream bars. I’ll do that on yet another day, maybe. I also seem to be having a little issue throwing away the old-fashioned pickle recipes. I think that my mom and I made the nine day pickles one summer. Now that I’ve told you that, I am going to throw away the recipes right here at the Starbucks (Second and Fillmore, Cherry Creek, Denver 8.29.12) Days later: I still have the pickle recipe card sitting on the table next to me.
Where’s this story heading? See Cookies at the North Rim, coming soon.
Close to the Ground: Living Inductively 