For years, I’ve been doing recipe exchanges to add variety to my family’s meals,. Much of my diet now is different than what I grew up on. My mother loved cooking, but her favorite was baking. I grew up very poor, but one thing was for sure we never ran out of something to eat. The food wasn’t “pretty” or something worthy of a Pinterest board pinning, but it filled your belly.
My Mom taught others, that came in and out of our lives, how to “squeeze blood from a penny”. Or, how to make meals stretch. Before she passed, my mother gave me her recipe box. Her “recipe box” was a pile of random bits of paper some with faded graphite and some smeared ink. We sat together and she helped me translate some of her writings.
On three occasions, she squinted and looked closely at the smudged dirty paper. She gave up her trying to translate her own handwriting by stating, “Well, shit, Katie, I can’t read this!”
I’d reply some variation of, “Well, Mama, it’s your handwriting.”
“I know that!” She’d then shuffle the paper around in her hands before push it toward me carelessly.
Before she passed away, she was aware I was working on my memoirs. I know she would have loved the idea of me sharing her meals. Knowing her, she would’ve been nervous. Mama suffered from PTSD and was nervous most of the time.
Mama asked me one day, “Katie, doesn’t it bother you? What they might say? They could hurt your feelings.”
“There’s nothing they can say that’s going to hurt my feelings. I’ve said the meanest stuff to myself, they can’t top me. I’m a first-class pro on being mean to me. Besides, you can’t have thin-skin and work in the industry that I do.” It was said with snark. She shook her head and sighed.
The recipes won’t be pretty, but ya gotta eat, ya know?
Go to the tag: Recipes
