My son’s birthday is in a few days. We haven’t been on great terms so I want to make it special, show him I love him so much even though he’s mad at me. I wish I was the kind of mom who has a go to birthday cake recipe but I’m too interested in variety and honestly maybe a bit ADDish. So I was thumbing through a stack of magazines and torn out recipes. Most were junk so I threw them away which was great. Then I decided to climb my stool and reach into the top cabinet above the fridge where I keep my Mom’s recipe box.
I took the little wooden, well loved recipe box down and set it on the counter. I was already missing my Mom, who passed five years ago now. I am always keenly aware of her absence at holidays and birthdays because she was such an amazing baker. I never had to bake birthday cakes or any desserts or breads for holidays. She would plan for months what to make and loved it. She was always thumbing through recipe books and magazines and ordering them for me. She loved to watch cooking shows. It was truly her passion.
My Mom used food as currency in exchange for favors. Once when I was in elementary school I got called down to the Principal’s office because my overly loyal and exuberant mother had promised one of my classmates cookies if he would vote for me for student council.
The box was a bit disorganized because that is how my Mom was. There were little alphabet dividers but mostly the recipes were just stuck in wherever. There were even a few business cards and receipts stuck in here and there. Some I suppose were from my childhood but mostly my Mom cooked the same simple good meals regularly without a recipe, pot roast, baked chicken, Orange roughy in butter, goulash (she was third generation Polish and German)….and of course we made the same Christmas cut-outs every year and gingerbread men. She and my kids loved to decorate these together just like I did as a girl.
So I don’t know if she made many of the recipes. But she collected them. Some were in her handwriting, faded now. Lists of ingredients with very minimal notes about what to do with them. Some were from magazines. Some weee from her more organized friends, nearly typed or laminated. Recipes she must have enjoyed at a cocktail party or ladies’ luncheon once upon a time.
My Mom was born at the cusp of the 40’s when the War was ending, so many of the recipes were from that era when canned foods and novelties like marshmallow crème and jello were all the rage. These didn’t appeal to me much. Others were to be made in the newly invented microwave.
Some of the recipes were in my child’s handwriting because I grew to love cooking too and wanted to be like my Mom.
One was written in my Dad’s humorous way, for Pemican.
Some were from the time I became a vegan (at 16), a habit that freaked my family out as we lived in a small town in mid Michigan where the only vegetarian meal in a restaurant was salad and baked potato and we had one health food store. No Whole Foods yet back in the early 90’s.
And I began to miss my Mom so much. And the tears began to course down my face, staining the recipes further. I missed her baking and I missed her love and her presence.
I pulled out a few cake recipes. I don’t know if my son would like them. I still don’t know if I will make one of them. I’m not the baker my Mom was. My attention span is too short. And I am still too scarred by my former husband always berating me for showing off if I created something beautiful in the kitchen. But I liked touching the recipes she once held in her hand, so many written in her hand. I felt her presence.
Miss you Mom. Love you forever. Thank you for watching over us. 💗
Notes From Real Life 