Since I really need to get my mind wrapped around editing that romantic suspense that I’m avoiding. Like most writers, I’m not fond of the whole editing process; but I do appreciate the necessity. Anyways, I hope you had a wonderful thanksgiving if you celebrate and a lovely day if you don’t.

I’m still in full on thanks mode today and I hope you are, too. A package I just received kind of drove that home. In my quest to find recipes for the holidays, I stumbled across something I never thought I’d find. When my mom died back in 1996, I couldn’t take her set of Better Homes and Gardens cookbooks. They belonged to my dad. However, a handful of those books had a few recipes that captured all my childhood holiday memories and I wanted them. I’ve been searching for those recipes since with no luck. While I found similar recipes along the way, I never found the recipes. Not the ones we always used for family gatherings when all my aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents came to my house for Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas desserts.

A couple of weeks ago I was on the search for the coconut cream pie recipe we made every Thanksgiving and Christmas – the one our guests liked to steal even when we hid them. While I didn’t find the recipe; I did find a private seller on ebay selling a collection of five BH & G cookbooks from the ’50’s and ’60’s. Three of my mom’s cookbooks were in that set. The fourth cookbook popped up in a recommendation from another site. Since they weren’t expensive, I bought both sets. As silly as it might sound, those gently battered books came today and I don’t think I could receive a better gift if I tried.

You see, I now have the coconut cream pie recipe I used when I was allowed to prepare the home-made vanilla custard base for the first time when I was in elementary school. I was so proud I finally got to make the most coveted dessert for the family Thanksgiving gathering. I felt like a “big girl.” That vanilla custard base and meringue recipe for what is one of the best coconut cream pies in the world was also a big part of the recipe for our southern banana pudding recipe. As silly as all this sounds, all recipes are not created equally and these are the best, probably because they were ours. Not only ours; but part of the best memories of my life. The one’s involving family.

A different book has the apple spice cake recipe with the burnt caramel frosting my mom made for my birthday back in the day when I still called her “Mommy”. It was so delicious I still remember that cake as one of the best cakes I’ve ever tasted in my life a half century later. The recipe was written in the back of the cook book in my mom’s handwriting where she’d converted the cupcake recipe from the book into a cake recipe to bake that special cake for me. In another life, my birthday cakes would have been chocolate since my mom was a chocoholic, but I can’t eat chocolate. I’ve been intolerant since I was five. While I don’t have her exact recipe, I have the means to recreate it and that’s priceless to me.

I also now have the fresh strawberry cake recipe with the fresh strawberry icing she made for a different birthday party. If I remember correctly, I was probably in third or fourth grade and the kids at that party were in heaven. I’m not sure there was anything left when they finished. They knew a good thing when they tasted it. As happy as I was to have that yummy cake, I think I was happier that she loved me enough to work so hard to create something special just for me.

While I haven’t done anything more than glance through those books for about five minutes, I’m sure I’ll find more priceless memories between those well-worn covers when I have the time to look. A part of me can’t wait to look while the other part needs some time to process. As silly as it might sound, finding a seemingly meaningless part of your past can have a far more meaningful impact than expected. I’m finding that to be very true.

Thank you for letting me share and I apologize my short isn’t really short but the sweet is kind of sweet.

Until next time,

Calla