A Snowy Start

Its been a long time coming but I could no longer ignore the stack of recipes in the corner. Snow has been falling for days and I've been to the market twice to buy some key ingredient like cheddar cheese or whole walnuts.


My mom LOVED snow! She loved a lot of things, including my sisters and me, but snow was something she got really excited about - watching it fall through our den window is one of my fondest, most peaceful, childhood memories. And I can't forget snow cream - that cold confection that seems so odd now but was so luscious then! Snow seemed much more frequent when I was a child on the ES but we have seen less and less each year so my memories of my Mom and snow are from much younger days. I feel I have returned to those days, or maybe my life in the Berkshires or perhaps have just been beamed to the North Pole somehow. The blizzards we are experiencing in DC are epic. I am gazing out my window at the third snow storm of the season and what is proving to be the most blustery of the year.


So... why I am doing this? Mostly to record some of my Mom's most used recipes to give us something more to remember her by. She loved to cook and she loved to take care of us (my sisters and me!) and she did that a lot through food. So many of these recipes have great childhood memories for me - so I'm remembering my Mom and my childhood here. And maybe recording some traditional and fabulous recipes that we can all use.


As I embark on this I am struck by how much the recording of recipes (well anything really, of course) has transformed in recent years. First with the evolution of cookbooks and celebrity chefs and second... one guess here - the Internet. My Mom's recipes are scrolled on recipe cards and strips of paper. Honestly, most are typed or neatly written on an old school recipe card and were extracted (by me a few years after my Mom passed away) from her recipe box. A real recipe box, with a lid that pops up to expose hundreds of recipe cards divided by pre-printed category tabs - you know, "pies and cakes", "sauces", I want to say "jello molds, etc" too, as it all seems so 70s but, honestly can't remember the categories. I am assured that they would be entirely different today than when my Mom's were printed.


Does anyone even have these recipe boxes anymore? We have folders in our email, on our computers, maybe a photo album with those perfectly styled magazine recipes but, a full fledged recipe box? Not likely. That is why I am doing this? In fact, as I write, I realize I must get a picture of Mom's brown plastic recipe box next time I am home.


So many thoughts come to me about the evolution of the recipe as I embark on this project... but I'm just gonna get started! I was going to start with cheese straws and crab dip for the Superbowl (nice job Saints, sorry Peyton!) but the cheese for the straws was used in omelets and dinners for Carter as he and his paretns spent the weekend in the city with me. And we spent the weekend foraging out of the fridge, not thinking about my Mom's recipes (something I feel the need to do on my own) as we were snowed in. Also, the crab was never purchased and I never made it to a Superbowl party. So I start with Nut Loaf as I have all ingredients and I can easily dispose of the goods to neighbors and friends in what is now being called Snowmaggedon.