The other day my big sister Vickie and I were discussing recipes in how to make meatloaf. She was looking through her cookbooks. I have to confess that even though I enjoy cooking a lot, I do not own a lot of recipe/cook books. I hope to change that. Suddenly I remembered I have my mom’s old cookbook from 1948 that I inherited when she passed away. It was my grandma Grace’s cookbook before it became hers and then mine. My mom was born in 1942 and this cookbook is from 1948 when my grandma was a young mother raising her children. I treasure this book, but I have to confess that I have not done many of the recipes. My sister had me look up how to make meatloaf in the cookbook, guess what there are no recipes for meatloaf. Got me to wondering when exactly meatloaf became a stable in family cooking? In my sister’s newer version of the same cooking there were a few meatloaf recipes.

While flipping through my antique recipe book I found handwritten recipes from my mom. Even though I had a rocky relationship with my birth mom, one good thing that I do remember about her is that she was an amazing cook and she gifted my sister and I with that same talent. Does anyone know how I can preserve my mom’s handwritten recipes so that they do not fade away? I do not like having loose recipes that can get lost. Right now, I feel like I am getting back into the cooking groove that I seemed to have lost. The last two weeks I have been using my crock pot to make meals to put in the freezer for one of my fall out days. A fall out day is a day when I am suffering pain, swollen joints, extreme exhaustion, or constriction of my throat or I am having a side effect from the medications that I take to help me with my disease.

While browsing through my recipe book that belonged to my grandmother, my mother, and now me I felt a strong desire to try out some of these old recipes. Back in the olden days they cooked from scratch, hardly using prepackaged meals. They grew their own food and ate healthy. Yes, they did eat a lot of fatty foods, but at least they ate real food. Sometimes I wonder if the packaged food is real food or some concoction made in a chemical lab. I have always wanted to leave at the beach, in a log cabin with a huge garden where I grew my own food and had my own animals. I think that is a dream that will not come true, because of my health, unless I find me a farmer to marry. Right now, all I can do is enjoy the fresh food that I can find at the grocery store and even go to the farmer market when I get a chance. And try out the awesome recipes in my recipe book. First I have to read through it and start choosing, which will be fun and of course I will share my adventures in the kitchen.