Food

Hand Me Down Recipes

The Women’s Home Companion Cookbook

Photo by Vanessa Loring from Pexels

My earliest memories are in the kitchen and many are of cooking with my mother. Licking the bowl was probably my first form of participation in the art of cooking and, at the drop of a cookie, my mother will tell you how I asked her not to use the rubber spatula “because it eats too much”.

Cooking was my first science class where I learned about the interaction of ingredients, the effect of heat, measuring solids, liquids, and granules, and how to follow the instructions of a recipe. At the age of 81, she still teaches science with cooking to kids in her rural community.

“All the best recipes can be found by tasting the pages”

The well used pages for various pancakes has samples included. Photo by the author.

Peanut butter cookies were the first ones made, followed by oatmeal. I don’t recall making chocolate chip cookies, perhaps mom was making healthier choices. Though oatmeal cookies were and still are my favorite, the peanut butter cookies were more fun to make because of the part where you mash the tops with a fork. Simple pleasure; right up there with sand castling.