tastebook

as i mentioned in my last post, i was really running low on time right before the holidays. i wanted to post about one of the best gifts i was getting ready to give to my mom for christmas.

i got my inspiration from heidi of 101 Cookbooks when she wrote about creating your own personal cookbook.

Tastebook.com allows you to do just that! so i have been collecting all of my mom's recipes that my siblings and i all remember from when we were growing up and the recipes that we now all love and use at home when we cook for our families. over the past couple years we have all called my mom looking for that special recipe that is always a hit at a party or when we are having a bad day and we want something warm and familiar. my mom's recipes hold such great memories and remind me of when things seemed so simple.



my favorite part of this experience is going through mom's old recipe box. most modern day moms and cooks alike have cookbooks, maybe a few reprints of some classics like 'the new basics' or 'joy of cooking'. it's rare to find a recipe box now that everything is done on the computers. recipe boxes are history, they bring us back to a time when lard, canned meats and pure processed sugar where standard. jell-o was a staple in every pantry. we didn't know that eating a meal made entirely out of canned goods probably wasn't as healthy as we thought.

the only thing that trumped my mom's recipe box was my grandmother's! dishes like 'little logs' where you wrap cocktail franks in bread and mustard butter, or another favorite i ran across called 'cock' (that should be enough to deter anyone!) which is made with ground beef, vermouth, redwine, salt, butter, brown sugar and rum. woweee! yuk! i can't believe people actually served such things at parties, much less in the privacy of their own homes.

if anyone out there has hilarious recipes that time has forgot...please, oh please...send them my way!