Heritage Project

This is a project I started more than a year ago.

When we got married, my mother-in-law-to-be gave me this small binder. In it, she had transcribed recipes which she used in her kitchen. I thought it was the best gift. Very personal. She had dividers in it to categorize the recipes.

I have used it often, and transcribed my own recipes into it. Well, I have to say, that some of the recipes I only used once or twice, but still, the book became one of my 'go-to' books when I was trying to come up with something that had a vague resemblance to a meal or a dessert. The book has begun to show signs of wear though, especially in the past two or three years (cookie dough being dropped on it, writing smudged from thumbing through it). The size and the shape of this binder also meant I had to put it into the shelf sideways to get it in. Although I'm not obsessive-compulsive, I did notice it every time I tried to put it into the shelf, that I had to turn it. I have a couple of other books I have to turn sideways like that, but no other binders.

So I began to shop around for something along the same line, but with more 'me' in it. I suppose I could have recovered the front of the original binder, but when I found this one, I loved the picture, and the feel of the book so much I bought it.

You might have looked a little closer at it by now and realized a little design flaw in it.
See the tabs on the side? They are alphabetical, rather than categorical. Yes, it is actually an address book, but I forgave it for that, because I loved everything else about it. I even bought pretty paper to transcribe the recipes on.

You'll notice that this paper says "miracle". Kind of appropriate. Somedays, it takes a miracle for anything to appear on the table.
Other pages say "believe" and "heart".
Again, good phrases for making
sure my family

survives my culinary skills.
I wanted to preserve her writing, so I cut out pages from the original binder and glued, then taped them onto the new pages. Taping them meant that the edges wouldn't deteriorate anymore.

I decided I would keep all the recipes that I loved, like this one for Butter Tarts, and say goodbye to the rest, like the "Better Than Robert Redford" dessert. [I have a feeling I could find it on the web if I needed it - which I haven't since the first and only time I made it.]
[Does anyone even remember who Robert Redford is anymore? Maybe it should be changed to "Better Than Hugh Jackman" ]
I rewrote some of the other recipes that I loved. I even left some in that I will probably never use, like my Grampa's "Peanut Brittle" recipe, because there's something heritage-like about having them in there. (My family doesn't eat Peanut Brittle). There's still some work to be done, (like categorizing the recipes) but for now, the book is consolidated and it fits in my cupboard. Nice and neat. Easy peasy, lemon (meringue pie) squeezy.