A Thought

Here's a thought for you.  When you die, what recipe would your family want the most?  Not YOUR favorite, but the one you are known for, the most requested, the one that will send the family scrambling for when they can't ask for it anymore.

I learned this the hard way.  After both grandmothers passed away my brother and I would ask each other, "Did you get the recipe for....?"   He had the Sicilian grandmother's recipe and technique for her spaghetti sauce but neither of us got the brownies.   I searched and found recipes for the Polish grandma's placzek and cruschiki and city chicken and apple pie.  I spent more time with her and watched her during baking and cooking times.

I've asked two of our grand daughters what they will want the recipe for.  Elizabeth, without missing a breath, said "cruschiki."  And Adelaide said, "peanut butter cookies."   Well, there are hundreds of recipes for peanut butter cookies but the one SHE eats is the one I make.  

I take a Sharpie pen and write across the cover of a cookbook that the special recipe is inside.  Peanut Butter Cookies In Here   or Easter Recipes in Here (for the cruschiki)  and Corn Fritters In Here.  So when I die and they are sorting through the cookbooks it's there, right on the cover.  

 I came across this cookbook and Friend Laurie sent me a photo of it, "This looks like you."  And I agreed so when it was published I bought it.  

This author discovered favorite recipes engraved on gravestones.  She collected them and the stories of the women who made them and put them together in this book.   They are mostly common recipes that we all pretty much know. Chocolate chip cookies,  spritz cookies, no bake chocolate cookies, snickerdoodles, etc.  Each recipe is preceeded by a little story about the woman so we kind of get to know her.  

One woman, the one who made the spritz cookies and apparently had quite a following absolutely refused to share her recipe.  Until she died.  Then it went on her gravestone, carved in granite for anyone to see.  

I love the idea of this, I had never heard of recipes carved on gravestones, I thought it gave new meaning to "you can't take it with you."  

But it also gives my "When I Die" mantra new meaning.  I KNOW what it's like to be sorry not to have asked the questions or gotten a recipe or memory.  I walk around saying "when I die...." every time I see the grands but now they know.