Time flies, huh?
I really must say that this year I have felt life move so very quickly, it's almost amazing and depressing all at once. (Here I ask myself, did I take enough breaths in between the movement?) At the same time I do feel at home with where I am at post- 2010, even though I do not always know exactly where that might be at any given point in time :)
Brief 2010 recap: I got engaged to a fine man, I finished 3 semesters of 4 semesters of grad school, woot woot, I started my yogi schooling, I fell in love with plants all over again and the list goes on...I'll spare you the rest of the details.
What I came on here to say was that I have a list of 40 New Years Resolutions this year. I know, I am trying to cut back a bit here. Forty is a little excessive, no? I won't judge myself for it. I keep one of these lists going at all times anyway, not just for New Year's but it's always fun to "start fresh" and reconsider one's priorities. New Year's happens to be one of those holidays that gets people thinking about their lives, so I'm a fan.
Don't worry, I didn't come on here to tell you about all 40 things I wrote about, either, I just wanted to share one, mainly because I have pictures.
#19 Bake Grandma J's recipes, work on recipe book.
Picture of Grandma J's well-used recipe cards that I am working on...
To explain more about this project, my Grandma J was a woman dedicated to making the bestest baked goodies and she had quite a few recipes up her sleeve. Well, my family has had her recipe box sitting on a shelf, and I noticed it was getting dusty so I decided this year I wanted to pick a bunch of them and try on Grandma's shoes.
So far I have tried four of her recipes. I made her pecan pie successfully for my Dad's birthday three years ago and last year (Dec.) I decided to tackle my dad's favorite Christmas cookie recipe for Christmas.
This experience is now referred to as "The Date Christmas Cookie Disaster of 2010." Yes, I'm being dramatic, the cookies still tasted okay but let's just say that my dad's sister (who was often in charge of typing up Grandma J's recipes had forgotten to include an ingredient on her recipe card). Oops. I won't fully blame her because it was kinda funny looking back on it and I didn't have much guidance, I probably did a million things wrong, but I learned another lesson.
I learned that my grandma's vague descriptions leave me with a lot of questions. Sometimes I wish I could just call her up and ask her what she meant. Sometimes I regret not talking about these kinds of things with her when she was alive, but at the same time, I was 10 years younger and had no desire to be in the kitchen especially if it meant that I'd be doing the dishes.
Relative to this project I'm doing, this realization has required me to do my own research and brainstorming before commencing the baking/cooking. Now when attempting one of her recipes, I look online at similar recipes to make sure I'm on the right track with directions.
So far on the year I have made her banana bread- which was a hit, and tonight I just made her Mexican Wedding Cake--the cake, not the cookie.
While some of her ingredients are old school and not so healthy, I have tried to stick as closely to what she used because I want to keep with tradition, which brings me to another point.
Tradition is so important to me, and I think a lot of Americans have lost their family traditions and culture as time flies by and the days of early immigration fade from our nation's memories. Some of the last traditions to stay alive in our melting pot country happen to be recipes. This thinking brought me to the reason why I wanted to reconnect with Grandma J through her recipes.
Originally the plan was for me to record all of her recipes down into my recipe book. But after I thought about it, I decided it made more sense to try the recipe first. I wanted to try them out because I needed to decide for myself if it was a recipe I really want to pass onto my family. Instead of just mindlessly copying words, I felt by baking it and making my own tweaks, I could add my story to the line of tradition and ingredients, making me a part of it, too.
Here are the pictures of tonight's project. I have not frosted the cake yet, I think I'll wait until morning. If it tastes lovely I may post the recipe, otherwise I challenge you to dig up some family recipes of your own and add your flavor to it. Tweak it or leave it :) If your family doesn't bake or did not record the recipes, don't fret, if you want to change that part of your history, then maybe now would be a good time to start your own book.
The frosting--I didn't quite get all the powdered sugar mixed...let's just say some of the frosting ended up on the floor so the ratio was eyeballed.
The cake--after the mexican wedding, the frosting and cake will become one :) But for now, I'm off to bed.
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