Mom’s recipe box is like a time capsule
Cooking and baking are a fun way to pass the long hours at home
A recipe box filled with cue cards adorned with my late mother’s penmanship sits in a cupboard in my kitchen. I usually open the box when it’s a Jewish holiday and I want to replicate one of her recipes, to share with my family.
But lately I’ve been craving recipes that come alongside a feeling of nostalgia; recipes from the ’70s and ’80s when it seems like counting calories and dietary restrictions were less of a concern. Right now, food can sustain us in other ways, bringing a sense of comfort, and cooking and baking are a way to pass the long hours at home. And by using her recipes, stained cue cards yellowed with age, I’m able to relive memories of her.
My mom was all about bringing people together, especially family, and in Judaism the way that we do that is over food. She would slave away in the kitchen for days leading up to a family get-together, so she could have everything just so, and so every guest would leave with a smile on their face.
Though she cooked, it was her baking that she was most revered for. Pecan meringue pie, coffee cake, strawberry shortcake, fudgee bonbons, pizzasized cookies (she’d make one for everyone’s birthdays), cookies and cream ice cream cake (with homemade fudge on top, sprinkled with Skor bits), mandel bread (traditional Jewish cookies), cheese cake (complete with red food dye to make the top layer pink, the horror!), frozen lemon meringue pie, the list goes on.
She also created cakes. Think fully decked-out cakes decorated around a vintage Barbie doll, cakes shaped like Alf, Cabbage
Patch Kids, Strawberry Shortcake and other ’80s characters. I actually found a book of photos she left near the recipe boxes that showcase a collection of her works throughout the years. I was shocked to see she created a very detailed phallic cake for a friend’s bachelorette party, which allowed me to see a playful side of my mom I didn’t realize she had. Busting out my moms sunbleached recipe box, which is held together by an elastic, I flip through each recipe and my heart fills. Between the cards, and taped on the back of some of the cue cards, are aged cutouts of recipes from the newspaper. I knew before I pulled them out that they’d be from the Star. I grew up reading this publication I write for, in the section that my mom and I would read everyday. We always flocked to the how-to columns in the Life section, and I was overcome with emotion when I realized how proud she’d be of me.
During this socially isolated time, I did what many of us do: started cleaning and reorganizing cupboards. That’s when I found it: An entire binder filled with cut-out recipes from the Star from the ’80s that my mom had ever-so-diligently hole punched and placed in the binder. And since I’ve been stuck at home, it’s been the perfect time to deep dive into her recipe collection.
I was encouraged by my first attempt, before social distancing. I had decided to tackle her coffee cake recipe, a treat she’d often have sitting on the counter waiting for us. This dish can be made from scratch, or by using a yellow cake mix for amateurs like me, with the addition of cocoa powder, cinnamon, brown sugar, pecans in layers throughout, topped with chocolate chips, made to crisp in a Bundt pan.
The calmness washed over me as I read my mom’s beautiful cursive writing on the cue card, complete with little notes in the margins and lines crossing out some of the once-listed ingredients, instead sharing her tips. “Less chocolate chips than intended because it makes the cake drop when in the oven,” and “Use pecan pieces instead of full pecans.” By reading her cursive scribbles, I felt like I was let in on a secret she was there whispering in my ear.
Her notes feel like a little love note for me to keep her secrets alive. After I made the coffee cake, my dad and I devoured half of it in one sitting. For a minute it felt like my mom just left it for us to nibble on the countertop, while she ran out to run an errand.
The leftover cake sat on the counter when my nieces and nephews arrived at my house for our weekly Friday night dinner. I gestured to the cake telling them it was my mom’s recipe, and I saw their eyes light up. As they ate it up, I got to share her legacy with a whole new generation, and it spurred me to resolve to tackle her tougher recipes like her baked Alaska and three-tiered strawberry shortcake.