Long ago my mother was a home economics teacher. She hated teaching. When she got the opportunity, she bailed and became an export administrator for Hewlitt Packard. But first she was a student going back to school while we four children of hers were in elementary school. If we had a snow day and she didn’t, she’d take us with her to college. She was a very busy woman trying to keep track of us, keeping a house, studying for her classes.
We were latch key kids before such a name existed for the likes of us. Truly we did have our own house keys and we did let ourselves in the house after we walked home from school. I grew to love soap operas, Luke and Laura were my favorite characters and has Susan Lucci ever gotten a daytime emmy!?
Though she did not like teaching about cooking and sewing my mom was a great cook and seamstress. About ten years ago my mom compiled a cookbook and got it collated, printed and spiral bound, Favorite Recipes of the Spaniol-Jarrett Family.
It is the greatest cookbook and all of my children have one too. We all use it all the time and I will get a call from one of my daughters asking, “What page is something or other on?” Just this week I got a call from Caitlin and as soon as she started talking about substitutions in a recipe, I asked, “What page is it on?” I knew it was in the cookbook. She knew I knew, “Page 53,” was all she had to say.
So I pull out mine and she has hers in front of her and we check it out, “Ya, I wouldn’t bother with the rice wine, regular white wine will work well enough.”
Wonderfully my mom included a bit of history.
“During the war in the 1940′s, sugar was rationed and therefore very hard to get. In order to have sugar to bake cookies for Christmas during that time Grandma and I would scavenge the sugar from the bottom of the candy bins in Grandpa Wilbur Spaniols’ grocery store, Greenwood Market in Hutchinson, Kansas. We took the scavenged sugar home and sifted it to get rid of the bits of candy and used it for our baking. People could never quite figure out how Grandma was able to get sugar to do baking.”
My mom included some funny little recipes and their history which make this so much more than just a cook book:
Peanut Butter Sandwich Spread
One of my favorite sandwiches as a child was the ones Grandma Mary Spaniol made with peanut butter and raisins. I believe she chopped the raisins up some mixed them with peanut butter, and spread the mixture on bread.
Sugar Sandwiches
My Grandmother, Lilly Caldwell used to make Sugar Sandwiches as a snack for me when I was a little girl.
She would generously butter a slice of bread and then generously sprinkle granulated sugar over the butter. When it was completed, she’d walk to the back door and once I was outside, she’d hand me the sandwich to eat in the back yard.
Those are just reminiscing recipes but the real recipes are fantastic. One of my favorites is the Refrigerator Roll recipe, family tradition my whole life my mom would make that recipe into the best cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning.
The Baked Stuffed Fillet of Sole is another winner around here.
My mom put this book together in October 1999 and my dad was so proud of the accomplishment. By February 2000 my dad had died and when I open my family cook book I remember so much.
Do you have any cook books that are near and dear to you? If not, my mom might be willing to sell you one of these.
Yep, I just made Rigatoni Con Pepperoni for company last night and they wanted the recipe, so I’m copying it from Grandma’s book right now!
My family used to have the exact same sugar sandwiches when I was growing up! For some odd reason my brother and I also developed a taste for straight butter sandwiches. I tried these a few years back just to see if they still tasted as good as I remembered. They didn’t :( The sugar sandwiches might still taste good, though.
Thanks Terr – You just can’t imagine the fun I had while compiling all the recipes for the book, not only remembering the wonderful flavors of the foods, but most of all the memories of those now gone that prepared many of the dishes. The very best recipes are always those handed down through the generations. Love, Mom
My favorite cookbook too! I’ve even started writing recipes in the margins that have to be in “my cookbook” I found a new recipe that dated back to Mom’s childhood, so this year for Christmas I made the filled cookies. Yum!!
I remember sugar sandwiches, too! I wonder how those became so popular…..
Sugar sandwiches sound pretty disgustingly sweet to me but it is kind of a short step away from cinnamon toast.
Mom, this is a really nice piece! I like hearing tid-bits about your childhood. I have Grandma showing up with everyone any minute now!
Hey Ter,
This is Great…I really enjoyed reading your reflections of our childhood and mom doing a standup job of raising us.
I think we turned out all right for the most part, we have our faults, but mom did a great job in making sure we were diverse in the self-sufficient task of cooking, cleaning and the occasional sewing tasks. I still laugh to myself when my daughters come and ask for help with sewing, especially threading the sewing-machine correctly…
I use our Family cook book all the time, with the refrigerator rolls being one of our favorite especially on Thanksgiving and Christmas…
I like to reminisce about our childhood and the stories told of Grampa’s Grocery Store and stories alike, it always seemed like such a simple time back then compared to our lives today..
Love ya all, DEAN
Hello, I loved the cookbook blog. I am enjoying all of you on PinkPeppers. I am a friend of Becky’s.
I absolutely love this- and want to create my own family cookbook after reading this. perhaps I can get some of my aunts and grandmothers to write down little stories too. I think that is the most special part. Thanks for sharing.
The thing that really makes this cookbook great are the comments about the recipe before each recipe- who it came from, what big event in our lives it first appeared.