I recently received a very special gift.
Ben’s late Grandma’s – Gwendolyn’s – collection of cook books.
His family has started the long process of sorting through her belongings after she passed away last year, and among the many items a woman in her 80s possesses – letters, knickknacks, pictures and notes – was her well used collection of cook books, which they thoughtfully entrusted to me.
Cook books she used everyday, jotting down notes to indicate a “family favorite“,
or re-writing ingredients to better suit her tastes.
Cook books stuffed with handwritten recipes that Grandmas seem to always make best,
like “Mystery Bars”
and “Honey Peanut Bar Cookies.”
Cook books with pages that were stained and splattered with the evidence of lovingly made family dinners and desserts.
Let me tell you about the desserts… If there was any question in my mind that Gwen had a sweet tooth, I am now completely clear on the matter.
The worn and well used tabs for “Cookies,” “Cakes & Frostings” and “Candies” stuck out in every cook book I opened.
A woman after my own heart.
Her favorites, from what I can tell, were Chocolate Cake, and Lemon Bars. Variations of the same two recipes were ear-marked in book after book – saved to be easily found and made again and again.
“Yep, she loved her Lemon Bars…” Ben confirmed after I informed him of my suspicions. And we all know about Grandma’s famous Cookie Cake which, if the chocolaty fingerprints covering the cake page of her favorite cook book are any indication, she made often.
There was a big lump in my throat as I was going through Gwen’s collection, flipping through the faded pages and catching glimpses of her handwriting every now and again, but it was more sweet than sorrowful. And given my love for cooking, I only feel closer to her now. Is that cheesy?
Hang on, I think I saw a recipe for a cheese ball a few pages back…
~~~~~
“My Grandma/Grandpa makes/made THE best _______.”
My Grandma on my Mom’s side makes THE best chicken noodle soup. My Grandma on my Dad’s side made THE best homemade caramels.
My grandma made the best cinnamon rolls! We had a family cookbook produced before she passed away, so we are lucky to have a great collection of family recipes.
My grandma made the best cherry jam. After she passed away I went through her recipes and took some of my favorites. Just seeing the cards and magazine pages with the notes in her handwriting makes me smile. I have great memories of sitting on the counter and “helping” her cook when I was little. Great post, sounds like you brought up a lot of great memories for everyone!
I love reading all these! My grandma makes incredible cinnamon rolls and kolaches. So good!
Wow you are one lucky lady to receive all those cookbooks, clearly you are very loved by your in-laws!
My grandmother made the best cherry pies, and my grandfather made the best raisin bread. I can smell the aromas just as I write this :)
How special! :-) I love this!
My grandma made the best lasagna and homemade meatballs. She also made this great fluffy desert that she called Grandma’s poof and we would call “Gradma’s poop” when we were little and being sassy.
An amazing gift to receive! I would love to have had my (paternal) Grandma’s recipes when she died, but her best recipes she had never written down and no one knows how she made them. She left us way too soon due to breast cancer, and I strongly believe she thought she had time to show us. My Grandma made THE best Peanut Butter Fudge (and my Mama has tried her best to duplicate them for my Daddy but they’re just not the same), and she also made THE best Fried Pork Chops ever, which my brother has tried to master and has come close.
I guess that’s why I make sure to write my recipes and changes down, and I tend to get upset when my friends give me recipes but don’t list ingedients or how much. It reminds me of my Grandma and how her recipes are lost because she never recorded them.
But my Mama says all of the time that no matter if we had the recipe in front of us, it wouldn’t taste the same. Because recipes like that are made with love. And that’s what makes them delicious. :)
My Grandma’s trademark was the 3 layer cake-white cake, coconut frosting, and sour lemon “cream” between the layers. She had painted a cake holder at some point and if it was your birthday she showed up in her little white car with the cake holder filled with that yummy cake. As she had 8 kids and 25+ grandkids, that’s a lot of cake!!
This is so incredibly sweet! That is so thoughtful that they gave you all of her cookbooks. :) My fiance’s grandmom makes the BEST sweet and sour meatballs! I remember the first time I tasted them, I was hooked! I immediately asked my fiance’s mom for the recipe! :)
Cracker Pudding! I know, it sounds awful…. but it is so good. Somehow she gets crackers to make a pudding-like consistency…. and then adds coconut. Lots of it. How can you go wrong?
My grandmamama (great grandma) used to make a special dish that was so good. She made this every summer. My sister and I would get so excited about this. She called it A B Kabibble. We thought it was the greatest thing. And it was! Turns out she just used any leftover fruit bits and jellys from making pies. She would put them all into the scraps from her crusts. They resembled a rough looking tart with some sugar sprinkled over the crusts. It was wonderful. I have tried to make this too but without my grandmamama’s loving touch it is just not the same.
Oh my what a special treasure! Did you find the cookie cake recipe? I do hope you can find this for Ben. Imagine finding this and making this for Ben.
My grandma makes the best noodles and dinner rolls… So delicious! Somehow she manages to make enough for 45+ people each Christmas and Thanksgiving