Heirloom Recipes
This year, somewhat unusually, we found ourselves without plans for Thanksgiving Day. We LOVE having plans, but the thought of a whole day to make our own meal was welcome too! We invited my parents over and each of the kids made plans for a signature dish they would cook for our dinner. Henry made an incredible pumpkin pie when we celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving back in October (which, as a side note, was the reason we were without plans today--we had already celebrated with my family). So his dish was a no-brainer: another amazing pie. Thomas' favorite part of the Barcalow Thanksgiving feast is always his Uncle Rick's dinner rolls, so his dream was to make some of his own (and he's tucked a couple aside for his uncle to try tomorrow). Cora made green bean casserole and cut little butter slices into maple leaves.
The food itself was wonderful, but the anticipation and build-up to today was far more fun. They've been counting down all week to the day when they would each get one-on-one time with me in the kitchen to make their dishes. It was sacred space and sacred time. They help me cook during the year from time to time, but those moments alone in the kitchen working on something that's just theirs is something altogether different. Thomas still talks about the time last winter when we made thumbprint cookies together.
As I was copying down recipes onto cards for them to follow today, an idea came to me: recipe books for each of them. They'll be gifts I give them when they graduate from high school. The pages will be full of their favorite recipes, pictures of us making them together, and the date when we first cooked that dish. We'll keep it simple so that I can always add to them through the years: small binders with laminated recipes, and little tabs to organize by dish type. The recipes will be hand-written. I love to read back over things my mom wrote as I was growing up and imagine her sitting at the table after I went to bed, writing. I hope my handwriting holds the same magic for them. The recipes won't be fancy, and the books will be simple. But I have a feeling they'll be pulling those recipes out often in the first years they spend on their own in the world. And I will enjoy every moment of the years between now and then creating things together in the kitchen.
Happy Thanksgiving, my friends!
The food itself was wonderful, but the anticipation and build-up to today was far more fun. They've been counting down all week to the day when they would each get one-on-one time with me in the kitchen to make their dishes. It was sacred space and sacred time. They help me cook during the year from time to time, but those moments alone in the kitchen working on something that's just theirs is something altogether different. Thomas still talks about the time last winter when we made thumbprint cookies together.
As I was copying down recipes onto cards for them to follow today, an idea came to me: recipe books for each of them. They'll be gifts I give them when they graduate from high school. The pages will be full of their favorite recipes, pictures of us making them together, and the date when we first cooked that dish. We'll keep it simple so that I can always add to them through the years: small binders with laminated recipes, and little tabs to organize by dish type. The recipes will be hand-written. I love to read back over things my mom wrote as I was growing up and imagine her sitting at the table after I went to bed, writing. I hope my handwriting holds the same magic for them. The recipes won't be fancy, and the books will be simple. But I have a feeling they'll be pulling those recipes out often in the first years they spend on their own in the world. And I will enjoy every moment of the years between now and then creating things together in the kitchen.
Happy Thanksgiving, my friends!
