My mother’s chocolate chip cookie recipe is one of my favorites. Not just because the cookies are really soft and chewy, the recipe makes a ton and my daughter’s love them (me too), but also because the recipe is in her handwriting.
Everytime I make it I feel connected with Mom, she died four years ago. She was a school cook for many years so many of her recipes make very large quantities. When I look at the recipe card I can picture her in her hairnet working in the school kitchen. The way the recipe is written also reminds me that because she was a good cook the recipe is written somewhat hap-hazardly (she didn't have to refer to it).
In my twelve years at Creative Memories I have learned the importance of preserving a person’s handwriting in albums. Looking back at letters I have from the early 1900s, written in Norwegian, by my grandparents, provides me with a sense of history and family connection.
If someone you know has a recipe you’d love to have, grab some journaling boxes and sit down with them. Ask them to write out the recipe in front of you, both for the memory of that moment and also to make sure it happens.
Here’s my mother’s recipe, it's a little smeared but legible. I leave out the walnuts. Notice that she wrote it makes about 70 cookies. That must be grandma sized because I usually get many more than that from a batch.
What recipe would you love to have and whose handwriting would it be in?
