This worn out little green appointment book is an amazing treasure to me! This is a cookbook of my Mom’s and, as you can see, it was handwritten in 1953 by her! There are literally dozens of recipes in here, mostly for baking. There are recipes for crumb cakes and butter creams. Tricks to poaching eggs. Doughnut recipes. Fillings and glazes and frostings! Cannoli recipes, Italian yellow cake, Swedish cakes, Magic cookies and so much more! These recipes were special enough to my mom for her to write them down. Such fond memories! I actually do remember her making many of them, I can’t wait to try my hand at it! I would love to go one by one through the entire book and try them all.

Last week a friend and I were having a lovely lunch and we started to discuss genealogy, now this is something my friend has researched quiet a bit. Some interesting thoughts were brought to light and this is something that has fairly recently occurred to me. It’s true! The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Sometimes if you have an innate talent or a passion for something, if you look back in your family tree, even to people in your family that you never knew, you very often find there was someone in your family with the same passion.

This never dawned on me before, I always thought I was doing my own thing! I never even cooked while my Mom was alive, well not very much. I did a tiny bit of research on my own ancestry and found out my family has a long line of artists, actors, and chefs. How very interesting? I am an artist. I do perform with my horses. And I am a passionate chef! This is a subject I would love to dig further into. I have some very interesting characters in my family! My great grandmother Viola Sherlock and great grandfather Doc owned and ran the infamous Pepper Pot restaruant in Greenwich Village, NY. in the 1920’s. They cooked and created their own recipes and menus. But alas, this will have to be a story for another day!