so, what's the recipe?

Written lists of ingredients that combine to create a feeling of happiness bite after bite...

Perhaps it's pencil scribbled index cards, notes written down on scrap pieces of paper by mothers of mothers of mothers, or some crazy concoction written on the back of some junk mail from some cooking show by some crazy British guy on a lazy Sunday afternoon...all of this perhaps in between the pages of cookbook after cookbook after cookbook....

Worn down pages that permanently open to favorite recipes from overuse while leafing thru sticky pages covered in egg, flour and other interesting smelling mystery substances.

I can no longer make blueberry muffins, because it's permanently glued with a flour paste for all eternity between popovers and waffles!

Perhaps this is a women thing?  Perhaps this is a crazy me thing?

Do you have a favorite recipe of all time?  Where did it come from?  Who did you first cook it for/with?  Was it edible the first time you made it?

So.  You don't HAVE to tell me, (TELL ME!  TELL ME!!!!!), but think about it...try to remember what it was like to make perhaps your first batch of pancakes or cookies!?!?  Horrible?  Easy?  Disgusting??  Did you learn from a book or a t.v. show or straight from mom or dad?!?


I was talking about bread baking with someone here in Chile and we were discussing how people used to always bake their own bread and spend perhaps days making the traditional foods for special events...like, pastel de choclo or empanadas, but now, it's just easier/faster/cheaper to buy it at the store.  I feel like this is happening everywhere and knowledge that used to pass down from generation to generation just, well, isn't!

I don't know.  That makes me kind of sad.  The idea that "special family secret ingredients and recipes" are a dying breed.  Little handwritten scraps of paper with the scribblings of ancient knowledge disappearing, but is it?

For example, I've become a huge fan of allrecipes.com where you can search and skim thru 1,000's of recipes, read comments and evaluations and see pictures, which is great when I'm traveling and can't bring my 50 pound stack of favorites along...(although I do have plenty scanned into my computer as well, thanks mom!)

It's incredible all the different kinds of recipes you can find now with a click of a button!  Something our great grandmothers with their alphabetical card systems couldn't dream of!  Well, on this exact website I discovered this recipe for Black Magic Cake and fell in love with it...and then I stopped to read some of the 910 comments.  Some women mentioned how similar it was to a cake recipe their mothers or grandmothers used to make but the recipe had gotten lost, then their was someone that mentioned, "Hey!  This is the recipe from the side of an old Hershey's cocoa box!"  nice.

....or...how about the "Nestle Chocolate Chip Cookie" recipe off the side of the bag, which I think most cookie bakers consider sacred, I'm sorry, it just doesn't get better!....

Sometimes when I ask my mom for that old special recipe she used to make me as a kid she'd say, "Sarah!  It's easy!  Just check the side of the box!"  Ancient and old indeed!  HRMPH!

So, perhaps it's important to remember that so many cultural food traditions won't die away simply because we lost an index card when we moved.....information flows and evolves and changes, old arts become new ones and the recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookies aint goin' nowhere!!!!!

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened, 3/4 cup granulated sugar, 3/4 cup packed brown sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, 2 large eggs, 2 cups (12-oz. pkg) Chocolate Chips

So, what's your favorite?