I'm typing as fast as I can

I want to get the my mother's recipe book manuscript transcribed into blog format before I go back to Geneva on Wednesday rather than lug it back.

Once it's entered I can do final editing, add graphics, etc. and hit send. 

Rick has talked about Kindling it. My mother would be thrilled.

Her last career (after many including having her own fashion business) was journalist and she was a good, good writer. Besides hard-core coverage of local politics she had weekly columns, one of which was Stove Stories which combined recipes with how they came about, what they meant to people, etc.

Food was always important in my childhood household. A meal was more than a meal, but a chance to talk, laugh, share and create memories. If my mother was more of a gourmet cook, my grandmother was a plain, old-fashioned cook, steeped in New England traditions. I ate very, very well as a child and at the time did not know I lucky I was in the quality of the food and the quality of the time shared.

Recipes were treasured. 

Food was often a major discussion subject be it when would the asparagus be ready for picking, how we would gather blueberries to make ice cream after lunch, what should be taken to the clubhouse Saturday night potlucks not to mention the oohing and ahhing over the meal in front of us. There would be the "remember the time you. . . " might conjure up a story about a dropped pot of soup or when my grandmother forgot to turn on the stove and Saturday night beanpot sat in a cold oven all day.

The manuscript recounts from where some of the recipes came. Thus when she talks about making tea breads with Marge after walking their babies (one was me, the other was Bunky who shared my birth date one year later) I can picture their house visible through the pine grove in front of my house.

Mention of her friend Lillian's fish, conjures up memories of this wonderful woman with the infectious laugh.

My mother talks about Llara and I've learned about some things they did when my daughter was little and having a sleepover at her grandmother's that I never knew nor does she remember.

Thus the exercise has become than fulfilling a my mother's wish to see it publish. It is recapturing meals and events of my childhood as it brings forth memories of people long gone. 

However, one paragraph made me realize how lucky I am to be here. It goes along with the story that the first time my mother carried me through a doorway she forgot to allow for my head. When I told Rick this, his comment was "That explains a lot."

Here's what my mother wrote about Corbie, the live-in nurse who cared for my great grandmother during her last bedridden seven years.

"I've mentioned Corbie before. She was with us during my late teen years and we had some hilarious times despite the difference in ages. She shared the family's shock when I eloped but as these things so often go, all was forgiven. Two years later mother volunteered to take over the care of my grandmother so Corbie would be free to spend a week with me when I went home with my first born. Corbie left reluctantly after her seven-day stay, declaring I was the most nervous mother (and not too bright) she'd ever seen in her years and with fervent hopes of the baby's survival."

What followed one of Corbie's recipes.

My housemate has offered to help with typing and Rick has tried scanning which has created some glitches.

Enough . . .  time to get back to recipe entering.By all methods we'll get it done and I do appreciate the helping fingers.