I Found A Priceless Treasure!

While going through a box of my Mother-in-Law's cookbooks and piles of scribbled recipes on all kinds of paper, I found a recipe from my Gramma Mollie in her own handwriting! It was like hitting the lotto. She once asked me what I wanted for Christmas and all I asked for was a piece of this cake. I got it too. It's so good with a cup of tea or coffee. A few years after Gramma passed away my Aunt sent me the recipe but I had lost it. She also sent me 1/2 of a cake. (It's dense and a bit expensive to make) and I pretty much ate the whole thing by myself! That was a great present! My Gramma lived in Florence, SC and was famous for her cooking and gardening. I'd like to think that I get a little bit of my abilities in the kitchen from her. Last year I ate onion rings for my birthday. This year I am going to make this cake!

I was going through my Mother-in-Law Joan's big box of things desperately hoping to find her spaghetti recipe for my son, well for all of us, but him mostly. His birthday is coming up and he longs for her spaghetti. Her spaghetti was his favorite thing and she made it for him for his birthday dinner every year. It was the best! After she passed away I had quickly looked for it, didn't find it, then the box was stashed away in the garage. Joan was an excellent cook and real "Foodie". I learned so much from her. We have tried to duplicate her recipe over the past few years but it never tastes quite like hers. All spaghetti sauces are compared to hers. We all know one of her secrets was a can of Homestead sauce, which can be hard to find at times. Next time we go to San Francisco we are going to stop by the Homestead factory. She never shared the recipe even though we asked for it. It was her special treat. She would make it for my son's birthday, she would make it for us when we begged, or sometimes to bribe us into going over to her house and it always worked!

About a year after Joan passed away I bought a small spiral notebook that I keep in the kitchen. I wrote in it all my "secret" recipes that my family loves. Some are southern recipes that were passed down from my Gramma, some are Joan's, Joan's mother's, my sister's, but most are mine. I can't even tell you how many salsa & hot sauce recipes are in there! haha I now have a couple of notebooks. If something should happen to me I wanted my family to be able to make something that I made, taste that taste, smell that smell, and have a piece of me at the table with them.

So if you are hiding your "secret" recipe that everyone loves, that only you make, please write it down. You don't have to share it now but put it in a safe place. Don't let your family mourn for not only you, but for one more bite. That special recipe of yours will be a priceless treasure. Isn't there a dish that someone made that you'd like to have one more bite of?