Exploring My Grandmother’s Recipe Box

Today, I am starting a series that is very near and dear to my heart. It’s a project I have been planning to do since I started this website 🙂 Starting this month and through the summer, I am going to be going through my grandmother’s recipe box.

Now, that might not sound too thrilling, but let me tell you why this is so very special to me.

All my life, I have grown up with only one set of grandparents who I love dearly. My father’s parents both passed away very young. I never met either of them. My paternal grandmother only met one of her grandchildren though she knew that my cousin and I, who are six months apart, where on the way. She didn’t quite make it to met us.

I’ve always wondered about my grandparents from my dad’s side. I wish I could have met them. Hearing stories about them from my dad has helped keep them close to my heart. My grandfather recorded tapes before he passed away that my siblings and I have listened to so we know his voice. We have several special heirloom silver pieces that have been passed on to us. I have my grandmother’s curly hair 🙂

And I have my grandmother’s recipe box.

I admit – it’s a decidedly drab plastic, brown box that’s seen better days. There use to be a metal one at some point and all of those recipes got put into this box as it was bigger.

But I am excited to dig in and see the amazing time capsule into my grandmother’s life that it is!

As a teenager, my grandmother was a Southern Bell Telephone operator before she met and married my grandfather. After that, she worked as a preschool and kindergarten teacher until she had first, my uncle and then my dad two years later. From there, like many of the women of the 50s and 60s, she was a housewife and a substitute teacher on occasion.

The recipes in my grandmother’s box, I know, will be decidedly mid-century. Lots of Jello, Oleo, canned goods and boxed mixes 🙂 But, I am so looking forward to taking the time to puzzle over her teacherly, thin handwritten recipes. I’m hoping to share the treasures I unearth. Food, after all, unites us through the generations.

Love you, Grandma! Thank you for leaving this for me!