Baking with the Saints

My mother had a wooden recipe box, a large rectangular thing. It has dividers, and, once upon a time, maybe she filed her recipes in those groups. But now everything is just in there, haphazard. Some recipes are on fancy index cards. Some are clipped from old newspapers. Some are typed, and some are on the backs of old envelopes, just ingredients but no title or even directions. The most precious ones are hand-written. 

I went through some of the recipes last week and found one for a recipe that I remembered my cousin making. For some reason – who knows? – it is called “Chinese chews.” It is a kind of blondie bar. It is written in her handwriting. I will make that recipe before Christmas is over. And then there was a cookie recipe from another cousin for slice-and-bake brown sugar cookies. My mother made those often, and I found two recipe cards for the same recipe, one in my cousin’s handwriting. The cookies were delicious. And then I made my mother’s Christmas tree cookies, with her cookie press. My sister has always loved those cookies, and I was glad to make them for her. 

It was lovely, baking all those cookies, creaming pounds of butter and sugar, mixing in the flour and vanilla. The house was warm from the oven and smelled so fragrant. And it made me feel happy to be baking, and also a little sad to be doing it on my own. I missed them so much, especially Mama. But, somehow, I wasn’t really alone. I was connected to those past generations. I could work from their recipes, see their hands, taste the sweetness of their cooking. They were in the kitchen with me, those saints.