In a short period, that box was filled with the cards I was drawn to throughout my childhood, many collected before I was born.
G E T T Y I M A G E S / E L E N AT H E W I S E
that turned out like soft, puffy vanilla cakes, sprinkled with cinnamon-sugar. The recipe, copied from an old cookbook by my mother (and expanded at left), represents the best in her baking shorthand— some knowledge of experience...or watching your mom—is required. Over the years, the box crowded with the interests of the whole family and included clippings from my dad, printouts from home ec class from my sister, and my first meanderings into recipe writing (a “deconstructed” cinnamon toast that involved melting butter). Recipes in recent years I have printed from the internet for my mom have also been squeezed into the box, now bursting to capacity. When I visit home, inevitably at some point, I find my arm reaching long into the high cupboard shelf (formerly requiring some help from a chair) to pull down my old friend. Over the years, it has developed a kitchen “patina” of grease, dust, batter and wear that has mottled it some, but it still stands up sturdy and smells faintly of cedar and the dusky odors of all the cookings and bakings that absorb into well-visited recipe cards. And while our digital age encourages storing recipes—along with everything else—in some invisible electronic holding tank, it does me good to know there are still real boxes out there, holding so much more. KCL REBECCA HOWARD grew up in Kansas and received a bachelor’s degree in journalism and mass communications from Kansas State University. She currently writes the food blog, “A Woman Sconed.” MAY 2017
KANSAS COUNTRY LIVING
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