Having Fun With "Thirty-One"

My fascination with "Thirty-One" started innocently enough, as most soon to become obsessions do. 

My neighbor and good friend puts on a vendor party every year right at the start of the holidays, allowing friends and family to come together and shop in the comfort of her home.  Items sold are either hand-made or catalog quality, and shown by some of the hardest working and stay at home mom's in town.  Last year, I had my tutu table turning profits (more on that later), and this year "Thirty-One" was well represented.  Within minutes, I found myself oohing and ah-hing, and "needing" enough to convince myself that hosting my own party would be the perfect way to get more, more, more...

The Secret Ingredient Is Love

Where do you put all those recipes that you love? 

If you're someone who entertains with emphasis on food, if you love to cook, if you're someone who has to eat, or if you need to feed people daily, at some point in your life you may find that you need to corral all those carefully chosen and cherished collectible recipes.

I started jotting down recipes when I was in college.  I lost my mom when I was 19 and realized then that, although she was an excellent cook, I never got the chance to share any of her experience in the kitchen.  Since my very first  Thanksgiving turkey cleaned (ugh!  no one told me about the neck) and cooked that year, I've been asking for and writing down recipes for practically everything I've ever made in the nearly 20 years since...And I do so love to cook!

Some of my favorite recipes are written on the back of scrap envelopes that I recycled from the mail.  I can  search the print and find the date stamped on the front, and it helps bring back the memories of that time and place.

When I was getting married, my bridesmaids threw a bridal shower with a request to all attending to bring a copy of a treasured recipe for my growing collection.  I still have most of those index cards in my collection today.

Several years later, my friends and I gathered together one night to share our best recipes, and find the best way to organize them for our own use at home.  The result for me, was a 3 ring binder that I recently realized had seen better days.  Well used, and much loved, my book needed a new look:

 

“There are things you do because they feel right, and they make no sense, and they make no money, and it may be the real reason we are here:

To love each other and to eat each other’s cooking and say it was good.”

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