When I was very young, I used to read cookbooks and try to find things that I either wanted to cook, or that I dreamed of cooking. My mother had many cookbook but one in particular appeared quite old with yellow, well used pages. I asked her how old this book was and where she had gotten it and I believe it was a wedding gift, which predated my short life by many years. I tried to feel this time, as I did with historical events and measure it up against my own years. I never thought I would ever have such a weather culinary publication or be old. How my mother and her life pre-existed me was hard to fathom at the time. That my mom had had a previous existence prior to our family was hard to understand. I tried to imagine her as a child with a mom and dad. That just seemed so odd to me.
Dial ahead now some 40 plus years and today I am looking at my own weather cookbook. It was given to me by my mother in law, Gerry, my ex's mom. It was a wedding shower gift. As I took it off the shelf I gave her a thankful cheer, because this one book has been my basic cooking staple over my adult life. There are a few other treasures, but this one is the most used one. Its pages are indeed weathered. Some pages are lost and some of the page holes are torn. Sometimes, when I look at it, I cannot imagine the years that have past. I remember my mother's cookbook and now I stare at my own one which is older than the one I mentioned above at that moment in time. Some pages are well worn like the Favorite Pancakes, biscuits , and Everyday Waffles pages. This is the Better Homes and Garden's Cookbook. One of the two red and white checkered books that has changed a lot over the years but the new ones I don't like so much. I even bought a backup copy of the one I have, just in case I wear out this one. This one is so well loved and connects me with my past. My mother in law affected and helped me in many ways when I lived so far away from my own parents and family and this cookbook remains a treasure to me.
Today, I was uninspired to cook breakfast at all. Then I thought I would make crepes, which my Uncle Eddie taught me how to do. Today is ironically my cousin's birthday (his son), so I crisped up some smokey bacon, pulled out my trusted cookbook and made the batter. The best part of this dish was going to be my friend Paul Wiley's Pearled Jam. This delicacy is unlike any blackberry jam on earth as he grows Chehalem and Marion berries himself and creates this little treasure.
How is it that I know Paul? Paul and his wife Lavada emerged in phase II of my life. Phase I being my life up until I was married. Phase II being my young married life outside of Portland, OR circa 1976 through 1983. This is the place where all my children were born and where I lived in my youngest married years. There are a few friends in life that helped or affected me more than Paul and Lavada know, especially Lavada. She was a seasoned professional mom. A mom like I would never be and I learned so much from her. She helped glue me together when motherhood was a trial. She could take any fussy baby and magically rock them into submission. There was no child she could not tame, and I had a wild one, my first, Jared. There were many mornings I would slip over to their house for a cup of coffee and adult conversation and Lavada would pull out some kind of wonderful muffin or zucchini bread fresh from the oven. Paul and Lavada were part of a small church fellowship group and fellow California refugees like us, and previous member of a fellowship called Calvary Chapel. Lavada was the big sister I needed. She helped guide the way. She was Supermom. We were part of the dying breed of stay at home mothers that even in the late 70s were rare.
So, Paul, I took out your jam and each time I look at it, it is like connecting over the miles and through the years to that time when our families were linked together in a loving web in those early Oregon days before Portland was weird and expensive. I mean weird in a loving way...just as Austin is weird, but not sure which city was weird first.
This brings me to Facebook, which I know some folks loath or resist but for me it is the web that connects all these phases and locations and people of my life that made impressions over the years. I have more recently connected to Paul and Lavada. I have connections to folks in Silicon Valley, Phase III, Phase IV in MA, and now to Phase V in Texas...and let's not forget my childhood friends and family from Phase I. Well, I am waxing nostalgic today and I need to get on with my day. My mind works in strange ways.