The Beginning...

Many of you know me from http://www.threebitesfoodblog.com/. It's my online journal of my culinary adventures in the kitchen cooking through 100+ cookbooks, all while maintaining a healthy lifestyle and slowly losing weight. My brother and I decided to start planning a surprise birthday party for my mother that will be catered at a local restaurant complete with live music and all of her friends and family. She grew up in the Berkshire Mountain region of Massachussets (on the beautiful western part of the state- nowhere near Boston). Her mom, my Grandma Baldwin, grew up in a very small town in Maine called Orono, not too far from Bangor. She was a school teacher until she had the first of four children. Apparently Grandpa Baldwin had a serious sweet tooth because my mom recalls them having a fresh homemade dessert seven nights of the week (cakes, custards, pies, puddings). She also baked her own bread (she let her dough rise on the wood burning stove in the kitchen).

I was browsing through my mother's recipe box and found many recipes. All were on old, yellowed index cards and they were either in my grandmother's handwriting or typed on an old fashioned type writer (remember those?). Most of the recipes had no direction or instructions, just a list of ingredients, the oven temperature and sometimes an indication as to what "pan" to use. I was asking my mother about the recipes and it brought back so many wonderful memories for her. She smiled when I mentioned the Orange Blossom Cake..... it was the cake that was made for her every year on her birthday. I decided to begin a project of duplicating each and every one of her recipes while keeping track of the process in an attempt to publish it for my family so we have a permanent record that can be passed down from one generation to the next. This, too, will be a surprise for her (as it will be for me if I finish in time..... I've got lots of baking ahead of me!!).

I have decided to make one of her baked goods at least twice a month, most likely on a Sunday so my husband Ken and I can try one piece and bring the rest to my job so we don't grow enormous in the process. I look forward to being in the kitchen with Grandma's old recipes. She died when I was in third grade (and I still remember her blueberry pie and her boiled Maine lobster!). I think this will be a way to get to know her better, at least as a baker. She was a wonderful woman and I am thrilled at the possibility of keeping all of her recipes alive. The few that my mom has made for us over the years have long been cherished by my brother's and I (and now our spouses). I can't wait to get going!

I was very lucky in that my mom was a wonderful baker and my dad had a great passion for cooking. He passed away in 1988 after a short battle with cancer. I used to stand next to him at the stove when he would cook on the weekends, drooling as he would add every ingredient. He was a fantastic cook and traveled the world for business, bringing home countless ideas for meals he would prepare on the weekends. I'm thinking about including some of his best recipes which will take some elbow grease because he never used a recipe and didn't write things down. I will have to rely on my memory. I think my mom will be blown away by this book, especially if I include a chapter on my dad's recipes.

Stay tuned.... I will be posting each and every attempt complete with failures and successes. I have little to no direction so I will have to rely on my experience in the kitchen as well as good old fashioned common sense. Wish me luck!