Thematic Photographic 14 - Faded But Not Forgotten

Since I've completed the series on the USS Eisenhower I wanted to slip in one more post for this week's Thematic Photographic subject "faded".

My Grandma Browning was a great cook! I never saw her use a cookbook, but by the time I came along she didn't really need one. However, I have in my precious heirlooms one of her first cookbooks. She was born in 1900 and married in the 1920s (can't remember the year, though I'm sure my mom will call me tomorrow with the exact date). This cookbook started as a journal of blank lined pages. Precious as paper was, she filled every line of every page in the first part of the book with her favorite recipes, each hand written in her teacher-perfect penmanship --- and she was left-handed. Many recipes were written in pencil and those pages are fading. I am scanning the book to preserve the information and, also, so the original can be safely sealed from the elements. Many pages are quite brittle.

Further into the book she began to paste or tape in recipes clipped from the newspaper. These clippings are yellowed but very legible and have left their shadow on facing pages. Though it is not certain when exactly she started this cookbook, the very last page shows the total quarts and pints of fruits and vegetables she put up in 1932. That happened to be the year my mother was born.

I love this tangible memory of my grandmother. Though I don't cook much, I can put out a mean holiday spread. And I always have her nearby to help out when I need a good old-fashioned supper.