A Gift to Myself

My Christmas gift to myself was a recipe box - a custom recipe box. My old one was metal and had rusted at the bottom so badly, it stained any surface it was on. I picked up my new one from the post office this past Saturday and tore it open like a kid. I know, I know, it's 2011. It's the age of iPad's and electric cars and why the hell do I need a recipe box? I'm fully aware that I could scan all my recipes into any number of devices I use day-to-day and with the push of a button summon my top secret chocolate chip cookie recipe. But besides the practical issues that include accidental batter dipped smart phones and oil-burned e-readers, there's something to be said about a recipe on 4x6 index card.

A friend called me a Grandmother when I enthusiastically showed her pictures of my new box. Personally, I couldn't think of a better compliment. I don't care how many doo-dads, canisters of compressed air, and precision cooking thermometers you have; nothing was better than your grandmother's mushroom barley soup. I can almost guarantee that soup recipe was written on a 4x6 index card. The corners of that card were soft and worn, probably bent, too. There were thirteen different colored stains on it and the perfect script of your grandmother's hand had all but faded to a mere shadow. 

Well here is my recipe box, just begging to be filled with my old stained recipe cards and new favorites yet to come. I found the woman who lovingly made this box on Etsy. Her store is called Gifts and Talents and she's a sweetheart. I asked for Wayne Thiebaud and cherries and that's exactly what she gave me. The first recipe to grace the box? My Godmother's Chutney Recipe... there are only three people in the world who have that recipe, I'm one of them. Now doesn't something that precious deserve a gilded home? I think so, too.