I don’t know if it was a fascination with food or paper, but since I was a very young girl, I have been collecting recipes and household tips. I remember one year for our 4-H Homemaking Club we put together recipe books, collected from hither and yon, from magazines and relatives’ splattered cookbooks. That big scrapbook collection probably ended up in the bonfire when Mom and Dad moved off the farm, but I know for many years it was still in the big mysterious attic, along with other fabulous detritus of our lives.
I wish I had it still because it would be fun to see what I considered fun and tantalizing as a pre-teen.
Over the years, I have collected recipes, earth-shaking discoveries, household hints, and a gazillion sure-fire ways to lose weight. At this ripe age of 60, I now know that I have much more material than I could ever assimilate into the semi-boring rotation of my meal planning, and all those hideous desserts would surely be off-limits, like . . . forever! And those weight loss tips have produced just as much success as a big slice of chocolate cake. But I still do it. An obsession? Maybe more like a pleasant reminder of the earlier days of my youth and the Camelot days of raising my own kids, when I foolishly thought what I cooked or baked actually mattered a whit. They could turn up their noses or devour indiscriminately.
I periodically scan my binders, and I really have found some jewels of recipes over the years. Those lucky ones make it into the “keeper” binder. The failures, that look and taste better on glossy paper than in the kitchen, get big X’s marked across them so that future progeny will not make the mistake of experimenting with that disaster. As if any of my progeny will ever page through these archives of my life; but you never know. The way the economy is going, this may be the bulk of their inheritance. If they don’t use the recipes and life-saving tips, they can get the payback from the recycling plant. (As an aside: Why is it again that we recycle when the recycling plants and the trucks that haul it there are greater polluters in sum than the pollutant savings of my measly contribution, along with my whole city’s.)
I have been considering a major consolidation of my collection since it could leave room for another obsession: used books. But I pick up the free magazine at the health food store, and sure enough, there’s an article or recipe that will soften my arteries and reduce belly fat. Gotta have it! Oh, and there’s a debunking of the last major health study. Good, I can eat eggs and chocolate again—and peanut butter! And statins! Got to have that one to show the doctor the next time they harass me about my cholesterol. (Did you know that all lab testing with statins produced cancer in the sorry little lab rats?) And marvel of marvels, all my low-fat and non-fat efforts have been robbing my aging body of fat-soluble vitamins. So at Starbucks, it’s no more of the skinny varieties: I’ll have a vanilla café latté with whipped cream, venti, extra shot of espresso, and yes, I know it is 105 degrees out, but I would still like it hot!
I guess I have benefitted a lot over the years. Maybe rather than get rid of some, I just need to catalogue my collection so I know what I’ve got and where to find it. I better do it quick because the contamination from the mercury in the fish I’m eating to unclog my arteries is likely to cause rapid memory loss.
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