Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Heartbreak & Healing...

Things around here have been pretty blah lately...
and you aren't going to believe what the cause of that has been...

This.



My grandmom passed away on Christmas Eve.  Within hours of her death, this cookbook was taken from her home.  Maybe innocently, maybe not so much.  Either way, its not for me to judge, but the only thing that matters to me is it is gone.  Vanished. 

My grandmom was known to all who loved her as an AWESOME cook.  As a matter of fact, besides being all about her family, her number one love was cooking.  She made her own bread her WHOLE life.  I don't mean in a bread machine, although when her arthitisis kicked in, we were able to get her to use one.  If you have never had homemade bread, it is SO MUCH BETTER than processed bread, and way healthier!!!
She made everything from scratch.  Every meal was well planned and executed from scatch.

She also was the one who inspired my love for baking.  I am not a cook, but I am a baker.  Growing up, she was always baking treats for us.  Creme puffs, pies, cupcakes, jelly rolls, pie tarts, cookies.  She never stopped, she was always making something and it was always from scratch.

But the creation I loved most was her homemade donuts.  It doesn't get better than this.  Every Christmas Eve she made them for us...it was a tradition, and when she couldn't make them anymore, we made them under her direction.

Forunately, I asked my grandmom to teach me how to make them for Collin's robotics team about 3 years ago.  And even more forunate was that I typed up the recipe on my laptop because who knew that the book with the donut recipe would vanish within hours of her death. 

It has broken my heart to lose my grandmom, but to know that book with all those treasured recipes is gone makes it feel like losing her twice over.  I never thought I would get possession of that book, but I at least thought I would have the opportunity to copy all those recipes that she made for us...for me.

And then they were gone as quick as she was..actually even quicker.

I felt a little better when I saw Ebay had some even though I couldn't be sure of the year, I thought it was probably around 1950.  My husband told me to order one knowing how distraught I was about it, but considering we are just starting to recover from financial ruin, I couldn't buy something like that right now.  It would have to wait till we could afford it in a few months.

And then something wonderful happened.  Like it was meant to happen.  I was talking to my other grandmom, and she started talking about the squirels in her attic.  And how when her son was up there, she asked him to bring down a box...
 that had cookbooks in it. 

Specifically this cookbook.


A 1946 Betty Crocker cookbook.
WITH THE DONUT RECIPE.
(It's hard to find, and not in any of the current Betty Crocker books)

After she told me about how she was looking through it in the afternoon, I asked her if I could copy some of the recipes out of it and told her the saga of the missing cookbook.

And she told me I can have it.  Just like that.

She gave it to me! 

We had a nice visit reminscing about my deceased grandmom.  They were friendly and she thought a lot of her.

I am so happy!

Thank you grandmom for something I will treasure ALWAYS!!!  The book was given to her by her mother when she got married so it is definitely something to be treasured.

And I am once again reminded that things usually work out in the end...

And to the person that originally took the book, I got way more than that book.  Grandmom gave me tons and tons of memories and you can't take them away from me!!!!!

5 comments:

Cynthia said...

Wow! That is QUITE amazing! To have one cookbook that's special to BOTH Grandmas is really cool.

So, do you have any idea which family member swiped the book? Maybe they read your blog so you don't dare say? Wow.

Denise @ Sunflowers, Chocolate and Little Boys said...

Im sorry that you lost the original book to someone who was obviously being selfish. But I am very glad to hear you did end up with a copy...one that will bring great memories of both grandmoms now.

tamilyn said...

My Mom's Mom had this book and my Mom got it from her decades ago. My Mom bestowed it on me and I do treasure it. However, I felt a little guily when my older sister was talking about a recipe that she remembers making when she had cooking duty when we were young and said she doesn't know what happened to it-I don't think my Mom told her that she had given it to me.

I'm glad that your other grandmother was able to help you with your grief in a beautiful way. And you are right, the cookbook thief can't steal your memories!

Mrs. Mike said...

So very sorry for your recent loss. At nearly forty, just two years ago lost my first grandparent. I, too, am so blessed to have them near.
Cleaning gran's house the other day was mourning the treasures I could imagine would dissapear at her inevitable passing (she's 95)and decided, like yourself, to charish those things I do have of hers to pass on to my children.
And what a blessing to have received grandmom's wedding cookbook!

Yaya' s Home said...

I'm so sorry for your loss. The nice thing is that the same book has brought you even closer to your other gramma', now. What a special gift.

I sort of know how you feel because we have a rolling pin in our family that got lost for a spell and we were frantic to get it back. In our case, it was a complete accident, but it didn't make the loss any less painful.

I'm so glad for the way things turned out. Give your grandmom a hug from me, too.

~ Yaya
Yaya's Changing World