Lifestyle

We recently celebrated my husband Dennis’ 70th birthday. He’s not a big cake person, so he always requests a homemade chocolate pie with meringue on top. The recipe I use is an old one from a cookbook my home church compiled years ago. The woman who contributed the recipe was Mrs. Ann Jenkins, a staple of our church and my childhood. My mother loved Mrs. Ann’s pie (and so did everyone else!) so much that if she was working in the kitchen on the day of the pot luck meal (or covered dish as we called it) she would hide away a piece of pie for herself! If she wasn’t a kitchen volunteer that day, she would have someone else hide a slice for her! I don’t know if anyone else does this or not, but I often make notations beside a recipe showing the date I made it and the occasion we were celebrating. This pie recipe has lots of notes beside it, numerous birthdays including my Mother’s 90th, and so many Thanksgivings. I’ve listed lots of good times and memories made while sharing this pie. I shared this idea on my Facebook and I had friends share other ideas as well, like making notes of who liked it and who didn’t (but who wouldn’t??), changes they made to the recipe, even a number scale for how popular the recipe was. Might be something to consider the next time you pull out a cookbook, and a good reason to hang onto your cookbooks along with all the digital recipes out there.