As a child happiness was as easy as pie—chocolate to be exact with homemade chocolate pudding and a meringue topping. My mom would make a flaky crust and then roll the extra dough out on a cookie sheet, sprinkle it with cinnamon and sugar and we’d have a snack while she was finishing the pie filling.
I think back to the little things that made me happy as a child and I realize I still enjoy these simple pleasures. All I really needed to keep me happy then was a good book, a sunny day, being near the water, talking to friends and thumbing through a cookbook for new ideas.
Yes, believe it or not I liked to bake even when I was young. My mother never stopped me from trying new recipes, though there was one time she refused to buy me a lemon to make bars because it was too expensive! I remember thinking, but we could have a whole pan of bars for 69 cents…. a bargain at twice the price!
I have now switched most of my reading materials to my Kindle with the exception of cookbooks. There is something about turning the pages and seeing the pictures that sends a thrill right through me. I like to make notes in the margins and comment on the popularity of the recipe with my family. Lately I am finding fabulous cookbook deals at garage sales. I think this might mean that people are tired of storing these old books on their shelves. It’s sad for me to think that baking and cooking might become a thing of the past like canning and pressure-cooking. Though I must admit I don’t can and I rarely pressure cook now unless it’s a holiday.
Recipe boxes are even more rare and harder to find in the average kitchen today. I have the recipe boxes of all my grandmas and someday I hope my mom will part with her ginormous recipe box. These recipes are not just pieces of paper easily printed off the Internet. The boxes are filled with cards in my mother’s and grandma’s handwriting, all grease stained with well-worn edges and smeared ink. I had an idea last year that I would pick a recipe from each recipe box and frame it for my kitchen. This idea was put on hold when I thought a picture should be added as well. I now need to dig to find just the right picture of each grandma so my kids will have a face to match the name on the card. A new idea came to me today that I should buy recipe boxes and cards for each of my kids so that someday they can have a favorite handwritten recipe from me to frame for their kitchen wall. That way I can hang around and make sure they keep on cooking!
Peace and the pursuit of happiness to you—Sandy.
To me, there are three things we all should do every day to obtain happiness. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. And number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that’s a full day. That’s a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week; you’re going to have something.
Jim Valvano
Taste of Home columnist Sandy (Anderson) Holthaus lives on a farm in South Haven, MN with her husband, Michael, and their children Zoe, Jack and Ben. Her heart remains on the North Shore where she grew up with her parents, Art and LaVonne Anderson of Schroeder. She enjoys writing about her childhood and mixes memories with delicious helpings of home-style recipes.
Leave a Reply