Recipes can be great places to start when sharing our personal stories. They often elicit strong sensory memories that can connect the past to the present with sharing one bite. We can explore adding personal details, tastes, smells, and feelings all of which make our stories more interesting and authentic.
Maybe you remember eating your grandmother’s homemade gnocchi or standing beside her while you rolled out the crust for a homemade apple pie.
The recipe I’d like to share is one that was made by both my mom and the mother of my best friend growing up. It is a classic New England recipe and still a weakness of mine, but the story of making them together is what stands out.
It is early 1980-something and Dawn and I were in the kitchen of her childhood home with her mom. Dawn and I have been best friends since kindergarten and lived 2 streets away from each other in a very child friendly neighborhood in West Yarmouth, Massachusetts on beautiful Cape Cod. This was the kind of neighborhood where kids rode their bikes everywhere and roamed free … and friends were like family.
That day we had decided to make whoopie pies and I believe we were baking them to share with a group of friends or class. (This is a good place to ask a friend or family member for their memories as we only have one perspective. What does Dawn remember? What does her mom remember?) Maybe for a bake sale?
I don’t really remember the reason, but what I do remember very clearly is the kitchen of the house she grew up in. The front door led into a front to back kitchen with a linoleum floor and papered walls. In the middle of the room was a rectangular wooden kitchen table where the family would eat. The wall opposite the front door, at the back of the house, had a sunny sliding door that opened up to a deck leading to the back yard. When I remember the table I can even clearly see where each of them sat for every meal. Her father with his back to the slider and her mother facing him at the opposite end of the table with her back to the door.
The sink and counters were to the right when you walked in that front door and a sunny window was over the sink.
This day we had cookie sheets lined with foil across the table as we were creaming the butter and sugar and sifting the flour and cocoa powder side by side at the counter under her mom’s direction. I remember dropping the dough by spoonfuls onto the sheets at the table, and even having to stop and get another spoon because I couldn’t stop myself from licking clean one of the chocolatey tablespoons I was using.
We helped clean all of the bowls and utensils in a sink of warm soapy water, as we waited for the cakes to bake so we could add the creamy filling. The smell of the chocolate baking wafting through the house.
This memory is so special to me, not only because I love whoopie pies, but because it is a touchstone memory that brings me right back in time to a house that I was in almost as much as my own throughout my childhood. This family was like a second family to me and their home was like my second home. Writing stories of the memories I shared with Dawn at her house helps me to go back in time and I can visualize every detail.
I don’t remember exactly why we were making the whoopie pies or who they were for, so this is also a perfect opportunity to reach out to Dawn and her mom and ask what details they remember. It also was an opportunity for me to reach out to her mom for her version of the recipe that I share with you today. Memories like this are funny because no two people remember the same things and sometimes a memory that we can recall strongly is not remembered by the other person at all.
Reflections for you:
Is there a recipe that brings you back to a special memory?
Maybe you could even make a collection of story recipes to pass along.
Remember to add your senses as well as what you were feeling to your story.
If there are parts you don’t remember or you want to reminisce, reach out to the person you were with for their view of the event. You could use different colored ink for each person's perspective or each write out the versions separately and then read them side by side.
I would love to hear what some of your most treasured recipe memories are … both because I love a story, but also because I love a good recipe! Please share in the comments!
