Reflections…

Nostalgia

: a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition; also: something that evokes nostalgia. (Credit: Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

So many things evoke a sense of nostalgia to me. Vintage cookbooks. I often find them at thrift stores, estate sales or garage sales. The print is faded from years of wear. As I pick it up and scan the pages, I envision it sitting on a mother’s shelf or grandmother’s counter…waiting for that next dinner to be cooked or dish to be made for a potluck. I open the pages and can almost smell the kitchen of year’s past. I flip through the pages and think back to a time when kitchens were a place for making big meals, and using your hands to knead dough for that evening’s crusty loaf. I love seeing a page that is earmarked or written on. It seems simply perfect to me. Someone was putting so much energy and love into making an amazing meal for their family.

When my grandpa passed away many years ago, I wanted his cookbooks to look at, to touch and feel the rough patches of cake batter on the pages. I can almost see the cake batter on gramp’s finger when he followed his ingredients list line by line, with the utmost care. It’s as if I were there, sitting on his Cosco step stool, waiting for the cake to finish baking.

Sometimes I feel like we get so lost in our busy schedules that we forget to reminisce about how we got here. Looking through old recipes and cookbooks takes me to a time when families gathered for meals. Lives were busy, but never too busy for a meal together. Breaking bread, sharing daily antics and regrouping as a family…

These are the things that evoke nostalgia…