Candies and Bonbons and How to Make Them, Oh My!

We went to my mom's place for Thanksgiving dinner. As always when we visit my mom, or she visits us, she offered me stuff. I allege she doesn't want to throw stuff away and therefore won't feel guilty if she can pass stuff off on me. Or Susie. I have become discriminating in what stuff I will accept. Sometimes it makes me feel bad when I refuse to accept stuff. And I won't accept stuff just to make her feel better, only to then discard said stuff.

Sometimes things go differently. This was one of those.

She asked me if I wanted a cookbook. Warily I asked what kind of cookbook are we talking about. We must Dear Reader, now back up 50 years or so to fill you in.

My grandmother collected recipes. She clipped and copied. I have some of her old cookbooks and there are lots of clipped recipes inserted throughout them. Almost all of them. And lots of clippings. I leave them where they lie, like sleeping dogs, as an homage to my late grandmother.

Anyway, back in the early 1960s, when my mother was a student at the University of Oregon, her mother, my grandmother would sometimes accompany her to the library. Grandma would head to the cookbooks and copy down recipes. OK. Now you're caught up.

Back to Thanksgiving and the offer of stuff. The cookbook. My mom showed me a binder. A three-ring binder. It was not the collected recipes that my grandmother had copied all those years ago. It was her hand-written copy of an entire 287 page cookbook. Candies and Bonbons and How to Make Them. Neatly written on ruled paper. Wow.

I accepted the binder.

Later, I went on Amazon and found a copy for sale and promptly bought it. It arrived yesterday and I cataloged it. TX791.N4 1913 and included a note that indicated I have a second, hand-written copy.

The behaviors surrounding my grandmother's actions certainly explained a lot to me. About me and some of my behaviors. I did say that I cataloged it. Right?