I’ve started going through my cupboards and drawers and have begun unloading things on unsuspecting relatives. The grand-girls are happy to cart off some of my costume jewelry including some I got from my grandmother. I put aside the stuff I want to keep. Last week I started in on the kitchen cupboards. I rearranged the cookbooks wondering which ones I could give up, none, and I have another box of cookbooks in storage.

In the corner on the far side of the cookbook shelf was my grandmother’s 1933 “Balanced Recipes by Pillsbury.” My Dad gave it to me when Grandma Laura died. She had a hearing problem from a childhood illness and until she died she called the company Phillsbury. This cookbook is in a 6”x9” aluminum book cover formed like a box with hinges attaching both covers. Those covers snap together in the front. When it is closed it completely seals the cookbook. The recipes are bound in an eleven ring binder inside with section tabs. The recipes are on small recipe card size pages, therefore the need for eleven rings. On the back of each recipe are hints and notes for "the inquiring cook.” It’s in remarkably good shape for being over 75 years old. I can’t believe I forgot it was there.

The true treasure however, unnoticed by me ever before, was inside the back cover. Recipes, many of them handwritten by Grandma, some cut out of newspapers and magazines were hiding in there. I see a page of sauces recipes from a 1954 Colliers magazine and recipes from a 1952 Longview (WA) Daily News. And, there are several recipes for applesauce cake including one from the back of insert from a Pyrex baking dish. in my mind I can smell warm, yummy, applesauce cake in her kitchen. I am so glad to have this, and happy to have the notes she personally wrote, and a little peek into her life. The kids will have wait for this one.