Why I am here.

One afternoon I was in a storage area in my mother's office house (I will get into more of that later) and I was looking for some items I had stored there when I moved the end of last summer.  As I was rummaging through things I found my mother's recipe box.  It isn't a fancy box - it is actually just a index card box that my mother attempted to organize her recipes in.  I didn't think much about the box, but I took it with me!

When I got home and my daughter was taking a nap I grabbed the box and started to go through it, slowly organizing the recipes in some type of groups.  Some fell into meats, some fell into appetizers, there were a lot of bread recipes and dessert recipes.  While I was trying to organize I was struck with the most unbelievable feeling of heartache.  Most of the recipes in the box were recipes from my childhood, and the ones that were not from my childhood came from our time working at our family's winery (again another story to tell at another time).  Each recipes reminded me of something that was important to me as a child, or a memory that brought back the time we were together as a family.  They were part of my history.

When my husband got home that night from work I told him that I had found this recipe box.  His reaction "I can't wait for you to cook through your mother's recipes."  This is what was my inspiration, or part of my inspiration.  I want my child to have a better understanding of her history, and part of her history is my history as a child on our family's farm.

I hope that you enjoy these recipes as much as I have, really for my entire life.  I also hope that you love the changes that I hope to make to some of these recipes to modernize the recipes to fit my very busy schedule!