a reuben and a recipebook

tonight, we are celebrating my oldest son's twenty-third birthday.

his dinner request was reubenwiches and he changed his usual pavlova chocolat request to a german chocolate cake. last night, i baked the cake and as i type this, his reubenwiches are on their final rise before they hit the oven.

when he was a baby, i started my venture into cooking. recipes ran from my scissors and i began my own primitive hole-punched books, full of recipes that garnered a grunted "more." i tried any recipe that sounded interesting–some were hits and some were misses. i have two of these old binders and each are segmented by type of food or beverage. each recipe has notations by date and who loved them.

it's funny how memories and events get pushed to the side of our dusty brains, but a recipe and how your family loved them are still at the forefront of your memory. these are the recipes that make my three children salivate and "oh, mama." me. these are the recipes that help me hug them back with love from the kitchen.