How it came to be ‘In Her Hand’

I’m not a cook. Far from it. I’m the friend who brings wine and words of wonderment to dinner parties. But every once in a while, especially around the holidays, I check the cookbooks that were handed down to me by my mom, Betty Gibson.

Betty was a typical mom of the 1970s. She cooked, she cleaned, she kept the home fires burning on an electric skillet that matched the avocado refrigerator in her Florissant, Mo., kitchen. And she would have loved it if only daughter would have spent more time there. But following the lead of my three brothers, I was more interested in baseball than baking.

And it’s not that Mom didn’t try. At her insistence one summer, I joined the “Junior Gourmet” cooking club in the old St. Louis Globe-Democrat. Each week, recipes were published, shopping lists were drawn up and I’d find myself in the kitchen making a meal for the entire family. Then the family got to provide grades in categories such as presentation, taste and appearance, which were mailed back to the newspaper and a winner eventually chosen.

I didn’t win a thing, and I felt like was like cooking for the Three Stooges. Rick, Mike and Jeff teased me mercifully while I prepared dishes such as taco pie and meat loaf and desserts called apple crunch. They’d eagerly run to the table on my cooking nights, then pretended to choke, gag and retch over my offering. And then I had to clean up the mess I made in the kitchen. It was torture at every turn.

Somehow, I learned a thing or two in spite of my aversion to Tupperware and knew my way around a kitchen by the time I got married at 29. And Tom, my husband, was a pretty good cook having lived on his own for so long too. So I hold my own, but that doesn’t mean I’d rather be watching Paula Deen instead of ESPN.

When my mom died in 1994, I received — as her only female heir at the time — all the cookbooks. Naturally, I opened them never. OK, maybe a few times. But last week, when I was paging through one of them thinking I might be adventurous this Thanksgiving this fell out: A recipe for a cake I don’t remember.

So instead of doing what most normal women would do — make the cake — I did the best thing I knew how: Write a column about it. Because what struck me more than the recipe itself was the manner in which it was written — carefully, meticulously and with love. Read the column here. And know why a single sheet of loose leaf took my breath away.

Here’s what I hope happens. I want you to send me pictures of your family recipes, those family secrets your mom, your grandma, your sister, your best friend wrote down for you. And send me a line or two or 20 as to why these are important t0 leslie@lesliegmccarthy.com. I’ll post them on this blog and we’ll share them together, like I’ve done here. We’ll call it The Write Ingredients.

And then get writing your own recipes for your friends, your sisters, your daughters and granddaughters — even if you don’t have them. Someone, somewhere will appreciate having something in your hand.