The Recipe Box

By Gary Brienzo

It sat on the bottom shelf of the curio cabinet, the foot-square wooden recipe box seldom opened since my mom’s passing several years ago. I’d acquired it from my sister, keeper of our family photos and traditions, and remember looking at it briefly when it first arrived. But even good memories can hurt, so it had been some time since I’d flipped through its age-yellowed cards.

That changed one day when a beam of afternoon light fell across the recipe box, reminding me it was still there. Something about the day, with the inviting sunlight that filled the room and gave me courage, drew me to it. I lifted the box, wiping away many months of dust and working harder than I’d expected to pry loose the heavy lid. And then I opened it, freeing more memories and reflections than Pandora’s famous box.

I could tell at once that the cards, many of them stained as most good recipes are, didn’t hold her best-kept secrets. Some were glued-down clippings she’d found in a magazine or newspaper. But there was still much here to cherish. Card after card was filled with her effusive handwriting, looping letters that conveyed the joyful resilience this woman raised in the depths of the Great Depression never lost.

The selection of recipes also told a story of its own, in its organization, for example, into categories of salad, soup, main dishes, and dessert. Even the ideas torn from the back of packages and boxes bore witness to a cook who was ever watchful for a suggestion, from any source, that might please her family and friends. More of her cook’s soul was revealed in the annotations she’d made to many of the cards: “Edith’s apple cake— super!” or “Rhubarb Pies—excellent,” or even one torn directly from a magazine and offered without comment, in a sort of commendation of its own, “Karl Malden’s Stuffed Cabbage.”

Closing the recipe box and storing it away again for a snowy or a rainy day when I might have more time, I realized I might never try most of the culinary delights held there. But I also knew it didn’t really matter. The small box was crammed with stories and countless memories, ones that could spring to life with the simple opening of a wooden lid. And it was an ageless bridge from one person, one generation, to the next, any time I was ready to cross.