Family treasures await in grandma's recipe box

Recipes and cooking make me think of my mom and grandma. Receiving this assignment, I thought what better place than my mom's old recipe box to find inspiration. Just a simple green metal box, with a bicycling celery man decal.

High on the kitchen counter, out of reach, it was a wonder filled with magic spells my mom spread over our table each evening. When my mom went through her "out with the old, in with the new" phase, I inherited this treasure " which is odd, now that I think of it, because my mom never went through that stage.

Mom never got rid of anything, still doesn't. It's one of her many endearing qualities. If you want it or need it, she's got it, no matter how abstruse. I guess she knew how much the recipe box would mean to me. Stuffed full of hand-written secrets, delectable delights, solving the mystery of "what's for dinner tonight," it now sits on my counter collecting dust. Busy life, grown kids, a career or two, cell phones, Internet, besides I live mostly on spinach, croutons and cookie dough. But I needed a recipe and a story, and it seemed the place to start.

"Don't let me down, Mom," I whispered, as I dusted the lid and opened the magic box that reached back at least two generations.

My mom was a great cook, and prepared three meals every day for our family, but my grandma truly loved cooking. It was her love language. Her sweet bread was my favorite, the only thing I learned to make well, because I am a self-proclaimed bread-a-holic. And she loved to bake pies. If someone stopped by, expected or unexpected, her reaction was to bake a pie, or fry chicken. She made the best southern fried chicken and green beans there ever was. Try as we may, no one, not even Mom, could touch the magic of those green beans. I'll bet it was the bacon grease or something else ridiculously toxic that made those beans melt in your mouth. But actually, I think it was the love, pure and simple. Everything in life is better when it's made and served up from the heart.

I chuckled to myself, as I read through recipe after recipe of casseroles, chicken surprise, umpteen things to do with hamburger meat, gravies, tuna things and jellyrolls, finding nothing that fit today's dietary trends.

Then, tucked between butter cream frosting and southern pecan pie, I found it. A letter. Not any letter, a letter from Grandma. She had no idea it was the last she would ever write. She was so happy for the recent visit with her three daughters, delighted they had all been together for my cousin's wedding. She wished they could have stayed longer, hating being so far from family. It tickled her that three of us granddaughters had married in the same year. "Imagine that," she wrote. And, she was sending me the recipe for her sweet bread, worried it wouldn't get to me in time for my party.

It's not the first time I've rediscovered her letter. Years go by and I forget, but whenever I find it, it's a precious gift that crosses time and distance, even death. A letter, a recipe, a lifetime remembered on one small handwritten page. This is our story. It doesn't matter the words written, the food prepared, or anything really, as long as it's from the heart, then ... it's love pure and simple.

My grandma never had much except family. When she died I got her most valuable possessions, a yellow apron, her rolling pin, and of course her recipe for sweet bread.

- June Joplin is the owner of Comma Coffee in Carson City.