Oh How I Love Clipping Old Recipes...

SANDRA LEE SMITH

Oh, how I love old recipe clippings

Spattered and tattered

And yellowed with age;

Newspaper clippings and

Scribbled receipts,

On the back of an envelope,

Or the edge of a page.

I love all their names,

How they roll off my tongue,

Names just as sweet

As a song being sung.

Granny’s beet relish,

And Maude’s apple pie,

Aunt Becky’s favorite

Caraway rye.

Church-social brownies,

Miz Carr’s piccalilli,

And here’s a corn relish

We got from Aunt Tilly.

Uncle Jim’s homemade chili

Aunt Ann’s apple strudel,

Sister Sue’s one and only

Best noodle kugel.

I hold in my hand

A bit of the past,

And somewhere beyond

I hear someone ask

“May I have this receipt

for this great cherry pie?

My husband just loves it – and

Oh, so do I!”

And gladly she copies

It down for her guest

On a small piece of paper

That comes to rest

Inside of a cookbook

Or shoebox of snippings,

Spattered and tattered

Recipe clippings.

-Sandra Lee Smith

(*This was previously published in a recipe newsletter I used to subscribe to, called Fare Share…but it was B.C. (before computers) and I have no idea what year. Maybe the late 1980s)

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