Let's Begin!

  It all began in my Mother's kitchen years ago.  Being a single mother of two kids, she was not the type to spend hours upon hours in the kitchen.  Dinner usually consisted of a mix between something frozen and something canned, but it was always delicious!  Between working 40-60 hours a week and having kids involved in sports, she did her very best to make sure we were eating well.  She had a few go-to recipes that were our favorites and a few she would whip up from scratch and I still crave them to this day.  Just because she did not cook a gourmet meal every day, didn't mean that she didn't want to.  She had a few recipe books STUFFED with recipes.  Most were handwritten, some were saved from newspaper clippings and there is even a box of tapioca saved for the recipe for pudding on the back.  I imagine her scanning the paper, seeing a recipe and dreaming of making it to try something new and exciting.  Unfortunately, most of the time, there was never enough time in the day to try any of these new and exciting recipes.  So years later, they remain stuffed between the pages of her recipe books.

Let's fast forward to March 13th, 2013.  This was the day our family got the gut-punching news that my Mother had been diagnosed with Stage 2 Pancreatic Cancer.  I was somewhat familiar with what that could mean, as my grandfather passed from Small Cell Lung Cancer in 2003, but this was different.  This was MY MOM.  My Mom, my best friend in the entire universe couldn't possibly be plagued with something so horrible as Cancer.  Being pregnant at the time, I remained insufferably hopeful that she would beat this monster.  She did everything possible to try to keep me calm and hopeful and I love her so much for that.  Sometimes I would wonder why she didn't tell me certain things that she knew about her health.  We told each other everything!  But now that I am a Mom myself to a very healthy and fast-growing daughter, I think I can understand exactly why she did everything she did.  She was trying to protect her kids.  I never want to see my little one in pain and I most certainly would have done the exact same thing she did if it were me.

  My sweet Mother lost her year-long battle with Pancreatic Cancer on March 7, 2014.  Almost exactly 1 year from diagnosis.  I feel that I immediately had to grow up and be the Mother of my family.  Even though I know I will forever be my Mother's little girl, I felt that I was no longer a daughter.  It has been the hardest thing I have ever gone through.  Overall, I have been doing okay.  My faith keeps me upbeat and strong and my family keeps me grounded.  I will forever be thankful for them!  But I do not know if I have really dealt with the loss.

  So, in an attempt to help cope and move forward, I have made it my latest project to cook my way through the jumbled mess of recipes that my Mother kept for all those years. Being a stay-at-home Mom, I have a little more time than she did to give some of these a shot and see through her dream of trying some of these recipes out.  Who knows, maybe my family can begin to create some new traditions with the help of the past?

Please enjoy this ride with me and if you end up cooking right alongside with me, even better!  So let's get cooking!