Save the Recipes!

I have this cookbook that I put together 30 some-odd years ago. Some of it is typed (yes, on a type writer), some of it is hand-written, and some of it is pasted from magazines and newspapers. Some of the recipes are classic family favorites, and some I look at now and wonder, "What was I thinking? That sounds terrible!" I will probably try to save some of the original copies of the recipes in some sort of scrapbooky- mixed-media format not only from this book but also from some other sources; in that way I can to save the memories of typewriters and the handwriting of my mom, myself, and others and even the memories of all that cooking reflected in the dirty pages and the scribbled notes. But mainly I want to save and pass on the recipes, the ones that still make me want to run to the kitchen and preheat the oven just because I've thought about them again. Maybe if I put those recipes in several formats in several safe places, some of them will survive and live on. Pound Cake is what my mother made whenever people she didn't know very well were coming over. Pound Cake is safe; who doesn't like butter, sugar, and vanilla? And look at the ingredients? Any cook worth his or her salt doesn't even have to go the grocery store before making this cake. You could even get up in the middle of a sleepless night and bake this cake. But it doesn't have to stay plain. My daddy loved it hot out of the oven spread with butter. That is a delicious treat. I love is as the base in Strawberry Shortcake. It will hold up to any flavor of ice cream. Cut it warm and spread it with butter -- that's great for breakfast! It travels well so it's great for potlucks and it freezes like a dream.

Pound Cake 1 cup butter 1 2/3 cups sugar 5 eggs 2 cups flour, sifted 5 times 1 teaspoon vanilla Cream butter with sugar in electric mixer. Add 1 egg and beat until no egg can be seen. Add another egg until all five have been added. Beat very hard and long. Add flour; beat to a creamy mass. Add vanilla. Bake in a slow oven for 50 min. or longer. Notes: You don't really have to sift the flour at all if you don't want to. This is an old recipe and flour is a more consistent product these days. "Beat very hard and long" means to beat until the batter is very smooth and the eggs have had the chance to do their leavening work. I usually mix it about 5 minutes. We're not doing this beating by hand any more either. Treat the phrase "creamy mass" the same way. When the flour is fully incorporated, you're fine. I usually bake this in a bundt pan. I really like it in my new fancy one. It works in a loaf pan, too. Spray whatever pan you use, even a non-stick one, with cooking spray. I use the one for baking. I set my oven on 350 degrees and I set the timer for 40 minutes. Then I test with a toothpick every 5 - 10 minutes until it comes out clean. It's 2023 and my mom, now 92, has lived with us since COVID erupted. I'm making a pound cake on a sloppy, post-snowfall day. I told her and commented on the directions. She said, "I remember where I got that recipe. Jack and Ruth Jeans were stationed in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where he was working on an atomic project. Ruth met an Italian woman there for similar reasons and she shared the recipe with Ruth." I have never heard that story before. These scientists were working on projects to save the world on a grand, powerful scale while their wives were doing the same one pound cake at a time.