Day 26
Number of Recipes Collected: 7
I’ve just returned from Thanksgiving at my sister’s house. She made a disturbing observation as we gazed upon the array of dishes set on the table before us. “This may be the only Thanksgiving table in America whose food is primarily from the 1950’s.” I’ve taken some liberties with her exact words, but that was the general idea. And she was right. Our sides were from another generation.
● White Trash Potatoes (a.k.a. potato casserole or Me maw’s potatoes): This is basically hash browns with cream of something soup, cheese, and Corn Flakes on top. Sounds gross, I know. It took me a couple years to finally try it, but I finally gave in to peer pressure. To quote my dad’s favorite saying, “It’s not bad.” I do miss traditional mashed potatoes and gravy though. (And sweet potatoes.)
● Cranberry Crap: Marshmallows, Cool Whip, sugar, cranberries, pineapple. Freeze it in a Jell-O mold. What’s not to love? This is my all-time favorite holiday treat. The original name got lost somewhere along the way. My sister hates it with the white hot passion of 1,000 suns, so she renamed it Cranberry Crap. I am very pleased to announce that her daughter, Grace, who’s eighteen months, LOVES the stuff. In fact, it was really the only thing she wanted to eat on Thanksgiving at all.
● Green Jell-O Salad: Green Jell-O, pineapple, cottage cheese. Chill in Jell-O mold. I really don’t know what else is in this. I want nothing to do with it. I think it looks and tastes like nothing more than a molded gelatinous mass of lumpy vomit. I would be very happy never to see it on a Thanksgiving table ever again! My sister swears by it. Gag.
● Green Bean Casserole: You know this one…green beans, cream of mushroom soup, those onions that come in a can. Mmmm. I never had this as a child, but this is so good! Creamy, dreamy, gooey peppery beany goodness. I ate the last of it for dinner last night. Okay, I was the only one who ate any of it at all. But, that’s okay. I relished every bite.
We also had the usual turkey, stuffing (Not from a box, thank you very much. Homemade with turkey sausage, homemade turkey stock, herbs, and two kinds of bread.), rolls (store bought in perfect little square shapes – so much making my own bread and never buying it again. Although…technically, my sister bought it, so that doesn’t really count. Right?), and cranberry sauce (from Sam’s Club. I think my brother-in-law bought a pallet of the stuff). The cranberry sauce was from a can and it did look like the can, but that’s just the way we like it, okay.
In addition, I also made a favorite holiday dessert we like to call Pam’s Cookies, even though they’re not really cookies at all. In addition to the Green Jell-O Salad and Cranberry Crap this recipe also came from my mom. I think Pam is actually her friend from California, but I’m not positive. There are several recipes in her recipe box that are labeled “Pam’s Chicken”, “Pam’s Casserole”, “Pam’s fill-in-the-blank with your favorite food item”, so the origin of these recipes is someone fuzzy. The cookies…Rice Krispies, Corn Flakes, brown sugar, and Karo Syrup. Spread in a pan. Chill. Instant vanilla Jell-O pudding, milk, confectioner’s sugar. Spread on top of previous layer. Chill. Chocolate chips and butter. Melt. Spread on top. Chill. Very, very yummy. (Except for the slightly metallic Teflon taste that was a result of having to use my sister’s rusty old pan with the non-stick coating flaking off. Hmmm…perhaps she will be getting a new cake pan for Christmas.)
Monday, November 26, 2007
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Day 14
Number of Recipes Collected: 4
(I've really collected 5, but two were from the same person, so I can only count that as 1. See rules for explanation.)
I’ve picked my last harvest of jalapeños from the plant on my back porch. The season is officially over. I’ve decided to give them away at work. I can’t figure out what to do with them all. I could make a soup or a chili and throw in a couple jalapeños. Or toss some in cornbread. But I’ve got a Ziploc bag full, which is way too many for one person to consume. If you’ve got a recipe that requires fresh jalapeños, please send it my way.
I’m also looking for a recipe for Squash Casserole (this is also known as Squash Soufflé in some circles). I am absolutely smitten by the squash casserole/soufflé at the OK Café here in Atlanta. (If you have never been, you need to get yourself over there today! I’m going to write into the Food Network’s Diner, Dive-Ins, and Drives tv show and suggest they pay a visit to the OK Café.) Their squash casserole is a perfect combination of mayonnaise and Ritz crackers, with some squash added in for good measure.
I love the South for its sides. Squash casserole. Baked beans. Macaroni and cheese (which I just detested as a kid, but now love). Did you know that macaroni and cheese is considered a vegetable in the South? True story. A vegetable!
The following recipe comes from Award-Winning Children's Book Author Kim Siegelson . You can check out her books at her website http://www.kimsiegelson.com/. I highly recommend her novel Trembling Earth. I met Kim at the Voices in Children’s Literature Conference I went to at the beginning of the month: http://www.voicesinchildrensliterature.com/index.html.
Sullivan Street Bakery “No Knead Bread”
Recipe #4: Kim S., Atlanta, GA
3 c. all-purpose flour
¼ tsp instant yeast
1 ½ tsp salt
Combine the ingredients in a large bowl with 1 5/8 c. water and stir until blended. Dough will be sticky and shaggy. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest 12-18 hours at room temperature.
When the dough is dotted with bubbles, turn out onto a lightly floured surface. Sprinkle flour over and fold dough over on itself one to two times (like tucking). Cover with the plastic wrap and let rest 15 minutes.
Uncover and shape it into a ball, quickly, by tucking the sides beneath it. Flour a cotton tea towel (or pillowcase) and put dough on top with seam down, then cover and let rise another 2 hours. It will double in size and spring back when poked.
At the 1 ½ hour mark, heat the oven to 450 degrees. And put s 6-8 quart heavy lidded pot (cast iron, Pyrex, or ceramic…think Dutch oven) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, remove pot from oven. Using the towel, transfer dough to pot. “Dump it in” seam side up. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes. Remove lid and bake another 15-20 minutes, until crispy and brown. Cool on a rack and enjoy!
Kim adds, “Plan on a total of 16-18 hours from start to finish. Most of that time is waiting for dough to rise. I begin it at night before bed and finish the next day.”
Number of Recipes Collected: 4
(I've really collected 5, but two were from the same person, so I can only count that as 1. See rules for explanation.)
I’ve picked my last harvest of jalapeños from the plant on my back porch. The season is officially over. I’ve decided to give them away at work. I can’t figure out what to do with them all. I could make a soup or a chili and throw in a couple jalapeños. Or toss some in cornbread. But I’ve got a Ziploc bag full, which is way too many for one person to consume. If you’ve got a recipe that requires fresh jalapeños, please send it my way.
I’m also looking for a recipe for Squash Casserole (this is also known as Squash Soufflé in some circles). I am absolutely smitten by the squash casserole/soufflé at the OK Café here in Atlanta. (If you have never been, you need to get yourself over there today! I’m going to write into the Food Network’s Diner, Dive-Ins, and Drives tv show and suggest they pay a visit to the OK Café.) Their squash casserole is a perfect combination of mayonnaise and Ritz crackers, with some squash added in for good measure.
I love the South for its sides. Squash casserole. Baked beans. Macaroni and cheese (which I just detested as a kid, but now love). Did you know that macaroni and cheese is considered a vegetable in the South? True story. A vegetable!
The following recipe comes from Award-Winning Children's Book Author Kim Siegelson . You can check out her books at her website http://www.kimsiegelson.com/. I highly recommend her novel Trembling Earth. I met Kim at the Voices in Children’s Literature Conference I went to at the beginning of the month: http://www.voicesinchildrensliterature.com/index.html.
Sullivan Street Bakery “No Knead Bread”
Recipe #4: Kim S., Atlanta, GA
3 c. all-purpose flour
¼ tsp instant yeast
1 ½ tsp salt
Combine the ingredients in a large bowl with 1 5/8 c. water and stir until blended. Dough will be sticky and shaggy. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest 12-18 hours at room temperature.
When the dough is dotted with bubbles, turn out onto a lightly floured surface. Sprinkle flour over and fold dough over on itself one to two times (like tucking). Cover with the plastic wrap and let rest 15 minutes.
Uncover and shape it into a ball, quickly, by tucking the sides beneath it. Flour a cotton tea towel (or pillowcase) and put dough on top with seam down, then cover and let rise another 2 hours. It will double in size and spring back when poked.
At the 1 ½ hour mark, heat the oven to 450 degrees. And put s 6-8 quart heavy lidded pot (cast iron, Pyrex, or ceramic…think Dutch oven) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, remove pot from oven. Using the towel, transfer dough to pot. “Dump it in” seam side up. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes. Remove lid and bake another 15-20 minutes, until crispy and brown. Cool on a rack and enjoy!
Kim adds, “Plan on a total of 16-18 hours from start to finish. Most of that time is waiting for dough to rise. I begin it at night before bed and finish the next day.”
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Day 8
Number of Recipes Collected: 3
I received my first snail mail recipe! Thank you to Chris’s sister, Leigh Ann! You made me very happy (really more like giddy in a Christmas morning kind of way) when I went and checked my mailbox on Tuesday night. I called everyone I could think of to share the good news.
For anyone who reads this and wants to get me something for Christmas…I need a new spring form pan (you’ll understand this when you read Leigh Ann’s recipe). I threw my old one out several years ago, after I discovered it had rusted. That shows how much I used it.
Mom’s Almond Cheesecake
Recipe #2: Leigh Ann, Simpsonville, S.C.
Crust:
1 ½ cups graham cracker crumbs
2 Tbs sugar
1 tsp flour
¼ cup melted butter
Filling:
2 lbs. cream cheese (softened)
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
½ tsp vanilla
½ tsp almond extract
Topping:
1 pint sour cream
¾ cup sugar
¾ tsp almond extract
½ tsp lemon juice
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix ingredients for crust, pat down on bottom of 9” spring form pan. Bake crust 5 minutes, remove and cool. Turn OFF oven, open door to allow oven to cool.
Mix filling, pour into cooled crust and place in cold oven. (The time it takes to mix the filling is enough time to let the oven cool.) Turn oven to 350 degrees and bake for 30 minutes. Pour topping over baked cheesecake and bake for 8 more minutes. Chill overnight.
Yesterday at lunch I was advertising this little project to some folks in the lunchroom at work. I might have dressed it up a bit with my ambitions of putting the collection of recipes I receive into a cookbook and maybe getting a book deal to write about my experience with the project (think Julie & Julia) and then added my hopes of maybe, possibly, one day being asked by the Food Network to make this into a show!
Anyway, before I knew it, another recipe had appeared. This one was dropped off on my desk when I was off making photocopies. I know Katherine knows that I love soups and chowders, and that I grew up in Maine. This one sounds perfect for me!
DDDDD Seafood Chowder
Recipe #3: Katherine F., Atlanta, GA.
(In case you’re wondering, the 5 D’s stand for the Double Digit Division Dining Divas.)
Ingredients:
6 Tbs butter
4 Tbs flour
1 large onion
2 stalks celery
1 red pepper
6 cups hot chicken stock
2 cups ½ and ½
fresh dill or chervil
2 ½ cups milk
black pepper
salt
4 cups corn
8 oz smoked salmon
12 oz crabmeat
Melt the butter in a soup pot. Add chopped onion, celery, and red pepper. Saute for 10 minutes on medium. Add flour, stir for 2 minutes. Add chicken stock and bring back to simmer. Add cream, milk, salt and pepper to taste. Bring back to a simmer and add corn.
Remove pot from heat and add salmon and crabmeat. Pour into bowls and sprinkle with fresh dill or chervil. Makes 12 servings.
Katherine wrote on the recipe, “I’ve made this also with oysters instead of smoked salmon, and it’s very good.”
Number of Recipes Collected: 3
I received my first snail mail recipe! Thank you to Chris’s sister, Leigh Ann! You made me very happy (really more like giddy in a Christmas morning kind of way) when I went and checked my mailbox on Tuesday night. I called everyone I could think of to share the good news.
For anyone who reads this and wants to get me something for Christmas…I need a new spring form pan (you’ll understand this when you read Leigh Ann’s recipe). I threw my old one out several years ago, after I discovered it had rusted. That shows how much I used it.
Mom’s Almond Cheesecake
Recipe #2: Leigh Ann, Simpsonville, S.C.
Crust:
1 ½ cups graham cracker crumbs
2 Tbs sugar
1 tsp flour
¼ cup melted butter
Filling:
2 lbs. cream cheese (softened)
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
½ tsp vanilla
½ tsp almond extract
Topping:
1 pint sour cream
¾ cup sugar
¾ tsp almond extract
½ tsp lemon juice
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix ingredients for crust, pat down on bottom of 9” spring form pan. Bake crust 5 minutes, remove and cool. Turn OFF oven, open door to allow oven to cool.
Mix filling, pour into cooled crust and place in cold oven. (The time it takes to mix the filling is enough time to let the oven cool.) Turn oven to 350 degrees and bake for 30 minutes. Pour topping over baked cheesecake and bake for 8 more minutes. Chill overnight.
Yesterday at lunch I was advertising this little project to some folks in the lunchroom at work. I might have dressed it up a bit with my ambitions of putting the collection of recipes I receive into a cookbook and maybe getting a book deal to write about my experience with the project (think Julie & Julia) and then added my hopes of maybe, possibly, one day being asked by the Food Network to make this into a show!
Anyway, before I knew it, another recipe had appeared. This one was dropped off on my desk when I was off making photocopies. I know Katherine knows that I love soups and chowders, and that I grew up in Maine. This one sounds perfect for me!
DDDDD Seafood Chowder
Recipe #3: Katherine F., Atlanta, GA.
(In case you’re wondering, the 5 D’s stand for the Double Digit Division Dining Divas.)
Ingredients:
6 Tbs butter
4 Tbs flour
1 large onion
2 stalks celery
1 red pepper
6 cups hot chicken stock
2 cups ½ and ½
fresh dill or chervil
2 ½ cups milk
black pepper
salt
4 cups corn
8 oz smoked salmon
12 oz crabmeat
Melt the butter in a soup pot. Add chopped onion, celery, and red pepper. Saute for 10 minutes on medium. Add flour, stir for 2 minutes. Add chicken stock and bring back to simmer. Add cream, milk, salt and pepper to taste. Bring back to a simmer and add corn.
Remove pot from heat and add salmon and crabmeat. Pour into bowls and sprinkle with fresh dill or chervil. Makes 12 servings.
Katherine wrote on the recipe, “I’ve made this also with oysters instead of smoked salmon, and it’s very good.”
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Day 6
Number of Recipes Collected: 1
I’m going to check my mailbox after work. I have high hopes that there will be an envelope in it. Several people have told me that they’ve sent my email and blog to their friends. I sit and wait.
But don’t confuse sitting and waiting with bored. November is actually turning into a really busy month for me. I’ve started this project, so I need to keep up with sending out my daily mailers. I’ve joined NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), which is just the ticket if you have been procrastinating beginning writing your great American novel. I have. I highly recommend checking out their website if you need a fire lit under your butt. I’ve got a huge event that I’m planning for the last week of November at work. And I still haven’t begun Love in the Time of Cholera, my book club’s selection for this month. Someone told me it was kind of a chore to get through. Yikes. And, of course, there’s Thanksgiving, the best holiday of them all.
I’m not reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez because I’ve been totally absorbed in two books by Judith Ryan Hendricks about a woman who moves to Seattle and works in a bakery and bakes bread. I actually became so inspired by all of her bread baking that two Saturdays ago I baked my very first loaf of bread. Ever. I made oatmeal honey bread. My house smelled sensational! I gave one loaf to Becky and Andy and kept one for myself. To paraphrase Scarlett O’Hara, I will never buy a loaf of supermarket bread again! (We’ll see how long that lasts.) This Saturday I going to try my hand at focaccia. I’m thinking rosemary and thinly sliced red onions.
Last night as I was reading The Baker’s Apprentice, Hendricks’s main character exclaimed that the reason Thanksgiving is her favorite holiday is because it is the only holiday that’s entirely focused on the preparation and consumption of food.
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Number of Recipes Collected: 1
I’m going to check my mailbox after work. I have high hopes that there will be an envelope in it. Several people have told me that they’ve sent my email and blog to their friends. I sit and wait.
But don’t confuse sitting and waiting with bored. November is actually turning into a really busy month for me. I’ve started this project, so I need to keep up with sending out my daily mailers. I’ve joined NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), which is just the ticket if you have been procrastinating beginning writing your great American novel. I have. I highly recommend checking out their website if you need a fire lit under your butt. I’ve got a huge event that I’m planning for the last week of November at work. And I still haven’t begun Love in the Time of Cholera, my book club’s selection for this month. Someone told me it was kind of a chore to get through. Yikes. And, of course, there’s Thanksgiving, the best holiday of them all.
I’m not reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez because I’ve been totally absorbed in two books by Judith Ryan Hendricks about a woman who moves to Seattle and works in a bakery and bakes bread. I actually became so inspired by all of her bread baking that two Saturdays ago I baked my very first loaf of bread. Ever. I made oatmeal honey bread. My house smelled sensational! I gave one loaf to Becky and Andy and kept one for myself. To paraphrase Scarlett O’Hara, I will never buy a loaf of supermarket bread again! (We’ll see how long that lasts.) This Saturday I going to try my hand at focaccia. I’m thinking rosemary and thinly sliced red onions.
Last night as I was reading The Baker’s Apprentice, Hendricks’s main character exclaimed that the reason Thanksgiving is her favorite holiday is because it is the only holiday that’s entirely focused on the preparation and consumption of food.
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Monday, November 5, 2007
Monday, November 5, 2007
I went to a writer’s conference in Helen, Georgia this weekend. Helen is a very German, gingerbready sort of small North Georgia mountain town. Imagine a really small scale Disneyland, but with Hansel and Gretel instead of Mickey and Minnie. Except I didn’t see Hansel and Gretel. What I did see was Elvis Presley riding up and down main street in a white convertible Cadillac tossing candy at passers-by like her was the grand marshal in a parade, except there was no parade. Apparently Elvis impersonators are very popular in Helen.
The conference was really at a lodge in Unicoi State Park. It was nice to get out of the city and wake up to a vista of mountains with foggy mist sinking into the valleys below my window. The air smelled really good up there too. Leaves had changed. They were falling and crunching under my feet. You get the picture. The conference was more like a workshop. It was small and intimate. I saw the same people over and over again. This offered me the opportunity to advertise The Recipe Project. I have no shame.
The first person I told about the project sat down and wrote out a recipe right then and there. Congratulations to Ashleigh for being the first person to participate and give me a recipe!
Pumpkin Chocolate Muffins
Recipe #1: Ashleigh H., Tucker GA
1 can of pumpkin (15-16 oz.)
1 box of Devil’s Food Cake Mix
Fold together. If you need moisture, and an egg or two. Bake at 350 degrees. Cook as long as it says on the box, but watch them. (Works best as mini-muffins.)
“I found this recipe while looking for healthier alternatives for snacks for my very picky daughter, Katherine. My kids love them! (So does everyone else who’s tried them.)”
As I was driving down the mountain from the conference and was sitting in traffic in Helen, (yes, it really was bumper-to bumper), my sister called to tell me that she was up to her ass in pumpkin.
Apparently, she had decided that Saturday afternoon would be the perfect time to cut up and boil her Halloween pumpkins (this is NOT recommended, if you have already carved your pumpkins). Anyway, she was in the process of cooking 64 cups of pumpkin and needed some ideas for what to do with them.
So, less than 24 hours after receiving my first recipe of the project, I shared it. In between clutching and breaking, I read her Ashleigh’s recipe for Pumpkin Chocolate Muffins.
Before I was even back in Atlanta, my sister called to tell me how they turned out. She said they are very light and fluffy chocolate cupcakes that don’t even taste like pumpkin. And after looking at the box, she noticed that not using oil and eggs in the muffins and substituting the pumpkin instead saved something like 1,000 calories each. Okay, that might be an exaggeration. But I do know this much…her daughter loved them, just as Ashleigh said she would!
The conference was really at a lodge in Unicoi State Park. It was nice to get out of the city and wake up to a vista of mountains with foggy mist sinking into the valleys below my window. The air smelled really good up there too. Leaves had changed. They were falling and crunching under my feet. You get the picture. The conference was more like a workshop. It was small and intimate. I saw the same people over and over again. This offered me the opportunity to advertise The Recipe Project. I have no shame.
The first person I told about the project sat down and wrote out a recipe right then and there. Congratulations to Ashleigh for being the first person to participate and give me a recipe!
Pumpkin Chocolate Muffins
Recipe #1: Ashleigh H., Tucker GA
1 can of pumpkin (15-16 oz.)
1 box of Devil’s Food Cake Mix
Fold together. If you need moisture, and an egg or two. Bake at 350 degrees. Cook as long as it says on the box, but watch them. (Works best as mini-muffins.)
“I found this recipe while looking for healthier alternatives for snacks for my very picky daughter, Katherine. My kids love them! (So does everyone else who’s tried them.)”
As I was driving down the mountain from the conference and was sitting in traffic in Helen, (yes, it really was bumper-to bumper), my sister called to tell me that she was up to her ass in pumpkin.
Apparently, she had decided that Saturday afternoon would be the perfect time to cut up and boil her Halloween pumpkins (this is NOT recommended, if you have already carved your pumpkins). Anyway, she was in the process of cooking 64 cups of pumpkin and needed some ideas for what to do with them.
So, less than 24 hours after receiving my first recipe of the project, I shared it. In between clutching and breaking, I read her Ashleigh’s recipe for Pumpkin Chocolate Muffins.
Before I was even back in Atlanta, my sister called to tell me how they turned out. She said they are very light and fluffy chocolate cupcakes that don’t even taste like pumpkin. And after looking at the box, she noticed that not using oil and eggs in the muffins and substituting the pumpkin instead saved something like 1,000 calories each. Okay, that might be an exaggeration. But I do know this much…her daughter loved them, just as Ashleigh said she would!
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Day 1
Number of Recipes Collected: 0
This morning at 6:30, I walked down my driveway and put the first 10 mailers begging people to participate in this crazy hair-brained project of mine into my mailbox. Then I lifted up the little red flag on the outside of the mailbox. I grinned with excitement as I walked back to my house in the dark. My Recipe Collection Project had officially begun!
I will be sending out a grand total of 250 of these mailers asking people to participate in my quest for 1,000 recipes. They have all the same information on them that’s here on this webpage. I’ve printed the mailers onto brightly colored card stock and will be mailing them to big cities and small towns in all 50 states.
I’m going to mail them to public libraries. I’m a librarian. We’re readers and information people. We’re resourceful. So I figure, librarians might help me out. I went online and found addresses for public libraries across the country. I’m mailing 5 cards to each state in the hopes that each person who receives one will participate, send me a recipe, and pass the mailer along to a friend. And that person passes it along. Etc.
Oh, yeah. I’ve also emailed my blog address to all my friends, so hopefully they’ll pass it along to their friends. You get the idea.
Last night was my Big Launch Party. Okay, so that’s a misnomer, but I did get together with some friends. I met up with Becky, Andy, and Sarah for our third annual Halloween dinner at our favorite Mexican dive and showed off my first mailer. And I’m happy to say it generated quite a buzz. It turns out that they thought it was kind of a cool idea. In between bites, Becky asked, “Why can the recipes only be sent via snail mail?” I’m a latecomer to the 21st century. I value simplicity. I don’t have Internet at my house. I don’t have cable. And in my search for recipes from home, recipes that feed families, and that have been passed down from generation to generation, I feel receiving the recipes via snail mail is my nod to a simpler time. Also it makes the project a lot more challenging.
And so there we were, ignoring the trick-or-treaters who were probably knocking on our doors wondering where we were, rattling off lists of people we knew who lived all over the country or who knew people who lived somewhere else. Sarah pulled out her knitting and worked on a sock she was making, and Becky and Andy started debating the merits of the book Atonement by Ian McEwan, and I dipped my chip into more cheese and felt a warm tingling in my toes just thinking about how next year on Halloween we wouldn’t be celebrating the launch of my project, we would be celebrating the end.
So, a couple hours and bowls of cheese dip later, I finally went home to a few straggling trick-or-treaters and sat on my couch and addressed the 10 envelopes I mailed this morning.
Number of Recipes Collected: 0
This morning at 6:30, I walked down my driveway and put the first 10 mailers begging people to participate in this crazy hair-brained project of mine into my mailbox. Then I lifted up the little red flag on the outside of the mailbox. I grinned with excitement as I walked back to my house in the dark. My Recipe Collection Project had officially begun!
I will be sending out a grand total of 250 of these mailers asking people to participate in my quest for 1,000 recipes. They have all the same information on them that’s here on this webpage. I’ve printed the mailers onto brightly colored card stock and will be mailing them to big cities and small towns in all 50 states.
I’m going to mail them to public libraries. I’m a librarian. We’re readers and information people. We’re resourceful. So I figure, librarians might help me out. I went online and found addresses for public libraries across the country. I’m mailing 5 cards to each state in the hopes that each person who receives one will participate, send me a recipe, and pass the mailer along to a friend. And that person passes it along. Etc.
Oh, yeah. I’ve also emailed my blog address to all my friends, so hopefully they’ll pass it along to their friends. You get the idea.
Last night was my Big Launch Party. Okay, so that’s a misnomer, but I did get together with some friends. I met up with Becky, Andy, and Sarah for our third annual Halloween dinner at our favorite Mexican dive and showed off my first mailer. And I’m happy to say it generated quite a buzz. It turns out that they thought it was kind of a cool idea. In between bites, Becky asked, “Why can the recipes only be sent via snail mail?” I’m a latecomer to the 21st century. I value simplicity. I don’t have Internet at my house. I don’t have cable. And in my search for recipes from home, recipes that feed families, and that have been passed down from generation to generation, I feel receiving the recipes via snail mail is my nod to a simpler time. Also it makes the project a lot more challenging.
And so there we were, ignoring the trick-or-treaters who were probably knocking on our doors wondering where we were, rattling off lists of people we knew who lived all over the country or who knew people who lived somewhere else. Sarah pulled out her knitting and worked on a sock she was making, and Becky and Andy started debating the merits of the book Atonement by Ian McEwan, and I dipped my chip into more cheese and felt a warm tingling in my toes just thinking about how next year on Halloween we wouldn’t be celebrating the launch of my project, we would be celebrating the end.
So, a couple hours and bowls of cheese dip later, I finally went home to a few straggling trick-or-treaters and sat on my couch and addressed the 10 envelopes I mailed this morning.
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