Box of Recipes

I read, not as much as I would like but I read. My goal is to read 250,000 words per day which equates to about 250-300 pages. I don’t think I have ever achieved my goal and if I have I have never achieved it two days in a row. The goal came about form me reading one of my favourite authors J.D. Salinger. One of Salinger’s characters in nine stories reads 250,000-300,000 words per day. If it’s good enough for them, it must be good enough for me.

I generally read fiction written by someone whom I feel is important enough to spend my time with. Or someone who is recommended to me by  someone I feel is important enough in my life to spend time with. What I have realized by reading stories by and about authors is that authors seem to have vivid memories about their childhood. It is amazing to me how some people can recall and still have the relics of childhood. Michael Chabon has a box of recipes in his house which his mother wrote down, taught him to cook with and now uses to feed his family. I can’t say that I have a box of recipes in my kitchen that my mother wrote down through the years. I don’t have a box like that not because the box ever existed but because it was probably thrown out and rebuilt, thrown out and rebuilt again and again as we moved from home to home. I am not sure I was ever really taught how to cook by anyone other than the Japanese Iron Chefs, those glorious masters of theme ingredients that I can never afford.

I am trying to think of relics of my childhood but I don’t seem able to come up with much. I think I will start a recipe box for my children. I think I will encourage them to save things. I will save things for them until they are able to hold onto them themselves. Things of this world may not be all that important but things help us remember: adventures, places, people, and the things we do with the people in our lives. I am having a hard time remembering any of the adventures…