Here I go again, featuring my mom in a post without asking her permission. Although, in all fairness, she likely knew why I was taking a picture of her… and this recipe.
A few weeks ago, mom asked Andrew and I if we’d like to come over for some borscht and fresh bread. We said OF COURSE!
It was so good, just like what I grew up with.
The last time I posted about something my mom made (Nie Yasch Kuchen, I believe), people asked me for the recipe. It hadn’t occurred to me to post recipes. So I asked my mom if she’d share the recipe. She said that her mother-in-law had shared the recipe with her, and she didn’t think she should share it with other people. (But in all honesty, it’s probably a basic yeast doughnut recipe.)
So this time I asked her if I could see the borscht recipe. Turns out it’s on page 18 in the Mennonite Treasury. Really though, I don’t think she follows it exactly. As you can see, she’s made her own notes over time.
Time has left other marks on this recipe page, too. Splashes of broth and coffee. What was once a straight edge of the page is now as soft as fabric, and well-frayed.
Her notes include the very most important one, in her friendly cursive writing, at the very top: “V.G. Mel really likes this!” I wonder when she wrote that note, I should’ve asked her. I imagine she may have written this note as a newlywed, thrilled to have found a recipe that “really did the trick”. Though she did continue to try new recipes throughout their marriage… to varying degrees of success (such as the great zucchini-“pineapple” debacle of 1989).
Dad passed away in 2006, but reminders of the love my parents shared lives on… even (or perhaps, most of all) in old recipe books such as this one.