- 33 minutes ago
NOTE FROM JAN ~ Closing out my 2025 Creativity Challenge is this month's guest blogger, Michele (Everts) Wills. Michele and I went to elementary school together and our moms were good friends. That was long, loooooong ago. So what a delight to catch up with her again on-line. Please enjoy Michele's post about special ways to preserve family memories while also creating in the kitchen. (P.S. Look for my Creativity Challenge to continue into 2026.) Cheers ~ Jan
AND NOW, TASTING YOUR MEMORIES WITH MICHELE WILLS ~ My three siblings and I were raised in the small town of Caro in mid-Michigan's "Thumb." My parents owned a pharmacy and a Hallmark Card and Gift shop and worked long hours. From the time when I was about ten years old, I would call my mom after school and ask her what was for supper. She would tell me what she had planned, what ingredients to use and how to generally make the meal. There were some mistakes, to be sure, but overall, we usually had tasty suppers.
The majority of the recipes I made were not written down anywhere, just truly "from scratch" cooking. One of the first recipes I intentionally recreated was a dessert made by my paternal grandmother, Nellie Everts, called "Birds Nest" (sort of an upside-down apple cobbler). I had never seen her use a written recipe. After learning that Grandma’s memory was failing, I asked her to tell me how she made it. She told me the ingredients and approximate measurements, which helped me to replicate that recipe. Grandma was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease shortly after that and passed away in 1983. Shortly after that, I made the Birds Nest for my dad. He was amazed when he tasted it, and I have been thankful ever since that I took the time to talk with Grandma. I would say that the Birds Nest was the beginning of my interest in recreating recipes from very little information or a written recipe.
Some years later, Mom gifted my siblings and me a typewritten, leather 3-ring binder with many of our family recipes. There were a few recipes from her mother, Grandma Helen, and her husband, our Grandpa Randy, which they had handwritten especially for the family cookbook. What makes this cookbook so special is that not only did it contain our most loved recipes, but it was a labor of love because each cookbook was hand typed on an electric typewriter! One of the foibles of this cookbook is that each version contains typos, most of which do not affect the recipe. However, one recipe in my version of the cookbook was found to contain a significant error.
One year our mom made a maraschino cherry-filled cookie for a Christmas cookie exchange. (She thought anyone offering “No Bake” cookies were slackers.) This cookie quickly became a beloved family favorite. A poinsettia shaped cookie cutter is used and 3 holes are punched in the middle so that the pretty red cherry filling could show through. Whenever I tried to make these cookies using the recipe in my cookbook, the cherry filling was always runny. I tried several times and failed each time, which was upsetting to me. This continued failure led to my brother becoming the designated baker of these cookies. We finally discovered that my mom made a typo in my cookbook. The amount of cornstarch was off by a tablespoon, and I was vindicated!
With the holidays now in full swing, I share a family recipe we call “Grape Salad” or “Christmas Salad.” I have no knowledge where it originated, but Grape Salad has been eaten at our family’s Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays for as long as I can remember. This salad is actually more of a dessert and is very simple, using only 4 main ingredients: seedless red grapes, pineapple tidbits, mini marshmallows and whipped cream (the real stuff only). A fond memory is that during the 2+ hour road trips to go to family holiday dinners, mom would sit in the car, working to halve and de-seed the grapes as there were no seedless grapes available at that time. What a mess, but it had to be done so the grapes and pineapple could sufficiently drain. The heavy cream would be sweetened and whipped at the last minute, just before serving to ensure that it was as fresh as possible. Any remaining Grape Salad was highly coveted to accompany the obligatory turkey sandwich and other leftovers later in the day.
Working full time in the health profession, being active with our daughters as they were growing up, teaching at the university level and obtaining my MBA at age 52, put my thoughts about researching recipes on the back burner. Retiring in late 2024, my husband and I sold our home and a majority of our collective life's belongings. We now divide our time in a lovely, much smaller condo in a golf community in Florida and a small cottage in Michigan on Lake Huron. Thoughts of a blog had been floating in my head for a couple of years, and finally, in late 2025 my cooking/food blog, "Taste Your Memories," was established. Through my blog, I hope to help other folks enrich their memories of family by recreating some of their favorite missing-in-action recipes and passing them down once again.
Recipes for Grape Salad and Poinsettia Cookies, along with others, can be found at my site:
My family continues to enjoy time together, building new memories, in and out of the kitchen.
If you have any memories of favorite family foods for which you have only a few ingredients, or perhaps no recipe at all, please contact me. (Go to my site and use the red "Send Us a Recipe" button in the upper righthand corner.) I would love to hear from you and help you “taste your memories.”
CLOSING NOTE FROM JAN ~ Thank you for supporting my creative adventures this year. Your reading, reviewing, and sharing word-of-mouth book love has meant more than I can tell you in this crazy, heart-wrenching, wonderful world of publishing. I appreciate you and love to hear from you, especially if you care to tell me about your own creative journey or ghostly encounter(s). Or both! Please reach out any time.
