Had to pick between grandma's handwritten recipe box and my mom's digital file collection

My grandmother passed last month and left me her recipe box full of stained index cards, but my mom scanned everything into a tablet for me. I went with the paper box because I wanted the handwriting and the splatters, but now I'm squinting at her cursive for "1/2 t salt" and wondering if that's really cinnamon in the cookie dough. Anyone else torn between keeping things old school and going digital with family recipes?

3 comments

3 Comments

lindal1325d ago

Wait, wait, wait. You're telling me you actually have to decode "1/2 t salt" from grandma's shaky cursive? I would have a complete meltdown trying to figure out if that little smear was nutmeg or allspice. Honestly every time I try to read my own grandmother's handwriting I end up holding the card up to different lights like a detective. I respect the choice for the real paper though, those splatters and stains tell more of the story than any digital file ever could.

susan64925d ago

Oh I know EXACTLY what you mean about holding it up to the light like a detective. My gram's recipe for molasses cookies had a spot that I was SURE was either a vanilla bean fleck or just an old crumb stuck to the paper. Turned out to be a popped bubble of caramelized sugar, which totally changed how I thought about the baking temp. Heres my best trick for the shaky cursive issue: take a photo of the card on a bright white surface with GOOD lighting, then zoom WAY in on your phone. You can actually see the pen pressure changes that way. Cinnamon and cloves look REAL similar in that old faded ink but one always has a tiny loop the other doesnt.

jenny_hall25d ago

Ha, @lindal13 would have a stroke if she saw my gram's recipe for "sceggs.