Baking is Dirty Business...

 "baking is dirty business" scrapbooking layout

from "The Heritage Cookbook Photo Album" Scrapbook

by Rita Hutcheson-Cobbs

(I still have to add journaling/memories)

My mother is an awesome cook and baker! OMGosh, is she talented! Growing up, we ate at home and come 6:00 pm, supper was on the table and my friends were at the door hoping a plate would be set at the table for them to join us. My mother was the perfect hostess and would comply with a smile, knowingly having enough for them and leftovers for the next day. However, she would add something to the leftovers the next day so that if they showed up again that there would be plenty for them too. =) My daddy often worked late and a plate would be kept warm in the oven for him. Then there was always desserts in the house, homemade, not a package kind from the store. I can still remember my first purchased chocolate chip cookies! They weren't MOTHER's either!!

I still make the peanut butter cookies by the recipe my mother used, but I don't have to use the recipe even though I have the original copy and I use butter instead of oil. Then there is the Dirt Cake that is in the scrapbook layout in the photograph above with my mother's photo below it. She makes this every Christmas and any other time her grandson Joel and granddaughter Amanda can get her to do so. Then the two of them fight over it and hide it from each other. Before they leave the house, Mother pulls out a fresh container for each of them to take home which delights both of them and gains them hugs given to her and if they are truly excited they just might give each other hugs too which surprise both cousins and us! =)

The original Dirt Cake recipe calls for making it in a clay pot like you put flowers in and adding gummy worms but my mother snarls her nose up in the cuties way about doing such. She would rather put hers in a plastic container and add lots of Oreo cookies, more than the recipe calls for and will even make a sugar free cake too if you wish...which is just as good too! We love my mother's cooking, but as the years have passed, we have noticed a decline in how she cooks. Her age doesn't get her around as she use to but we have her recipes and we have our memories and that is why I am making this recipe scrapbook. I want to scan the pages and make six books, one for my sister and one for each of the grandchildren so they will have all the photographs my mother has at our house and the recipes she has collected over the years. That way we can share these memories and the blogs I am writing about each page I make...

I think I will just start scrapbooking ALL my photos this way! Since I have only been scrapbooking about a year and a half, I am more than overwhelmed with more than thirty years of my personal photographs so...why not...food and family just mesh together don't you think? So...I can embellish with more than just cooking, can't I? Of course I can...just watch me lol...flour or flowers...=)

Love, Blessings, & {{{Hugs}}},
Rita
www.RitaHutchesonCobbs.com