The Books

One day years before she died, my mom handed me a brown paper bag that I assumed was "giveaway", and said "Do you want these?”

I peeked inside, finding the familiar colorful checkers of her cookbooks.

“DO I WANT THOSE!?!?!!”

Memory Layne 12/8/24 Memory Layne 12/8/24

Mimi’s Chocolate Cake

Mimi’s Chocolate Cake was my great grandmother’s recipe and THE cake that was made for every birthday. In fact it may have been my great great grandmother’s recipe, but somehow the story changed (AS DID THE RECIPE, wait for it…). The origin was even argued upon a few times, leading up to my mom’s passing.

Family members competed…“Who makes it better?”We are still not sure who did, or does. We are all just happy to just have any version of the cake served to us, at any time. The light chocolate old fashioned dense-ish cake with the very sweet light chocolate sugary frosting was killer.

Memory Layne 10/24/24 Memory Layne 10/24/24

The Frito Salad

So it turns out there is no Frito Salad recipe in the salad book.

What got me excited about it was the memory of having REAL snack food at dinner. You see, we weren’t allowed to eat real snacks and as a kid it was the most depriving thing in the world. We were the kids with no fun food at their house.

Starving after school? Have some carrots. An apple would be fine,. Some celery with peanut butter would stick to our ribs, and well, you know, celery has snack-crunch.

Memory Layne 10/18/24 Memory Layne 10/18/24

The Books

One day years before she died, my mom handed me a brown paper bag that I assumed was "giveaway", and said "Do you want these?”

I peeked inside, finding the familiar colorful checkers of her cookbooks.

“DO I WANT THOSE!?!?!!”