Mother's Recipe Box
by
Sarah Russell

Friday night baked beans with salt pork, molasses,
and just enough water to keep them covered,
simmering in the bean pot her mother used.

Refrigerator rolls, dusted with flour, punched down,
rolled out to rise again as doughnuts, cloverleaf rolls
for company, hamburger buns for picnics. The dough

kept a week in a big bowl covered with wax paper
that took up most of a shelf in the icebox, its recipe card
with Mother’s school teacher penmanship, splotched

from yeasty hands and buttered fingers. And oh my,
the Jello concoctions—celery, slivered carrots
and pineapple in jiggly lime or orange with a mayo

and sour cream topping. And the congealed
Christmas staple of cranberries from the grinder
with orange bits and that ubiquitous celery.

Some of the cards have friends’ names—Hilda’s cherry pie,
Wilma’s meatloaf. Some have culinary graphics in a corner—
wooden spoons, checked aprons, Italian chefs winking.

My daughter asked for the box awhile back. It blesses
her kitchen from a high shelf. I doubt she has ever used
the recipes, but she knows its legacy, its secrets.   


© by Sarah Russell.
Used with the author's permission.