Why I can't part with anything

The year was 1971. Her children were grown. The last grandchild had been born. All the tragedies that were or were to be seemed to be known and manageable. Semi-retired, as was her husband. What was there to do but learn to cook in her avocado kitchen? Previously without a hobby, this woman was now in prime gift position. All who never knew what to buy her now knew: cookbooks and kitchen gadgets. Having gotten by since 1934 on the advice of her mother and sisters, the Joy of Cooking, recipes written on scraps of paper at parties, reunions and potlucks, and the food section of the local newspaper, Winifred was now ready to read books and follow directions. From that time until her death in 1993, my grandmother acquired hundreds of cookbooks of every cuisine, region and trend. Not to mention every known kitchen whatsit.

Fast forward another 15 years, I am still weeding through the cookbooks, trying to fit them all, plus mine, into two shelves of a rolling cart. After we divided them up, my mother and my sister have dealt with their shares wordlessly. Although, every other day when I go to retrieve my two-year old son from his Grammy's, I hear myself and everybody else in the room saying, No cookbooks, leave them alone, those are Grammy's specials. Very careful!"

Anyway, I found one cookbook in the stash that I thought I could part with. Americana Cookery, Recipes from the most exciting cooking regions of the country submitted by home economics teachers. I skimmed though quickly and saw “Italian spaghetti sauce” in the West Coast section submitted by Deloris in Michigan and knew this was not a book the Winnie did much with. So I put it in a pile with some other things bound for the Goodwill. Then a few weeks later, I took it back off the pile and said, “Hey I could sell this on eBay. It’s vintage, it’s in good shape, people collect stuff like this.”

I skimmed through it again absently as I carried it back up from the basement, and out of the Page 78-79 hold flew a little browned slip of paper with an untitled recipe for cranberry sauce in her unmistakable perfect Catholic school handwriting. It was folded around a clip from the Post-Gazette on how pistachios are the it-girl of nuts. On the pages that had sandwiched these pieces for umpteen years, I saw coffee stains and cigarette ashes. I could just see her sitting there in her smoky avocado kitchen comparing the cranberry dressing of the exciting Northeast culinary region with the one she had gotten from her cousin Peg and had used for years. I too compared and decided that she never made a thing out of this cookbook. Still, those coffee stains probably contain her DNA.

I have no use for this book. I am crushed by the weight of it. But it seems to be a burden I will bear. My son will have to throw it away for me after I die.