Last week I tentatively presented a pan of cornbread to my sons to go along with the chili I had made them. I received the appropriate oohs and aahs until they broke off a piece and popped it into their mouths. Suddenly, the silence was deafening. They glanced at each other as if trying to gauge the other’s reaction. That’s when I knew. Their non-verbiage screamed what I already suspected. My cornbread was a failure.

“It doesn’t taste like it used to,” one son finally ventured.

“I know,” I groaned. “I lost that recipe years ago and I thought this looked like a good one.” Obviously, I was wrong.

I also didn’t lose my old cornbread recipe. I threw it out. Along with my marriage.

It just seemed appropriate at the time. As I traded in my 25-year marriage for a new life, I traded in the old, much-used cookbook that ironically had been a wedding gift, for a new one. Tossing the worn, yellowed pages felt symbolic. I was starting a new life with a new cookbook. Clean pages. Clean beginning.

But it didn’t work out that way. Much to my chagrin, the new cookbook, a newly updated edition of my old one, didn’t contain the same recipes. The from-scratch recipes had been replaced with ones using convenience foods and the results suffered dramatically.

I’ve regretted tossing that old cookbook every time I’ve wanted to make one of my old recipes and then remembered I no longer had it. Sponge shortcake. Vegetable Beef soup. Chicken Noodle Soup. Lasagne. Cornbread.

Some of the recipes, like chicken noodle soup and lasagne, I had pretty much memorized so I didn’t completely lose those. But other ones, like the sponge shortcake and cornbread, I have unsuccessfully been searching for ever since.

So, you can imagine my surprise when perusing the used book section of a second-hand store with my daughter-in-law last night that my eyes fell on what appeared to be my old, much-missed cookbook.

Carefully taking it off the shelf, I glanced through it. It looked much like mine had the last time I saw it. Yellowed pages pulling off the binder rings; occasional dried-on food splatters; an odd assortment of paper-clipped recipes stuffed within the pages; hand-written notes in the margins. Ugh, I thought with disappointment. This is a mess. And I put it back on the shelf.

But I couldn’t let it go. The old tattered cookbook was calling my name so I picked it up once again. I checked the copyright. Nineteen seventy-six. Sixth edition. The same edition mine had been. I took a closer look at the pages. Sure, some of the tabs were missing and a lot of the pages had pulled loose. But once all the odds and ends of added papers were discarded, the cookbook would be very usable. I looked for my cornbread recipe. There it was! And there was my sponge shortcake recipe, right where it was supposed to be! That did it. I pulled the old tattered cookbook to my chest and offered up a humble prayer of thanks. My old, much-loved cookbook had been resurrected! In a second-hand store, no less. Probably the best 99 cents I’ve ever spent!

I spent the rest of the evening leafing through every single page of that cookbook. I tossed the loose-leaf additions that didn’t appeal to me and tucked away the ones that looked worth trying for another day. I taped ripes and tears. I handled that old cookbook like the treasure it was.

At first, the hand-written notes in the margins bothered me. It reminded me that this was in fact, not my original cookbook. It had belonged to someone else.  I considered taking an eraser to the penciled-in notes to erase any evidence of this “other” woman, but something stopped me.

As I looked closer and read each note in turn, this woman seemed to come alive. “Not good,” one note said. “Try this one,” another urged. “Use 3/4 c. sugar, not 1 c.” With each note, this woman seemed more real. The fog surrounding her image began to clear and as it did, I began to see her as a real, living person. Probably a wife and mother who spent her life cooking for her loved ones, just as I had.

I did the math. This cookbook was published in 1973. It had just recently been donated to Goodwill in 2018. That meant it was 45 years old. Amazing. Just imagine a cookbook surviving day in and day out in the kitchen of a woman for 45 years. At first, probably newly married and trying out new recipes hoping to please her new husband. Then as little ones began arriving, more cooking, more baking. Then the babes turned into toddlers, then middlers, then teenagers, then on to graduation and off to college and marriages and careers and little ones of their own. And this cookbook saw this woman through it all.

I was humbled. Her life probably resembled my own. And now, in November of 2018, this amazing woman no longer had need of this amazing cookbook. Did she die? I wondered. Was she put in a nursing home? Did she have dementia like my mother did, and simply forgot how to cook? Or, was she physically unable to cook, and heartbroken that she could no longer do so? 

I will never know. Regardless of what happened to her, someone else, most likely her grown children when rummaging through her belongings, considered this cookbook worthless and donated it to charity. But I know otherwise. I have her precious hand-written notes in her old cookbook, bearing evidence that she did indeed exist and that she lovingly cooked and baked for her family for years.

Those penciled in notations are no longer a source of irritation to me. They are not a blemish on an otherwise clean cookbook. They are vivid reminders of a woman who lived and loved.

And as such, I will treasure them for the rest of my life.

Today this tattered old cookbook sits next to the newer edition on my kitchen shelf. I put it there on purpose. It bears testament to the fact that newer is not always better. The new edition will always look pristine because it will never be used. The old tattered one? It will only get more tattered with continued use.

So now, as I thumb to my much-loved cornbread recipe, I will make it with a grateful heart, knowing my children and grandchildren will enjoy every bite. And I will remember the woman before me who did the same.