While most of my memories of days so long ago are of my father cooking and my mother baking. Since my father passed away while I was still young, I never learned to cook those wonderful dishes that he would whip up with next to nothing. Even now when I catch a cold, I still long for the chicken soup he would always make for me, the one that always made me feel that much better.

Looking back on my childhood days, I can remember lying down on the living room floor watching Checkers and Pogo while I did my homework, the aroma of something baking in the oven would often filled the air. My brother and I would fight over who got to lick the excess treats off the beaters and remnants in the mixing bowl.

My mother loved to collect recipes from newspapers, gas company, and even the electric company for years. She would jot down recipes from popular restaurants and famous celebrities.

A number of years back one of her tattered and stained appointment books that she would write her treasured recipes went missing. This was the book that had her favorites, our traditional family fixings for the holidays, maybe even some of my fathers' favorites. This book had contained the recipes to my family's comfort food.

I started to realize that we wouldn't know how to make the Mochi Stuffing that she would fix every Thanksgiving, or the Cream Cheese Cake with Jell-O. I was already in the process of making a recipe book for the friends that would come over on week-ends to bar-b-que and decided that I should make this as a special keepsake for my mother. I started to hunt for recipes that she used to make, and for photos of people that had either contributed recipes or that were somehow linked to that recipe or the person that shared it.

She got me started collecting recipes while I was still in elementary school. I still continued to collect recipes and create a recipe book each year. To honor my mother's love of collecting recipes, to stay connected to her, but equally important to help other families create their own keepsakes for their future generations, so that they may share and taste their own families tradition and culture.

I hope that someday my grandchildren, or my brothers' grandchildren will know what a wonderful cook both my parents where and that they will know that it was love that carried that recipe through all those years.