Family cookbook online

I've tried to assemble recipes throughout my adult life with only moderate success. The recipes I yearn for as my children grow are the ones I remember from that time of my life. My mouth waters remembering Grandma's poppy seed bread (though I confess that I lived for the sweet glaze on top), Dad's potato salad (no recipe, it's one of those dishes you just *feel* as you make it), Grandpa's ravishing burgers and brats with his garden tomatoes, Uncle Jim's beans (once again, a recipe written in his bones that doesn't translate onto paper), my Mom's homemade chicken soup served with a thick, buttered slice of homemade, half-wheat bread, and Aunt Cindy's almost miraculous Christmas dinners.

Everyone has a flavor or scent that takes them back to simpler times, when the cost of butter wasn't quite so troublesome and we didn't know nor care about genetic modification or any hormones but our own.

I've made all kinds of recipe cards and binders with printed sheets that still manage to get splashed and covered in cocoa powder despite living inside plastic protectors. I've made Word documents that always get lost in the great shuffle that occurs when computers die and we load backups onto the new model. Now, I think I may have a solution that works for many members of my family.

Google Docs is a program that you don't have to use Gmail to enjoy. I made a document which sports the misnomer "Christmas Cookbook", because that's what it was going to be at its inception. What it has become over the past several weeks is nothing short of a marvel.

I began by throwing a bunch of recipe titles into the document, hoping someone would fill in the blanks. Invitations to my family of origin, uncles and aunts, and grandparents were sent and there was a flurry of additions as people dug out their recipe boxes. I expected that. What I didn't anticipate but kind of hoped for were the stories and conversations that went with the recipes. Food has long been a language of love for us, especially when it comes to sugar. Working in a kitchen with those whom I love nourishes me in body and soul. What could the holidays possibly have been without helping Grandma peel potatoes or put salad in her wood bowls? At such times I even started to like doing dishes with the kitchen sound system suspending songs of the holiday above conversation and laughter like flocked mistletoe.

I love the organic nature of this digital document. We can all add notes to the margins, as it were, and post several variations of a core delight depending on the diet du jour or a mere flight of fancy. We post tips on cooking techniques and explain exotic ingredients.

Most of all, despite the barriers of continents and decades, we can still enjoy having each other in the kitchen.