Preserving Memories: Spreading Jam on Everyday Life

Someone should invent a way of preserving memories in a jar.
It would be like spreading a favorite jam on top of the bread that is life.

Wouldn’t it be awesome if there was a way of preserving memories like jam, in a jar?

Because how can mere words describe the Best Family Reunion Ever?

Although, any words I used would likely be the same words I’d use to describe every time our family gathers…

because each one is the sweetest mixture of past, present and future.  Memories and anticipation.  Sweet and semi-sweet.  Bitter mixed with better. Purely preserved jam.

Tears of tummy-wrapped laughter and trickles of recall that tremble on lashes lowered against a flash of past pain.

All the things we heart-share because we are family.

Something no one else can even begin to appreciate, because they haven’t lived together in the same spaces we did.

It’s The Jam on Top of Daily Life

And this is the stuff I wish we could bottle up and preserve like my dad’s favorite cherry jam.  Then we could open the jar, spread a little on our daily bread, and live it all over again.

Maybe that’s why my youngest niece collected all our recipes and made a cookbook.  After all, the family that eats together ingests more than just the same dishes.  We keep traditions, along with memories, alive.  The meals prepared by mom or grandma are the comfort food that fuels our lives.

Recipe Book or Genealogy Book?

My sister collects family cookbooks… not always for the recipes, but often for the genealogy.  It’s contact with the past wrapped in a tasty package.

No member on our string of DNA will forget the story behind our cookbook titled “I’m Thinking Jam.”  As my niece writes in the inside cover, “The title… comes from our Dad/Grandpa. Instead of asking, “please pass the jam” he would rather say, “I’m thinking jam” or “could you please turn your searchlights to the jam?”  …Grandpa liked all things sweet and sugary.  We’d go there in the evenings and never fail he’d pull out his black-cherry ice-cream and Grandma would serve her vanilla wafer cookies.”

One niece adds a comment to a recipe:  “Aunt Jan made this at least 20 years ago, and it’s still one of my favorites.”  Just a small note that floods my mind with tidbits about the reunion where “Aunt Jan” first shared this dessert with the whole clan.

It’s not that we think our blood line has the best recipes or are even very great cooks.  A family cookbook is all about preserving memories.  It’s as close to putting them in a jar to spread on everyday life as we can get.

Because each time we see the name below the dish we choose to prepare, we think of that person.  And then our thoughts are infused with the essence of the food of life.

Your Family Can Be Preserving Memories

As I wrote about the feelings our family recipe book conjures, I wanted to share that with you all somehow.  Then I realized that’s exactly why we created our special recipe albums.

At Kim+INK, we want to help you preserve your recipes and stories

so you can

create the essence of your family
in every dish you prepare.

Please share this to social media so everyone finds out about this way to preserve favorite family recipes.