Thread by @JaneLindholm

Trying to find ways to change up the traditions but still feel connected as my kids and I spend Thanksgiving alone this year, (My spouse will be working, not home til bedtime. Also he’s British and doesn’t have T-Day nostalgia.) I found my grandmother’s recipe box.

A thread:

First I found this. I assume the Mrs. Coolidge important enough to have her recipe in the paper was the First Lady, Grace Coolidge. Maybe we’ll make this, seeing as how we live in Vermont and all.

There were other presidential recipes as well. (Did Woodrow make the hermits himself, do we think?)

In the handwritten recipes there are some gems: Ice Box Bread Rolls, “De Luxe” Chocolate Cake, Delicious Cake—Fireman’s Wife Recipe (how can I resist making that?!), and “Beef Bourguignon (good)”.

Some recipes were clipped from the paper, like this recipe for spinach lovers, swapped over the “chatter line.”

Dressings were new and exciting, dare I say jazzy!

Later, she started typing recipes, which is great, because I struggle to decipher her writing. But not great because it was the 50s (I’m guessing) and the recipes are gross. Margarine, cheddar cheese and Rice Krispies? No thank you! (But maybe yes to the potato chip cookies.)

Carrots marinated in tomato soup, oil, vinegar and Worcestershire sauce and served cold? Where’s a social gathering when you need one?!

I thought this recipe for “saccharin pickles” might also be a 50s or 60s dish. But it lift actually have been from an earlier era: yesterdish.com/2013/11/05/mar…

The “salad” section had a lot of things we would not currently identify as salad. Unless you think of gelatin as a vegetable. Anyone up for “molded spinach salad?”

I was sad not to find the recipes for our Swedish Christmas smorgasbord, or her scalloped potatoes, which she always made for me because she knew I loved them. (She always kept a jar of Fluff in the cupboard for me too—it’s the only place I ever ate the stuff.)

But I guess she knew those recipes so well she didn’t need a recipe card.

So this Thanksgiving I think I’ll try one of her recipes and think about the original Jane A. Lindholm and feel grateful for the things she handed down to me that don’t fit on a recipe card. 💗