I have been talking about cleaning projects around my house this summer. My biggest project was cleaning, organizing and updating a few things in my office and sitting area. This is the room I keep my cookbooks, garden books, other books, writing materials, and tech equipment. It also used to contain the old family recipe box I salvaged from our garage a few years back. The old box literally fell apart the other day. At first I was going to buy a new recipe box, however, it did not seem right for what I was going to put in it. I thought surely I must have an old box to transfer the old recipes into. I found this box in my bedroom. I don’t remember exactly how this came to me, though it is from relatives on either my mother or father’s side of the family.
It was very enjoyable going through all the old recipes. It started with an email from my sister asking me if I had grandmother’s cheesecake recipe that used milnot. This is its own story which I will not go into at this time. I did not find one labeled as my grandmother’s, however, I did find one that must be very similar, if not the exact recipe she used. I did find a recipe for a 4-square fudge cake that I had remembered making for my father’s birthday long ago. I have been looking for it now and then over the years and never could find it. Well, it was cut out from a magazine, and I had written at the top of it, Daddy’s birthday cake 1980. Many of the old recipes were not written neatly on index cards. They were cut out from various sources.
I found one old recipe card that I don’t ever remember, and it was very interesting in many ways. At first I thought it was from a local source since it had the name Fairfax in an address on top. I have a long history in Fairfax County, and Fairfax city in Virginia, so I tried to look it up. It turns out it is from an old historic Farmer’s Market in Los Angeles, CA. There is a Fairfax District which is a historic neighborhood in Central Los Angeles. My sister used to live very near to the Old Farmer’s Market, and I do remember her taking me there. I think this recipe card must have been picked up by either my mother or my father, and then made its way into the family recipe box.
Out of curiosity I looked up Marconda’s Meat Market and it is still there at stall 514, though my recipe card states stall 512. They have been open since 1941, so maybe stall numbers changed at some point.
I am making the beef stroganoff today. The recipe card is 2-sided. The veal birds in sour cream recipe made me ask – what are ‘veal birds’? I had to look it up. I will let you do the same if you are interested. I will have to try this recipe in the future. It does sound good.
It’s a small world!
movingforwardslowly 