Family Recipe Book

I know it makes my mom (or aunt, or anyone for that matter) so happy when I call and ask for the recipe of something I want to remake. It's like a delayed way of saying, "Thank you, that was so good." I usually don't like recipes because I feel like recipes are insinuating that everyone likes the same tastes. When a recipe calls for two tablespoons of diced onion... what is that? Anything that calls for onion really means at least half of an onion in my opinion. And "a dash of hot sauce"? I'm shaking that bottle upside down for about 8 seconds.

However, family recipes are the exception. My grandmother knew exactly what she was doing. You don't mess with Grandma Kaiser's recipes. One of our classic family stories was the year after she passed away. We were all standing around the kitchen on Thanksgiving and as the turkey was hitting the home stretch, my mom said, "No one knows how to make her gravy." I like this story because it's a reminder that those we love have affected our lives in all sorts of ways, from teaching us the golden rule to being the matriarch that has made Thanksgiving gravy our entire lives. It took several years, but we have come up with something we think would make her proud.

Year after year around the holidays, someone is asking for a family recipe. After many calls, emails and texts, my sister and I decided it was time to compile the "Best of" Kaiser recipes. Thanks to my mom's arsenal of worn out recipe cards and Sadie's creativity, The Kaiser Family Cookbook, Volume One was born.

Many of these recipes I've made before, but others I haven't gotten around to yet. Now that this handy, dandy archive of recipes is next to my knives, it will be much easier to turn our kitchen into my mom's or grandmother's. My friends have always made fun of me for the random things I like to snack on (think hearts of palm out of the can) and I'm afraid that, too, comes from my grandmother. What's a four-year-old to do when her grandmother has the best gazpacho and a fresh bag of marshmallows?

In closing, I'm starting off 2013 with new menus for our Mondays-Thursdays. Anyone who is interested can check back throughout the year for some Kaiser family favorites. In my loudest, most obnoxious Julia Child's voice, "BON APPETIT." Love you, Julia.