Welcome To Aunt Elle's Kitchen
I was lucky
enough to be brought up in a multi-generational family. Our house was bought
in 1911, by my great-grandmother. When I was born, my grandparents,
a great aunt, an aunt, my mother and father and my two brothers all lived
here in the same house. Our home has always been the place for large family
gatherings, dinners on special occasions and holidays, for as long as our
family has lived here. My most favorite memories are of preparing the food
for those family dinners,,especially the birthday parties and holiday celebrations.
Everyone had to help.
While the food was always the main focus of our get together, the parts that mean the most to me are learning how to cook from those that I have loved the most. I first became aware of the "recipe box", while watching my grandparents cook back in the mid 1950's and early 1960's. My grandfather had an extensive collection of recipes, that he had been collecting for decades. To his recipes, I have added favorites from various friends and relatives. I began collecting my own recipes during my teenage years. So I am adding another forty years of additional recipes to what was already an extensive collection.
My recipes from those earliest years were the beginnings of my hope chest.
The recipes included in this site have been collected for most of the 20th
Century and come from a wide variety of sources. I am still excited about
tasting something new and asking for the recipe. My tastes have expanded
a lot since those early years and over time I hope to share with you recipes
from different cultures gathered from our travels, in and out of the United
States. The above picture is of the feast served to guests, at a Persian
Wedding, that I attended. I was so thrilled to be served such wonderful
delicacies. I am requesting that my niece, the bride,
share with me the recipes for these treasures, that her family has always
enjoyed.
My son
made this apple pie for family and friends, invited to a Thanksgiving Dinner
recently. He has also enjoyed our family tradition of cooking. Hunter became
a pretty good cook at an early age. He learned to measure and follow recipe
directions before such things were taught to him in school. Hunter was never
embarrassed to be in Home Economics. In in junior high school, he was the
star of the show.
All the experience he received helping me get ready for family dinners and especially baking for those special occasions, certainly prepared him for home economics classes. As he prepares to graduate from high school, cooking school is one of the options he is considering. If he chooses to go in that direction I can only hope that he will in turn share with you everything that he is learning.