It Was Written In the Margin

"Excellent cake," was scrawled in the margin.  Written in pencil and beautiful cursive, it caught my eye as I flipped through the dusty old cookbook.  A few pages over I found, "freezes beautifully" faithfully noted next to a tuna casserole recipe.  The pages were old and yellowed and the binding barely held the cookbook together.  Adding to its stain were the numerous newspaper clippings and recipe cards typed with a manual typewriter that kept dropping its Ts.  I was smitten.

I hurried up to the counter and passed over my treasure.  The store owner raised an eyebrow when he glanced down at the tattered cookbook.

"Do you cook?" he asked as he rang up the total.

"No, not really," was my reply.

He peered at me over the tops of his bi-focals, eyebrow raised higher.  I smiled self-consciously and handed over my money.  I declined the plastic bag he offered, preferring to feel the worn canvas cover clasped in my hands.  Of course, it was still raining so I tucked my new found treasure under the flap of my jacket and made a dash for the car.  Three hours of antiquing and all I had to show for it was this dog eared book.   I was giddy.  With the rain pelting my car, I sat and turned the book over in my hands.  The cover was tattered and splattered and most of the gold lettering had worn away but you could still make out the title: "The New Boston Cookbook".

Perhaps it was the librarian in me but I always sought out the copyright page of books.  I loved seeing when and where they were printed, how many printings were done and often unearthed little hidden nuggets on the early pages of books overlooked by most readers.  This was a second edition printed in 1925.  Tucked right behind the first page I found a recipe card dated 1973.  Same handwriting as the margin notes I had spied earlier.  I sat back and stared out the windshield.  Math was never my strong suit but I was pretty confident in thinking that this cookbook covered a span of 50 years worth of clippings and jottings and memories.  Rifling through it, I quickly saw I was right.  1949.  1932.  1968.  The dates danced throughout the margins of the book all written in the same beautiful penmanship.  Toward the end, a larger piece of paper slipped out, carefully folded and creased.  I opened it gingerly.  This wasn't a clipping for hollandaise sauce or braising tips.  In fact, it had nothing to do with food at all.  It was a letter.  A letter written over thirty years ago that would send me down a rabbit hole and into a whole new world that I never even suspected existed before.

It was Tuesday, April 25.  The day it all began.