After my mom was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in July 2015, a friend whose mother had recently and suddenly passed away following a massive heart attack, told me to make sure I had the recipes. Her mother’s sudden death was made worse knowing that her Thanksgiving cranberry sauce was also gone forever.

 

So in the final months of my mom’s life, I just did that, I got the recipes. Every weekend, I drove from Cedarburg, Wisconsin to the Chicago suburbs, usually with a batch of potato soup or marinara sauce. We started going through the recipes and discussed some of the memories that went along with them. Some favorites included the chocolate bundt cake, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and beer bread.

 

Looking through my mom’s recipes, discussing them with my mom, and speaking with my friend that lost her mother, it made me realize the importance of family recipes. So many holidays, birthdays, and everyday meals revolve around the recipes that have been passed down through the generations. If we do not preserve them, these family recipes run the risk of being lost forever.

 

This website is intended to save our family recipes, but if others want to contribute, I would love to share them.