There are a few things in my kitchen I could never replace—not because they’re valuable or fashionable, but because they carry pieces of the people I love.
My Mamu’s measuring spoons. My Grandma Pearl’s mixing bowls. A handwritten recipe from my Grandma June—the woman I was named after and whose memory I have only a few fragments of—framed and placed where I can see it every day.
To someone else, they might look like ordinary, worn kitchen items. To me they are treasures—small, stubborn evidence of the women who shaped my life long before I understood how much their influence would matter.
Lately I have been thinking a lot about handwriting. It feels a little ironic: I run an online food blog with more than 700 recipes that readers can print in an instant. I love that my work reaches people I’ve never met and that a recipe from my kitchen can be recreated in someone else’s. Still, the recipes I cherish most are not typed. They’re handwritten.
They live on cards softened by time, on butter-stained scraps, in looping cursive that immediately brings a face and a voice to mind. They were written quickly at a counter, passed along because someone loved you enough to share a part of their life. There’s something profoundly intimate about seeing another person’s pen strokes—almost like hearing their voice again.
When I hosted my first bridal shower, guests brought handwritten recipe cards that were boxed and saved. Decades later, it’s not just the recipes that matter. It’s the handwriting—the little notes in the margins, the corrections, the unique ways letters bend and slant. Those details prove someone sat down and took the time to write something with you in mind. In an era of instant messages and impersonal downloads, that kind of effort feels rare and therefore deeply meaningful.
I wonder what our children and grandchildren will inherit from us. They’ll likely have thousands of photos stored in the cloud, full message threads, printed web recipes and email threads. But will they have our handwriting—something tactile and immediate, a piece of paper we once held in our own hands? I hope so.
A handwritten recipe holds more than a list of ingredients and steps. It captures a moment: the temperature of a kitchen, the smell of butter, the rhythm of stirring. A recipe card can outlast us and serve as proof that we were present, that we gathered, cooked, and fed the people we loved. It anchors memories to a physical object in a way a typed page rarely does.
That’s why I hold onto my kitchen treasures so closely—the spoons, the bowls, the recipe cards. They are small keepsakes left behind by the women before me, more than instructions for a dish; they are fragments of lives, habits, and love.
They left behind little pieces of themselves.
If you have a favorite recipe that people ask you for—your birthday cake, a special loaf of bread, the cinnamon rolls you make every year—consider writing it down. Use a simple index card. Don’t worry about perfect penmanship. Smudges, little spills, and a note in the margin add personality and proof that the recipe was used and loved.
Add a note about who loves it, where it came from, and the date. Tuck it into a recipe box or a drawer. Those small details will be anchors for future generations: a way for someone you love to hold a piece of you and, for just a moment, hear your voice again as they read your handwriting.
Sweet wishes,
June
Come Gather With Me
If this story resonates, I invite you to join me. Gathered is my Sunday note about food, family, and the small moments that hold meaning. Pull up a chair—there’s a place for you here.