Rut buster

It’s no secret to anyone who has interacted with me the last couple months that I’m kind of stuck in a rut. Nothing’s wrong, but nothing’s really that right either. Everything just kind of is. That’s ok. Life can’t always be 100 m.p.h (which is how I prefer things) and I’m glad that nothing’s really wrong (although, it’d be nice to have an excuse for this perpetual case of the mean reds.)

Part of the trouble is a lack of inspiration. I’m still building my mileage up to any uncharted territory on my weekly long runs, I haven’t felt like baking and it just won’t f-ing stop raining. I’ve had a lot of stuff to do, but it’s just stuff, nothing wonderful or fun.

So this morning I decided to at least try to get inspired. I made the bed – my dad says it helps make a person feel better. I put on real clothes – not the running gear that’s typically my weekend uniform. When Oliver asked if I wanted to go shopping I said yes. With Oliver shopping = thrifting and since my thrift store attention span is one hour max, I usually say no. I’m glad I didn’t today.

Look what I found:

It’s a small, but welcome, rut buster. Inside are pages and pages of someone else’s grandma’s carefully written down recipes. I love it. I’m not totally sure how old it is, but there’s a soup recipe in here dated September 23, 1968. (In case you’re curious, it’s for “old fashioned” fruit soup and yes, it has tapioca in it. I’m convinced that food companies in the 60s and 70s just wanted to see how many disgusting tapioca and jello based foods they could trick America’s house wives into feeding their children.)

The cook’s name is nowhere to be found among her recipes, but we have the same culinary interests. The pages designated for “entrees” and “fish and poultry” are barely filled out, but she copied pages and pages of dessert recipes. Cookies, cakes, pies. Something called a “fattigman” which I think is maybe some kind of donut. Only one jello cake, thank god, though the cook does like custard much more than I do.

I’m excited about this find. I plan to make the desserts in here that don’t include custard and I’m looking forward to adding my own to it’s pages.

Then maybe someday, I’ll donate it back to a thrift store for some other bummed out, sweet-toothed baker in a rut to find.