Browsing the pages

I enjoy flipping thru the glossy pages of a new cookbook or magazine as much as the next person, but my first love is old cookbooks that are falling apart and over-stuffed files of vintage recipe cards. There you will find the handwritten notes in the margins, the yellowed newpaper recipes paper-clipped to a page, the editorial notes about quality, quantity, or even who's favorite it might be. Perhaps these messages make me feel connected to other cooks from the past: other women in other kitchens, doing their best for their families; perhaps in a world swimming with foodie opportunities they help identify what's actually worth trying (so many recipes, so little time); or perhaps they justify my own compulsive need to editorialize whenever I give out a recipe. Whatever...here they are, recipes and notes from myself and numerous anonymous cooks who have left their marks in the margins of my collection.

First Up...

Alfredo Sauce

You can substitute Neufchatel cheese for the cream cheese, and use skim milk, to make a—ha!—lower fat version.

1 stick butter

1 cup milk

1 pkg. cream cheese

1 cup freshly grated romano or parmesan cheese

Nutmeg to taste.

In a saucepan on med.low heat, melt butter in the milk, bring to a low simmer. Cut the cream cheese into chunks and melt it in the milk mixture, stirring frequently. Slowly add the cheese, stirring constantly, until melted and smooth. Sprinkle with nutmeg to taste. Serve over pasta, or try it on a baked potato. Also good with diced ham and peas, bacon, grilled chicken and/or chopped salami mixed in.

This recipe was given to me in the 1980s on a 3x3 piece of scratch paper by a friend who originally got it from a newspaper who originally got it from a local restaurant. Afraid I'd lose it, I copied it into a new journal I had picked up for a trip to Saudi Arabia to visit my parents and siblings. It went to the other side of the world with me, fed my family, and came back home again. I made it for my ex-husband the first time he ever came over to my house. I think he married me for it. Of course, you can’t make a sauce of love and then put it over plain old store bought pasta; try making your own fresh.