Blog Post

The Way to a Man's Heart

  • By Michelle R Scully
  • 19 Jul, 2018

The Settlement Cookbook knows the answer

Mrs. Simon Kander compiled these recipes and she knew her stuff.

I love old cookbooks which is weird because I never use a cookbook and old cookbooks are so well, old... but this one caught my eye because it answer's one of life's great questions.

What is the way to someone's heart?

My grandma was from the depression generation and she operated from a food foundation. Everybody who walked into their house was fed.  Food was her expression of love.  I loved her and I loved her food, but her food wasn't why I loved her.  This cookbook was written in 1938 which I guess would have been her generation.  It has recipes for all kinds of things we'd find strange today, like red wine soup.

I like my red wine in a glass, but that's just me.

It opens with a photo of Mrs. Simon Kander, who signs her picture Very Truly Yours.  The recipes were "tested from The Settlement Cooking Classes at The Milwaukee Public School Kitchens and The School of Trades for Girls and Experienced Housewives."

I've been married almost 25 years and I am still not an experienced housewife.  Shoulda read this book a long time ago it seems.

What strikes me most about it, other than promising to answer the secret we've all been on the edge of our seats about, is the care that went into it's compilation.

The subject mattered.  

It was given great consideration and attention.

It provided recipes for pure sustenance as well some with a little bit of frosting and cake, for celebrating.  Now that I've summarized The Settlement Cook Book and The way to a man's heart, I think I actually did find the answer.

It's what all our hearts need.

Great care.

To know you matter.

Consideration and attention.

Sustenance and celebration.

And frosting.

What makes your heart beat? I'd love to know. xoxo

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I had the best weekend with my boys.
They're young men now, but it's hard to remember to call them that. 
It's weird being a mom - our job is to raise kids up to be independent but then one day, bam, they are.
They move across the country, study abroad, make lives of their own.
Which is the plan, right?
So mom'ing is a constant state of hold tight, let go.
It's okay, I tell myself as I said goodbye with tears in my eyes, it's all good.
They're doing their thing, following their dreams, making their lives and I am 100% #theirteam
It felt good to get home (I'm not really built for big cities) and back into the groove of my own little world where Maisy and Rufus let me know they were certain I'd left and was never coming back.
Life too is a constant state of hold tight, let go only sometimes we struggle with that balancing act.
I often think of life like a scale; things add up, things fall off.
Sometimes we have too much of one thing - things we worry about, things that make us feel overwhelmed or less than.
Sometimes we have too little of something -things that help us feel calm, centered, joyful, filled with wonder.
It's like cooking without a recipe.
You've gotta keep tasting the soup.
I often tell Pat I feel like the keeper of his scale. I can see when it gets too heavy, and I am super protective of that.
 He has big shoulders and is always willing to take a little more of the load but I'm always aware that it adds up.
A little too much on one side means there's a little less on the other.
More or less.
I had a son deficit going on, I needed more mom time, and I'm so happy I got it.
What do you want more of?
What makes your eyes shine and your heart glow?
What do you need less of? Want to let go of?
What no longer serves you and needs to be set free?
It's an ongoing process to keep that scale of more and less balanced but it sure feels good when it is.
 xox
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