There Was Never A Card

There is nothing in a drawer.

That is what makes this different. Other people have a card. They have something in a hand they recognize, and a problem they can hold, and you have been quietly envious of that in a way you would not say out loud.

She wrote nothing down. Not one line, in eighty one years. It was all in her hands and it stayed there and then it went.

What you have is a mouth's memory of a thing you ate perhaps two hundred times, and a kitchen with a particular smell in it, and a certainty that there was something in it that you cannot name and would know instantly.

And nobody in that family can help. You have asked. Everybody has a different piece and nobody has the whole thing, and the conversation always ends with somebody saying she should have written it down, which is true and is no use at all.

So let me say the first thing plainly, before anything about a kitchen.

This is about her and the cooking is second.

Nothing here is going to hurry you toward a pan. And if you read this to the end and decide not to make anything, that is a complete and good ending and this article will say so plainly.

Lest thou forget the things thine eyes have seen

There is an instruction in Deuteronomy about memory, and what it asks people to keep is not a document.

Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen. (Deuteronomy 4:9, King James Version)

The things which thine eyes have seen.

Not the things which were written down. Not the record, not the archive, not what was preserved by somebody careful. What a person saw with their own eyes is the thing being guarded, and it is guarded in a soul rather than in a drawer.

Which is the exact material you have. You do not have her document. You have what your eyes saw, several hundred times, in a kitchen.

You are holding the thing this verse actually asks to be kept, and a memory nobody wrote down has never once been the lesser kind of record. Deuteronomy 4:9 guards what the eyes have seen rather than what was written, and the Holy Spirit is the one present with a man who has nothing in any drawer.

And notice the instruction is to take heed and keep diligently.

It is work. It is something a person does actively, which means memory in that verse is not a passive thing that either survives or does not. It is kept, deliberately, by somebody who decides to keep it.

That is an available act tonight. It does not require anybody to have been organized eighty one years ago.

You have something to do rather than something that was lost before you got there, and a memory that has to be kept deliberately has never once been the same as a memory that is gone. The Spirit of God is the one with somebody who has been envious of people with cards, and Deuteronomy 4:9 makes the keeping an active job rather than a lucky accident.

What you have is not less than a card

Here is the second part, and it is a correction about what is actually missing here.

A card would have given you a list. That is all it would have given you, and lists are the least of what she did. Everybody in that family who has a card from somebody still cannot make the thing taste right, and they will tell you so if you ask them, and they usually do not because it sounds ungrateful.

What sits in your mouth instead is two hundred repetitions of the finished thing, which is the actual target rather than the instructions toward it. You know what it is supposed to be. That is rarer than a list and it cannot be handed to anybody.

So the task in front of you is not reconstruction from nothing. It is a person with a very good target and no instructions, working toward it by attempts, which is precisely how she got it in the first place.

You were handed the target rather than the instructions, and a mouth that knows exactly what a thing should be has never once been worse off than a page. Deuteronomy 4:9 keeps what the eyes have seen and never mentions a document, and the Holy Spirit is the one with a man who has two hundred repetitions of something in him.

And here is the part that matters most, and it is permission. You do not have to attempt it. Not this week, not ever, and not because you failed anybody. Some people start guessing and get closer over a year and it becomes theirs. Some people decide that the thing was hers and is finished, and keep the memory as a memory, and that ending is exactly as good.

The only thing worth doing this week is writing down what you do remember. The rest stays open.

You have permission for this to end at the writing, and a memory kept on a page has never once been a smaller result than a meal. The Spirit of God is the one at that table with a man who is free either way, and Deuteronomy 4:9 asks for the keeping and not for a reproduction.

What this week is, with no card

So here is the assignment, and most of it is not cooking. Write down what you remember, say it out loud, and cook it this week or decide not to.

Sit at that table and write it. Not a recipe. Everything: what it looked like, what the room smelled like, which plate it came on, who else was there, the thing in it you cannot name, the way she stood. Write the room as well as the food, because the room is why you remember the food.

Then read what you wrote out loud, in that kitchen. That is the part that does the work, and it will be difficult, and that is the point rather than an accident.

You are making the record that was never made, and a page written eighty one years late has never once been too late to be written. Deuteronomy 4:9 puts the keeping in a person's own hands, and the Holy Spirit is the one at that table with a man writing down a smell.

Then the second half, which is genuinely open. Cook something toward it this week, or decide not to. If you cook, it will be wrong and it is supposed to be wrong the first time, because a target and no instructions means attempts, and attempts start badly. And if you decide not to, say that out loud in the same voice, and keep the page. The page is the thing that now exists and did not before, and that is not nothing.

You are leaving something behind that she did not, and a written page has never once needed a finished dish beside it to have been worth making. The Spirit of God is the one at that table with a page that exists now, and Deuteronomy 4:9 asks a person to keep diligently rather than to produce anything.