Have you ever had one of those days when a smell, a picture or a word takes you back to yesteryear?

My sister and I were reminiscing about how Mom made this wonderful carrot cake in a loaf pan. She'd slice it and toast it for us in the morning when we were growing up. My sister said she'd tried to make it, but it never turned out the same. Mom had told her it came from a Mike Roy Cook Book. But in my memory, it came from a bag of carrots Mom bought in the 1950s.

I decided to go on a hunt for the recipe that I had copied so many years ago and that was the beginning of a journey into the past.

Nowadays people have nice copies of recipes on their computer. Not me. I had search in the back of the closet for my old metal box that held all my recipes from years ago.

They were written on cards and scraps of paper, or on the back of envelopes. Some were written in pencil and others in pen, and they were fading.

I found one for chokecherry wine in a gallon jug from when I first moved to Colorado. I found another recipe from the neighbor lady, a real pioneer, on how to make peach cobbler. It only took a few ingredients and tasted like heaven! Dotti always made the best sugar cookies that were frosted for each holiday--I found that recipe as well.

I remember when Debbie gave me a recipe for Indian fry bread and warned me not to forget to put a hole in the middle to let out the evil spirits. I eventually found Great-grandma's buckwheat cakes and her family's recipe for sausage, along with Freda's recipe for divinity and Chris' Christmas candy. Seeing the handwriting of someone who was so dear to me and who has been gone for many years on a recipe card brought a smile to my face, a tear to my eye and memories of our time together.

As the day drew to a close, I was starving and my heart had a special glow from remembering the young girl I was so many years ago, and all the women who had come into my life and shared their favorite recipe. I didn't find the carrot cake recipe that day, but there will be more days to look.