When I first moved to Washington, I was 18, newly registered at UW and ready to take my place in the adult world.
On my first day of college, I called my mom halfway through to tell her I was withdrawing (because "dropping out" sounds, so, well, not me).
My first serious boyfriend (with whom I moved to WA) was, for lack of a better description, 19. After 6 months of living on our own, he decided he needed to move back home. And that's how it happened that for the first time, I was living on my own.
After that, for a few years, just about everything was a first (and thankfully some of them were first-and-onlies, knock wood). While most were mundane and have since been forgotten or tucked away to be randomly recalled when the right fragrance catches a breeze, there are some that will forever be with me.
Betty Crocker's Cookbook (40th Anniversary Edition) is one of those firsts.
When I was that neophyte, I had the great fortune of living near a quaint Main Street complete with its own inviting local cafe that had a Help Wanted sign posted and an amazing owner and community builder in Leigh Henderson. That restaurant, Alexa's Cafe, was such a central fixture of my life in my 20s that if I ever become Of Great Importance, it may have to get some kind of fancy plaque, you know, a historical marker of sorts. But this isn't about how one cafe changed my life...yet. For now, it's about Betty Crocker.
When I worked in the kitchen at Alexa's, cooking for catering events and baking for the lunch rush, if I wanted a recipe I knew would turn out, I turned to Betty. I didn't stumble upon her cookbook on my own, it was handed to me by Leigh (complete with writing in the margins), and while there were several other books I used when I worked there, there's only one I made sure to buy a copy of when I eventually left.
Betty was one of my most influential firsts, however humble, so it seems fitting that it be the book I begin with. Some of the recipes I've already had to convert--there was no life post-diagnosis until there was cake once again--but there remains a bounty of recipes I never even tried when I was eating gluten.
This is going to be fun!
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