Cooking up memories

Every cook knows the secret ingredient to any homemade meal that makes it taste so great is love. Since Jacki (Umthun) Thompson couldn’t put her mother’s love in a bottle and put it in her spice rack, she did the next best thing - she preserved her recipes by publishing a family recipe book.

It all began in January of 2014 when Thompson’s mother, Betty (Carter) Umthun, passed away. She realized that the little pieces of scrap paper and napkins folded up in boxes that contained the recipes her mother used all these years were about so much more than just making a meal. There were memories attached to them as well.

“When you take a bite (of a family recipe) you immediately go back to childhood memories,” said Thompson. “We forget about the sense of taste in bringing back memories of our parents.”

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