Are we losing the magic or is it just me?

When I was a little girl I remember the ladies in my grandmothers neighborhood always stopping by in the middle of the day... sometimes just to gossip, or to peddle their Avon and Tupperware... and sometimes with some sort of wonderfully homebaked treat.

used slyly to lure you into the aforementioned gossip!

I can recall countless hours of them chatting over sweet tea and lemonade, hair up in scarves, perfume wafting across the room... just the normal day to day happenings of a housewife of that era.

And always there was that sharing of, "whats for dinner, did you try the such and such Marjorie brought to the ladies luncheon", and "I must HAVE that recipe!"
And to this very day you can go into my Grannys house and on every book shelf you will find a cookbook/recipe folder of some sort. Hundreds of carefully penned family dinners, desserts perfect for your next garden club luncheon and even kid friendly snacks!

But it seems that today all of that is changing...

Where as cookbooks USED to be passed down from generation to generation, and recipes shared between friends, I find myself sending a text or email for that amazing hot cheese dip I brought to your party last week, or linking a recipe online to my facebook page... are we now going totally digital?

I went to have coffee with a friend of mine the other day, and found that instead of all those treasured, stained, and lets face it, musty smelling books,
that clutter grace my kitchen shelves, she proudly displayed her new "digital right arm" {AKA: Ipad2} on the front of her frigidaire...


its funny cuz all I have on my fridge are school papers, notes, grocery lists and coloring pages! Oh and inapproperiate magnets... but thats another post.

Im going to admit... I was slightly jealous!
With a flick of the finger she could pull up not only foodie websites, and blogs... {this one included, thank~ya~very~much}
But magicly, poof! there was Julia! Right. In. Her kitchen.
Okay, not really JULIA, but Mastering the Art of French Cooking... right there on the screen!

As we sat and chatted about her new kitchen love I asked her... "but what about all your cookbooks?" She simply smiled and said, "those are things of the past lady!"
And as she was explaining how she boxed some of them up and took them to goodwill I was watching her daughters painting made in class the week before, and other fun photos of family and friends drift lazily across the screen.

I really dont know how I feel about this, on one hand the shiny digital screen that holds the world on her fridge calls to me... "look at me..." its says "How clean and convenient" it purrs... and I fell for it, sort of.
I love that technology makes it possible for me to take my favorite recipes and culinary tips with me into every kitchen I enter... But there is nothing more magical than opening up a cookbook stained with drops of tomato and smelling like garlic and onions, to find that magical recipe that traveled through so many loving hands to remind you of where you come from.

So the next time you see me and we share our favorite oatmeal cookie recipes, if you post it to my twitter feed... thats cool. And if you choose to bless me with a magical handwritten something, rest assured that it will find a place nestled in my grandmas recipe box, waiting to be handed down to my daughter someday... but not before I scan it to my zip drive and upload it to my digital reader!

Be good to each other!
♥ Tawny