Spring Cleaning

Does anyone spring clean anymore? It used to be a time when my mother washed walls, cleaned out closets and cupboards, sent the winter clothes up to the attic in boxes, and brought the summer clothes down from the attic. Of course,she didn't do all this herself; she had three daughters to do it for her.

I started my spring cleaning this week. I managed to get the cabinet that holds rags, extra Coke, Pepsi, Perrier, juice, and catalogs done in one day. It took several hours, because I had to decide which catalogs to keep and which to throw out. I could only make this decision by looking at every catalog, not just the cover to see when it was dated, but inside to see if there was something I needed but had forgotten about. Luckily, I didn't need anything.

The next day, Tuesday, I took all my cookbooks down off the shelves, washed the shelves, dusted the cookbooks, and put them back on the shelf.The cookbooks take up three shelves, each one about two feet long, so you know this took me quite a while. I had to look in most of the cookbooks, especially the ones in which my mother had written recipes. I don't remember her ever making any of the recipes she had so carefully copied into the spiral notebooks and the binder, but I had to see what she thought was worthwhile saving. Then there were all the church and community cookbooks I had collected over the years. I was amazed at how many I had, all the way from Fairport Harbor, Ohio, to southern California.  These cookbooks hold a lot of traditional Hungarian, Finnish, and other nations' specialties.

You know it took several hours to clean these three shelves. At this rate, I should get my spring cleaning done by Christmas.But that's okay because I found a recipe that my son had asked me about several months ago. Today, I think I will skip the cleaning and attempt to make Verna Lepisto's torte.