Where did it all start

I grew up hearing stories about Great Uncle Arch. We always had a table cloth that was embroidered by him on our table. He was an Uncle by marriage (Great Aunt Bertha) on my Mum's side. He had been injured in the first world war and had taken up needlework. He enjoyed cooking. He built the house next to where my Mum grew up. He was friends with an Australian author - whose name escapes my right now. He used to give Arch signed copies of his books with inscriptions like "thanks for the peaches".

Mum inherited a lot of stuff from Arch and Bertha when they passed away in the 1960s. When I was sixteen Mum asked me to grab her scrapbook from the recipe cupboard and I found this amazing 1930s Collins diary in beautiful condition. I opened it up and found it was full of recipes that had been sorted and grouped and indexed. They were carefully stuck in. I was fascinated and promptly took the book away for 'safekeeping'. I had a failed attempted at a recipe for Sham Champagne. While I for years never made anything from it I treasured it and loved looking at the crazy combination of jams, the recipes for sheep's head stew and beer from pea shells.

People have often suggested turning it into a cookbook and so I have decided to use the format of a blog to start the process. I hope to make a recipe a week and some of my other family are going to join in and see if we can't test a number of recipes and see how 1930/40s cooking translates to the 21st Century.

I made a Golden Syrup Sponge Cake, which is so lovely and simple I didn't change at all. It takes 15 minutes to prepare and 15 minutes to cook. A lovely recipe for the last minute guests. My cousin Marion has made honey from pineapple skins - it was rather amazing.

Bear with my while I learn to blog!