The Recipe Book
UPLIFTING SHORT STORY WRITTEN BY JACQUI COOPER
Little did the girls know that their grandma’s wisdom – and her wonderful recipes – would shape both their lives
Daisy and her cousin Ellie, both aged six, were kneeling on chairs at the kitchen table, baking muffins with Grandma.
“What are you going to flavour your muffins with?” asked Grandma.
Daisy studied the choices laid out on the table; raisins, cinnamon, two kinds of chocolate chips…
“Chocolate covered raisins,” answered Ellie promptly. Grandma smiled.
“Surely that’s two flavours?”
“And nuts.” Ellie reached for a bowl.
The girls were cousins, but so close in looks and age that everyone thought they were twins.
“What about you, Daisy, love?” prompted Grandma.
Daisy chewed her lip. She liked chocolate, but which kind? Milk or white?
“Blueberries?” suggested Grandma.
Blueberries. Yes. Daisy liked the burst of colour in the sponge.
“I want blueberries,” demanded Ellie.
“Next time,” Grandma promised, passing the blueberries to Daisy.
The two trays had just been put in the oven when Grandma threw up her hands.
“Oh, my goodness!”
“What is it?” asked Daisy anxiously.
“My ring! Where did I put it?”
Every week the girls baked with Grandma. And every week she took off her ring. And every week she lost it.
“We’ll find it.” The pair scrambled down from their chairs and scampered round the house.
Daisy knew Grandma always put her ring on the neck of a little porcelain swan. The trouble was, the swan seemed to migrate round the house, turning up in the oddest of places.
There! Daisy spotted it by the fruit bowl and dived for it. Ellie did the same. They bumped heads and the swan went flying.
“She did it,” said Ellie promptly, rubbing her forehead.
“Did not,” said Daisy, doing the same.
Grandma, who had seen the whole thing, checked them for bruises before retrieving her ring from under the table.
“Really, girls. Life would be so much easier if you just learned to work together instead of always banging heads.”
Daisy and Ellie, now aged sixteen, sat once more at Grandma’s table, but there was no laughter today. They hugged each other close following the funeral.
“Why don’t you each choose a keepsake to remember her by?” suggested Daisy’s mum.
“Could I have her recipe book?” asked Daisy, hesitantly.
“I’d like her ring,” said Ellie.
She held the ring with its single twinkling diamond in the palm of her hand.
“I don’t know why you chose that,” she told Daisy. “You know all the recipes.”
Daisy leafed through Grandma’s handwritten notebook. She did know most of them, but Grandma had jotted notes as she’d tweaked the recipes over the years.
“Actually it’s the memories I want,” she said quietly.
Ellie closed her hand around the
ring and her eyes filled with tears.
“Remember how she used to lose this all the time and we had to hunt for it?”
Daisy smiled.
“You know she didn’t actually lose it?”
“What do you mean?”
“She went through that pantomime every week just to distract us and stop us asking ‘Are the buns ready yet?’”
Ellie’s jaw dropped. “I never realised.” Then she too grinned. “She knew us pretty well, didn’t she?”
“Better than anyone.”
Five years on, halfway through their final year at uni, the pair met up for coffee.
“It’s only another few months,” Daisy told her cousin, aghast at what she had just heard. “Surely you can wait and graduate before getting married?”
“Life’s too short,” declared Ellie.
They’d chosen universities at opposite ends of the country but managed to catch up when they were home for the holidays.
“You only met him a few weeks ago. You barely know him,” Daisy protested.
“I know he’s the one. Besides, Grandma was younger than me when she married.”
“And she had to give up her dream,” Daisy countered.
Grandma had dreamed of opening a bakery. Daisy and Ellie had heard the story many times. Grandma had picked out her premises and was saving every penny she could from her factory job. But her father decreed that a bakery, with its unsociable hours, was an unsuitable occupation for a young woman who would “soon be married and running a household.”
Grandma had dug her heels in – until a young man with a twinkling eye had offered her his seat on the bus. Courtship, marriage and twin girls followed.
“Maybe she did give up on her dream but she never regretted it,” said Ellie firmly.
Daisy wasn’t so sure. Grandma had loved her family but she’d never been happier than when in the kitchen trying out a new recipe. The results were so good they had deserved a wider audience, no matter how appreciative her family were.
Daisy felt a wave of sadness at all the questions she’d never thought to ask Grandma, and now never would.
The girls were in Daisy’s kitchen where she was finishing a batch of cupcakes for Ellie’s daughter’s birthday. She had two little girls now, aged five and three.
For years Daisy had been baking cakes for family occasions but also for office events like leaving do’s and baby showers. Her fame was spreading and she’d begun to pick up a few paid commissions, too.
Ellie sat at the table, watching her.
“It’s not fair that you got Grandma’s recipe book,” she muttered.
“You chose the ring,” Daisy reminded her. The ring had been absent from Ellie’s finger for a while. Daisy was pretty sure Ellie’s husband had sold it before leaving.
“I need a job,” said Ellie, awkwardly. “Can you put a word in at your place?”
Daisy didn’t answer straight away, focusing on getting the pink icing just right. She and Ellie had grown close again since Ellie’s divorce. But how could she admit she was reluctant to recommend her for a job at the bank where she worked?
Much as she loved Ellie, her cousin was not very reliable, especially now as a single parent. But there was a more pressing reason that was making Daisy lose sleep.
“Now’s not a good time. There’s talk of closing branches. Everyone’s worried.”
“So you’re not going to help?”
“I’ll help with your CV. And childcare when I can –”
“Never mind.” Ellie rose to her feet and went to check on her girls.
Unfortunately, Daisy’s instincts were right and she was made redundant. However with the cushion of her redundancy money, she took the plunge and started her own business, making cakes at home and selling them online.
Ellie was supportive, helping out with Instagram and Tik Tok videos – a world that had passed Daisy by.
In fact, right from the start Ellie was full of ideas for Daisy to expand.
“Supper clubs are all the rage. People come to your house, you don’t need premises. You’re a great cook and you have Grandma’s book – you can’t lose.”
As well as cakes, Grandma had had a big selection of family meals, often with a twist that set lips smacking and minds guessing.
Ellie had a job now, as a sales assistant in a local dress shop. The owner had been one of Daisy’s old customers at the bank, and didn’t mind Ellie’s daughters coming in after school and doing their homework in the back shop. Ellie loved the job and Daisy was glad she had recommended her.
“I don’t know,” fretted Daisy, feeling a flutter of panic at Ellie’s ambitious idea. “I just like baking, you know that. Anything else could be risky.”
“It’s hardly risky,” Ellie persisted. “If it doesn’t work out, what have you lost?”
Still Daisy dithered. Sometimes she envied Ellie’s more relaxed approach to life. But this was not one of those times.
Ellie tried again, clearly frustrated.
“Why not take a chance for once? I mean, what would you do if that nice new neighbour of yours asked you out?”
“New neighbour?” asked Daisy vaguely but she knew she was blushing. She did indeed have a handsome new neighbour. She’d taken round a welcome cake and he’d made coffee. His name was Stuart and she liked him. A lot. In fact he’d invited her for a meal – but she didn’t know if he was just being friendly or if it meant more.
Ellie was watching her closely.
“Ooh! He has asked you out! Cut me a slice of cake and tell me everything.”
A year later Daisy’s business was flourishing to the point where her kitchen wasn’t big enough. When a shop became vacant near the train station, Daisy was persuaded by Stuart, now her husband, and Ellie, to sign the lease. With early starts baking, it meant long days but Ellie, who now worked in a call centre, often came to help out if she was free.
So when Daisy found she was pregnant – with twins! – she turned to Ellie.
“I have an antenatal appointment. Could you cover for me? I’ll pay you.”
“No problem.”
As Daisy’s pregnancy progressed, Ellie cut her time at the call centre and took on more hours at the shop. It was working out really well until one afternoon Daisy returned to the shop to pick up something she’d forgotten and was surprised to find a queue of people lining up to buy hot soup.
“Hi Daisy. Glad to see you’re expanding, in more ways than one,” joked a regular. He blew on his soup. “This is just the thing on a freezing cold platform.”
“What are you doing?” Daisy demanded when they once more had the shop to themselves.
Ellie was defensive. “You know the girls come here after school. They were eating a cake every day then not eating their dinner so I decided to make something healthier. Customers noticed and asked if the soup was for sale. It’s Grandma’s recipe,” she said as if that made it all right.
And oddly, it did. That evening the pair sat down together and talked.
“The shop is a dream come true but there’s no question it will be hard work with two babies And there’s no doubt your idea of selling different things is a success. I was wondering…”
“Yes?”
“If you wanted to go into business with me. With Grandma’s recipes, of course.”
A wide smile spread over Ellie’s face.
“I’d love that.” She started outlining ideas, some interesting, some outrageous.
But instead of shutting her down, Daisy laughed. “Let’s start slowly, eh?”
They looked at each other, grinning.
“This was Grandma’s dream,” said Daisy quietly.
“We’re making it real,” said Ellie.
After Ellie had left and Daisy was tidying up, she could have sworn that she heard the echo of a familiar voice.
Life would be so much easier if you girls just learned to work together instead of banging heads.
She smiled as she put the book carefully back on the shelf.
“As always, we should have listened, Grandma,” she whispered.
Read more uplifting short stories:
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