How Do You Keep the Recipes That Raised You?

And what do we lose when we don’t write them down?

A few years ago, I found myself tearing through an old accordion folder in the back of the pantry, hunting for my mother’s lemon cake recipe. Not the one from the magazine she clipped — the real one. The handwritten version, on a faded index card, smudged with butter and streaked with ballpoint pen.

I never did find it.

But I did find her note for peach cobbler. It was written in her handwriting — looping and rushed — with little side comments like “don’t skip the cinnamon” and “use real butter (not margarine).” That card is now tucked inside a small recipe box I never really organized. I just know it’s there.

Recipes as Inheritance

We pass down jewelry. Quilts. Names.
But there’s something achingly beautiful about a recipe passed down by hand.
A splash of vanilla becomes a fingerprint. A grease stain becomes a memory.

And while digital cookbooks are convenient, they’ll never smell like a kitchen.
They won’t yellow with time.
They won’t sound like your mother when she said, “Just a dash, you’ll know.”

Preserving Without Perfection

The truth is: most of the best recipes were never written down at all.
They were cooked from memory. By feel.
They were “a little of this, a little of that,” made on stoves that didn’t heat evenly, in pots that had no measurements.

So what do you do when the person who made them can no longer remember how?

Some families video their mothers and grandmothers cooking.
Some create handmade cookbooks.
Some commission artists to paint old recipes onto ceramic plates or cabinet doors.
Others frame the index cards and hang them beside the pantry.

Because what we’re preserving isn’t just the food — it’s the person who made it.

What This Has to Do with Us

At RainbownHome, we’re not just here to sell kitchen tools.
We’re here to protect the rituals that made us who we are.
To make the kitchen a place where memories are stirred back to life.

Whether you’re pressing garlic for your grandmother’s pasta sauce, or peeling apples the way your dad used to, we design tools that feel timeless — because the people who taught us to cook deserve nothing less.

This Mother’s Day, Let’s Honor the Recipes That Raised Us

Use code MOTHERDAY to get 20% off kitchen tools that belong next to butter-stained index cards and scribbled notes in the margins.

Because cooking is more than what’s on the plate.
It’s about who stood behind the stove.
And what they left behind, one meal at a time.