Regret, the Most Wasteful Emotion...

That was the title of an article I wrote for a women's magazine a long time ago. (I regret that it was rejected, but that's another story.)

Yesterday, while working from home on account of the snowpocalypse, I *happened* to click on Ebay in the middle of the day.  And there, under "vintage recipe cards," I discovered a treasure trove -- a collection of hundreds of old hand-written and typed recipe cards for cakes, frosting, pies, biscuits. Recipes on scraps of paper, newspaper clippings and illustrations from the 1930s including a full article on candy making from The Ohio Farmer, all in "vintage/used conditions, spots and stains are abundant!"

The lot was selling for $77.  I bid and then was outbid in a minute.  When the auction ended, the final sale price was nearly $230!

I immediately regretted not bidding higher, especially when I saw that it was from an estate sale in Ohio. It would have quadrupled my collection of vintage, hand-written recipes in an instant. But then, something seemed wrong about the ease of simply clicking a button (and paying big bucks) to do so.  I like the hunt through flea markets, estate sales, stoop sales and antique stores, the lovely serendipity of discovering a box, a scrapbook or notebook filled with memories -- and recipes.  (As my husband said, "Would Jacques Cousteau go to an aquarium?")

So I guess I'm going to continue to find my old-fashioned recipes the old-fashioned way, with no regrets.

*The cake pictured above is what I'm entering in the Red Show's red velvet cake contest this morning.  (I regret overbeating the batter last night, and having that cheap glass of wine that made me too sleepy to spend more time perfecting the frosting, but that's another story.)