When the cook is gone, the recipe goes with them unless someone wrote it down. Be the one who writes it down.

A great deal of what families know lives only in somebody’s hands and never gets recorded. Recipes, repairs, the particular way a thing is done, all of it feels permanent because the person doing it is always there, right up until they are not. Nobody thinks to write down what seems obvious.

Pick one person and one thing they know, and get it down this month. Sit with them while they do it and take notes, or record it on your phone. It is also one of the easier excuses to spend an afternoon together.