A tasty family Legacy: 2023

 

I have no idea how old I was when I first enjoyed our Aunt Lorraine's "Jelly Tarts" at Christmas.  Maybe I was 5 or 6, but I remember them so fondly and always craved more... each year there was only enough for each of us to get 1 or 2 of these incredible treats. She and my maternal grandmother would make a bounty of Christmas cookies each year, but the "Jelly Tarts" were the clearly the "star on the tree" among the many choices.  The picture to the right is a current one of our daughter Marie and I with a plate of OUR Jelly Tarts that we made last weekend; working hard to keep Aunt Lorraine's legacy alive this Christmas season!

The impetus for me of writing this essay, and candidly what started me on this entire journey of writing this blog in the first place... now 260+ essays and 15 years ago... was this idea of "legacy."  In my life, I have been touched by so many people who have left their "mark" on me,  both personally and professionally and I feel so lucky to have had the chance to learn and grow from these "legacies."  Whether lessons from my grandmother MaMa,  https://fylegacy.blogspot.com/2009/03/legacy.html, or Mrs. Carfang and her feast of the Seven Fish https://fylegacy.blogspot.com/2011/12/christmas-kindness-remembered.html, or the lessons of Bruce Paynter https://fylegacy.blogspot.com/2010/07/legacy-of-bruce.html, my first boss at Kimberly-Clark who passed in 2009 from ALS, or tasty memories or rules about "small bites" from Aunt Lorraine, https://fylegacy.blogspot.com/2009/03/aunt-lorraines-law.html, or.... literally the list goes on and are spread across the hundreds of essays that I have posted on this blog.

This is the third or fourth year that Marie and I have made Aunt Lorraine's "Jelly Tarts" and while our technique is growing, it's a pretty simple recipe that is VERY hard to get exactly right.  Always tasty, each year we try to get closer and closer to "how Aunt Lorraine" made them... and I hope we get the chance to keep trying to perfect this specific "legacy" for years to come!  Give the recipe a try, it's highlighted below, signed by the creator herself!  

Merry Christmas!