The Mix-Up

I have great admiration for the culinary industry. I admire those who are fabulous chefs, modify recipes, and sometimes use their own ingenuity when cooking food.

A great friend of mine, who I will refer to only as E, has superb culinary skills. She has been accepted and participates in an elite cooking club; she blogs about her culinary skills and her predecessors; and she has a renowned library of cookbooks.

She is not only a fabulous cook, but a great gift giver as well. Many times the gifts I receive from her are distinctive cookbooks which I have loved. One year for my birthday she gave me a cookbook titled Favorites. This cookbook is a collection of favorite Ivory Family recipes. It is an excellent compilation of tasty and fairly easy recipes (my kind of cookbook). It is one I have shared with many of my friends.

Upon opening the front cover of my gift, I found a heart-felt, hand written note to my friend’s mother. As I thumbed through the pages, I also noticed food platters from a recipe well used. It brought a big smile to my face. Not only because of the tender note to her mother; but also being recipient of re-gifting. For months I said nothing, enjoying my hard-to-come-by gift.

A few months later my friend E called and said, “I have a strange question.” She asked me if I had her mother’s cookbook. I began to laugh as I told her I thought I had been re-gifted, but loved my gift anyway. She told me she had accidentally given me the cookbook she had borrowed from her mother, instead of the new one she had purchased for me. When she went to return her mother's book, she realized the mix-up.

Saturday night we exchange birthday gifts for this year. I thought I had purchased the perfect gift for my friend. It was a sequel to The Favorites cookbook. What a surprise, when she had the same gift for me.

We laughed, and laughed, while we enjoyed dinner and a movie together.