We’ve had beautiful–even unusually warm–weather every day on this trip–until today.  We drove to St. Charles, IL under gray skies and through several rain showers to visit my brother and sister-in-law, Tom and Jo.

Lunch was ready when we arrived, and included what I’ll call a “heritage recipe.”  It was a perfect example of the discussion Donna, Nancy, and I had at lunch yesterday about the imprecise nature of our grandmothers’ recipes.  Hershey Bar Pie is one of Jo’s mom’s recipes and it includes a “5-cent Hershey bar” as one of the ingredients.  I remember 5-cent Hershey bars, but I have no idea how many ounces of 2018 melted chocolate equals a 1950s 5-cent bar.  Tom said he looked up images of 5-cent Hershey bars on Google and read the weight of the bar.  The pie was delicious!

The four of us spent the afternoon catching up on family news and telling family stories.  We have eight grandchildren and Tom and Jo have four, so there were a lot of good stories to tell and lots of memories to share.  Tom and Jo treated us to dinner at a restaurant recommended by a friend.  They had never been there before, but we decided to live on the edge and try it.  We all agreed that we’d enjoy a return visit any time.