When I tried to clean out the cabinets in my office, I didn’t get much done.

That’s because I got kidnapped - captured by sweet memories from the past.

When I moved to Florida, nothing came with me except what was most important. After the move, precious photos and memorability with special meaning was stored in my office cabinets.

There is no longer a place where I can see my two little girls except for the rare occasions when I look through the photos in that cabinet.

We think we will always remember favorite moments from the past but nothing refreshes those memories as good as those old photos.

As I look through the photographs I feel all over again the joy their childhood brought me.

While it makes a wonderful “feel good” time, it does nothing to clean the cabinet.

I thought I would make better progress when I started to clear out my recipe files. I was surprised and delighted to find my favorite recipes from decades ago.

When I had my first newspaper job at the Shamokin Citizen, the editor asked me to do a weekly cooking column.

I loved doing it. My job was to a find a different local cook each week and publish three of their favorite recipes.

I know I had the most detailed recipes for one simple reason. I wasn’t much of a cook at 18 and I needed explicit directions.

In the back of my mind was a story my mother told about how she lost a valued friend.

She and Betty were close pals until a recipe ended the friendship.

My Mom was renowned for her homemade baked beans and was happy to oblige when Betty asked for her recipe. She wrote down all the ingredients with instructions of what to mix in a casserole then bake at 350 degrees.

Mom didn’t spell out that the beans had to be boiled until soft before they were put in the casserole.

She thought everyone knew beans had to be boiled. “The instructions are on every bag saying they had to be boiled,” said Mom.

Betty ended her friendship with my mom because she thought she deliberated wanted to ruin Betty’s baked beans.

From that little episode I learned to give explicit step by step instructions when I ran the cook of the week article.

One thing I learned from looking through those old newspaper files was how much cooking has changed through the decades.

The best illustration of that is Catherine Molnar’s 1959 recipe for chicken paprikash with homemade dumplings.

That remains one of my very favorite recipes and the entire Molnar family remains dear to my heart.

When I asked Catherine for the recipe she told me to come early one Saturday and we would do it together.

From the Molnar home in Kulpmont, Pa., we drove 55 miles to a chicken farm in Jim Thorpe because Catherine was an old fashioned cook that believed she had to have a fresh chicken to make her chicken paprikash.

Here’s the unbelievable detail. Catherine and her husband Lewis bought a live chicken, killed it, cleaned it, burned off the feathers then it was ready to be simmered in Catherine’s Hungarian broth. I remember impatiently waiting for that delectable meal to be finished. As we waited Catherine showed me how to make homemade noodles.

She eventually gave up on buying a live chicken but always insisted “it’s not as tasty” with a supermarket chicken.

I found my own shortcuts for that recipe. Instead of a whole chicken, I used split chicken breasts roasted in the oven.

I didn’t make my own homemade pasta but I found a fabulous substitute made in Italy.

I truly love to cook. It relaxes me. While I continue to cook homemade food every week, I have found I no longer have the patience for complicated, multi-pot recipes.

I like good, healthy homemade food. What I don’t like is losing hours from each day cooking in the kitchen.

As the years pile up I cook with more and more shortcuts. Catherine Molnar would never recognize her chicken paprikash recipe. I do make a shorten version of that meal, and my guests seem to like it.

Many of my retired friends have told me they stopped cooking meals. Some go out to eat and others use frozen or precooked meals.

One smart woman bought her husband a new grill so he grills most of their meals.

As I looked through my old recipe file it was like finding old but forgotten friends.

I was especially delighted to find my mother’s recipe for Depression Cake. Because butter and eggs were hard to come by during the Depression the recipe used lard.

I had fun recreating the cake with Crisco, not lard, and even more fun eating the cake.

I also pleased my husband by making an old recipe for corn fritters. I actually like potato cakes better. But I refuse to go through all that work of grating the potatoes by hand for just the two of us.

I used to love making potato cakes for friends. But now so many people are on special diets and many cringe at the thought of eating something fried in oil.

What’s cooking in your kitchen?

How have you altered your cooking over the years?

Contact Pattie Mihalik at newsgirl@comcast.net.