Kevin and I have a bit of a tradition on Saturday mornings.  He and the cats sleep in a little and I make coffee and peruse Craigslist for any estate sales that are happening nearby.  We are never first in line–I don’t like the antique dealers, who get there an hour early and make numbered lists as to who gets in first.  I’m more interested in looking at the mise en scène of a house and seeing how people lived their everyday lives than being the first in line and jostling about.  I have a certain reverence when I go to estate sales because the fact that it’s a person’s life that’s on display is never far from my mind.  One can find out so many things about people by searching through the flotsam and jetsam — I can only imagine what people will say about my own treasures.

This Saturday, we decided to visit a neighborhood in Northern Seattle.  The house was unassuming and had a bird bath and feeder in the front (as a fellow bird-lover, I took that as a good sign).  We walked up the back steps into the kitchen and listened to the daughter, who was running the sale, talk about her late mother to a person buying a few knick-knacks.  Kevin soon came up to me with an old, spiral-bound notebook, going for $1, that was filled with recipes.

I couldn’t believe it was for sale, but I knew immediately that it would be well-loved in my home.  It’s previous owner had made tabs for each type of recipe, and after giving it a once-over, it was obvious that she loved making desserts!  Kevin and I had already talked about posting something lemony this week since we had a few lemons who kept looking at us longingly from the fruit basket.  Luckily, our newly-found recipe book had a few recipes for lemon desserts, and since we were having friends over for some home-made pizzas, we decided to try the recipe for Lemon-Sponge Custard.