the envelope had carried, originally, a bill from the gas company. it lived for a fortnight on the dresser before being taken down to the telephone, where A. wrote her mother's instructions on it because the household pad had migrated, again, to the bedroom. the recipe was, by both their accounts, not the way they did it at home; but it was close enough, and on an envelope, and so it would do.
the envelope was filed afterwards between the cookbooks, where it has remained for sixteen years. it has been re-read; it has, twice, been quoted on the telephone to the next generation. the bill it once carried is long since paid. the small note at the foot — her oven runs hot. mine doesn't — is, A. now thinks, the only part of the recipe that is actually hers.