My Granny is one of my heroes. When I was little, I was lucky enough to go and spend a week with them every summer. We always made crafts, sewed, cooked, went to the library, worked in the garden and went fishing. She was a city girl who's father worked for the Edison Company in Southern California in the 30's. She met my Grandpa, from a sheep ranching family in Utah when he was a door to door salesman selling portraits during the Depression. She adapted to the farming life, and they even owned a chicken ranch. She was very industrious. I remember one year when staying with her in the summer she bought me a cute top. She liked the style so much she traced it out and created a pattern to be able to make more! I remember once she made an apron out of trash bags so that layers of the bottom could tear off when they got dirty. I wish I could remember exactly how, time has clouded that memory a bit.
So many times while I'm in my kitchen, or out with my animals or crafting I feel her with me. And she is. All of the things that she has taught me, that she taught my Father and he passed down to me, are with me each and every day.
For Christmas I got a copy of this amazing cookbook that she had put together for her kids. I loved her letter in the beginning. And I wanted to share it as I kick off the blog this year.
1983
Dear Children,
I have
been teaching a mini-class in our Relief Society and I really enjoy it. It is
one thing that I like to do. However I
am always changing recipes to suit my family, or what I have on hand. Sometimes
I get carried away telling them how to change things and get them a little
confused. Like the time I made
peach-apricot-pineapple jam last year and didn’t have enough, so I finely
grated 2 cups of carrots and added them, and it is good jam!
My
first exciting experience that way was in Bloomington. I had promised some child
a pink birthday cake and pink frosting. Tragedy!
No red food coloring. I was quite a ways
from the store, no car, and I had to figure out what to do. I looked around and all that I had that could
be pink, was beets. Viola! I cooked a
few beets in a little water, cooled it, and added it to the cake and then the
frosting. It worked just fine. Nobody
even knew it until I told them later.
Then they laughed and laughed, but it worked.
I’ve
been “fixing up” recipes ever since, sometimes with success, sometimes
not. But to me cooking is a creative
activity and I have enjoyed experimenting. Luckily, with five children, someone
was always hungry enough to eat whatever I cooked, successfully or not!
My next
big exciting event happened in Highland. I had bought a large bag full of
bananas because they were really ripe, and cheap. But so everyone wouldn’t eat
them all at once, I hid most of them in the bottom of the trash sack. I was
going to make some banana pie. That was Floyd’s (my grandpa) favorite pie.
I told
some child to take it out and dump it on the smoldering trash fire, out by the egg room. Just as they dumped it I remembered my
bananas and ran out yelling, wait! Wait! When I
told them what had happened, everyone grabbed sticks and the rake and got most
of the bananas out and ate the ones that were edible. I didn’t save any money on that deal and
Floyd didn’t get any pie!
The
leaders of our church have told us to use what we have, use it up, and not to be
wasteful. I have tried to do this, especially in the kitchen. In Yucaipa, I had
a large peanut butter jar in the freezer and I would put in the left over
vegetables, roast bones, gravy, rice, etc and when it was full I made soup.
I
purchased a large T bone roast, browned it and cooked it. Then cut off the bone, added more water, my
thawed out jar of whatever, some extra seasonings and there was supper. I usually heard, ‘What ? Mom’s soup again?” But everyone ate it.
Last
year I was teaching a class on Favorite Old Recipes and found out that a lot of
women had never cut up a chicken, make soup or cake from scratch or used
leftovers, so we had some lessons on those subjects.
I had
some recipes that I had written down that my mother had told me and some that I
remembered from when I was young. I also
had a few old cookbooks that we had used at home, and some I’ve had since we
were married. Floyd used to give me a new appliance every year for my birthday
or Christmas and they all had booklets with good recipes in them and I used
them a lot.
After
doing those lessons, I thought my children might like to have them. I started
to write down a few more and each recipe had a memory about my family. Finally had to stop, my “booklet” was getting
too heavy, and wouldn’t fit in the cover. I made the cover to suit each girl, I
hoped, and I hope you enjoy looking at them. Xeroxed some recipes out of my
books, most of my memories of food are happy ones – maybe that’s why I’m not
skinny. From having Dad make ice-cream (with our help), to eating chicken legs
in bed at night, under the covers, while reading with the flashlight, and being
just a little “ant-y” in the morning, to learning to cook without salt , it’s
all been fun. Now I try to use up all the vegetables and fruits we raise and
use them in different ways.
I hope
you all enjoy this booklet, and learn to have fun in your kitchen – or teach
your children to! And I hope you pass on a few of your favorite recipes to your
children.
I
thought it would be nice to include something from the “other side” of your
families and the recipes in the back are from them. I have included some of Floyd’s mother’s
recipes. She was a wonderful cook and I
learned a lot from her. She had real
butter cream, fresh eggs and vegetables and fruit she put up herself. She made
her own bread and was a good seamstress. She was president of the Relief
Society when we first went back to Utah and I thought then that it was great.
It took
me quite a while, before I joined the church and became a real member of Relief
Society, and there were many times during the years that I have been unable to
go. I had
children of Primary age and I always seemed to be teaching them. I know,
though, that the Relief Society is an inspired program, and I have learned so
many things there that have benefited myself and my family, and the sisters
have always been ready to help me in any way possible. Primary and Relief
Society were an educational and also a social experience for me for many years,
Relief Society still is. And I am still learning new skills and absorbing new
ideas.
I am
thankful that I have a husband who was willing, and able, to work hard and long
to raise food and earn money so our children could have the food and
necessities that they needed to grow up healthy and able to take care of
themselves and their families.
Now I
really enjoy watching the grandchildren eat what I cook and bake and Floyd
enjoys so much sharing what he has grown with children and grandchildren.
Love, Mom
I found this adorable book and knew that I just had to have it. It is a collection of stories about the unlikely friendships between animals. For example, the pig and the dachshund where the dog became a foster mom to a runty little piglet. Just makes your heart melt!
