by jphilo | Dec 8, 2014 | Family
A month long version of Camp Dorothy begins tonight, which means CD HQ is buzzing this morning. So far the camp director has:
- Moved her wardrobe, bedside reading materials, and toiletry items to the upstairs bedroom and bathroom,
- Reminded the Man of Steel to do the same,
- Changed bedding for the camp’s namesake,
- Checked to make sure the Uno, Skippo, and regular card decks are ready to go,
- Pulled a meal from the freezer for supper.
Next on the list is to:
- Make sure the TV is turned to Wheel of Fortune’s channel,
- Put extra blankets on the camper’s bed because she is always cold,
- Decide whether to be magnanimous and give the celebrity camper the good ottoman or the makeshift one for the duration of her stay,
- Create a comfy nest on the couch, complete with extra pillows, pencils, and tissues.
Once all that’s done, it will be time to:
- Drive down to where the camper lives,
- Take her for a pre-camp physical at the doctor’s office,
- Check to be sure she packed some of the new shirts and sweaters she received as Christmas gifts instead of the old, dingy ones she can’t part with,
- Load her, along with her walker, cane, suitcase, bath chair, purse, crossword puzzle books, and library books into the car,
- Be very thankful the camp provides linens so there’s no need to pack a sleeping bag, pillow, and towels, too,
- Drive to CD HQ.
Upon arrival at camp, the director will be wishing for a Wheel of Fortune marathon to occupy the camp’s namesake while:
- Unloading the car,
- Unpacking the camper’s clothes,
- Running to the store to purchase someone’s favorite snack items,
- Fixing supper,
- Sending apologetic replies to all the emailed ignored on the gala opening day of Camp Dorothy,
- Reminding herself how blessed she is to have these days with the camp’s namesake because one day, perhaps sooner than later, Camp Dorothy will be a thing of the past.
by jphilo | Nov 26, 2014 | Recipes
I’m the pie baker for this year’s family Thanksgiving gathering. Thanks to Grandma Conrad’s foolproof recipe, the pie crusts are ready to go. The post below debuted at Down the Gravel Road in November of 2009. Not only does it tell the story of our family’s pie baking tradition, it also is a wonderful memory of Aunt Lois Benson who died just over a year ago.
Yesterday I mentioned that my extended family considers the words “I love you” and “Taste this” to be synonyms. What I didn’t tell you was that yesterday, two of the matriarchs of our extended Hess family’s kitchens, my mother and my Aunt Lois, spent the day baking together.
Now that’s not all we did. Aunt Lois also graciously consented to being interviewed about her memories of life on her parents’ Iowa and Minnesota farms in the 1920s and 30s. And when we needed a break from the baking, we went to our town’s Dutch Oven Bakery for lunch.
But for the most part, I cracked the whip on these two ladies. Back in their baking days, which lasted from the 1930s until the 2000s, they were extraordinary pie bakers. So yesterday, I eeked every possible pie baking secret out of them. If only their other two living sisters could have been here, I could have learned the secrets of Aunt Letha’s sour cream raisin pie and Aunt Donna’s butterscotch, too.
Aunt Lois said the secret to good pie crust is mixing a little baking powder into the flour and using rendered lard – hard to find these days – cutting it into the flour until the mixture crumbles are pea-sized. I wanted to get her pie crust recipe, but she said she never used one, just added ingredients until it looked and felt right.
As a tribute to my aunts, who made pie crust as flaky and tender as any I’ve ever tasted, here is my fail safe recipe. It came from Aunt Letha’s mother-in-law who was also a wonderful cook.
Grandma Conrad’s Never Fail Pie Crust
6 cups flour 2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon baking powder 1 – 1 1/2 cups lard
1 egg 2 tablespoons vinegar
In a 1 cup measuring cup, beat egg with a fork. Add vinegar and enough water to make one cup. Set aside. Sift together flour, salt and baking powder in a large bowl. Cut in lard until mixture is crumbly but not clumpy. Pour liquid mixture into flour mixture and stir with a fork until it forms a large ball.
This recipe makes 5 – 6 pie crusts. Let the dough sit for 10 minutes and roll out all the crusts. When they’re rolled out, place a piece of waxed paper on the crust and carefully roll the paper and crust into a tube. Put the crusts in a 2 gallon zipper bag and freeze. Then, thaw the rolls and use them when you’re ready to bake.
by jphilo | Nov 12, 2014 | Recipes
Yes, today’s recipe for cranberry-apple sauce is one more encore post in a string of encore appearances that spanned most of October and are now encroaching into November.
But I have a really good reason.
Turns out, authors don’t have much time to cook in months where one book releases and a manuscript is being frantically edited in what may be a vain attempt to get it to the publisher by the November 30 deadline. Add to that a couple family emergencies, a few speaking engagements, and an upcoming visit with kids and grandkids, and it’s hard to find time to cook a thing.
Much less try a new recipe.
So, don’t look for any new recipes to debut along the gravel road this month. Instead, expect to see favorite Thanksgiving dishes like this one grace Wednesday posts until after Turkey Day and the manuscript deadline are both history.
Cranberry-Apple Sauce
1 12 oz. package fresh or frozen cranberries
2 apples, peeled and chopped
2/3–3/4 cup sugar, depending on your taste
1 cup water
Put water and sugar in a medium saucepan and bring mixture to a boil. Stir until sugar is dissolved. Add cranberries and apples and return to a full boil. Lower heat to a low boil and cook for 10 minutes. Pour into a bowl. Chill for 2–3 hours before serving.
by jphilo | Sep 29, 2014 | Uncategorized
You know those pictures about the good old days that keep making the rounds on Facebook? The ones about kids playing outside more way back when? Or about how we ate raw cookie dough and didn’t die? How the present generation has been coddled by their parents?
But not us.
No, siree.
Not us.
We’re tough.
Because we grew up in the good old days.
With emphasis on the word good.
But how good were the good old days really? Maybe not as good as we remember. Or as our parents remember. Or their parents, for that matter, as this recipe for wash day shows. Mom found this 1900s washday ‘receipt’ as they used to be called, in the 1970s. She’s taken our grandparents to Illinois on a genealogy trip. The ‘receipt’ was in an old church cookbook from Lenarch, Illinois. Someone was throwing the cookbook away, so Mom tore out the page and brought it home.
My sister found it in 2008 while helping Mom sort through her treasures before selling her house. Recently, she gave me a copy, complete with the original spelling. Which got me to thinking about how good the good old days really were. See what you think:
Grandma’s Washing Receipt
- bild a fire in the back yoard to heet kettle of rain water.
- set tubs so smoke won’t blo in eyes if wind is pert.
- shave one hole cake soap in bilin water.
- sort things, make three piles: 1 pile white, 1 pile collord, 1 pile work britches and rags.
- stur flour in cold water to sooth then thin down with bilin water.
- rub dirty spots on board, scrub hard. Then bile. Rub cullord but don’t bile–just rench and starch.
- take white things out of kettle with broom stick handle then rench, blew and starch.
- spred tee towels on grass.
- hang old rags on fence.
- pore rench water in flower bed.
- scrub porch with hot soapy water.
- turn tubs upside down.
- go put on cleen dress–smooth hair with side combs–brew cup of tee–set and rest and rock a spell and count blessings.
I don’t know about you, but that receipt and front loading, water and energy saving push button washing machines make the good new days look mighty good!
Photo Credit
by jphilo | Sep 4, 2014 | Three Thoughts for Thursday
The little girl on the left is Mom’s sister, Ruth. The little girl on the right is Dorothy.
- To help Mom celebrate her 86th birthday yesterday, I treated her to lunch at Village Inn. She ordered pancakes.
- While she ate the pancakes, she told me about her sixth birthday, 80 years ago exactly. “It was my first day of first grade. My first day of school ever. The older kids–and they were all older kids–spent every recess giving me birthday spankings. It was awful.”
- As she ate she looked at me and said, “Do you know what I really want for my birthday? I want to go back to Pipestone and have Mom make pancakes for me.”
Who knew birthday pancakes could reduce the daughter of an 86-year-old woman to tears?
