*As seen in her self-published book… The Copycat Cookbook (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; Oct. 1996, 12th printing; p. 73)
INGREDIENTS:
2 cups flour
2 tsp sugar
½ tsp salt
¼-lb chilled butter, broken into bits
5 TB Crisco
About 5 TB cold tap water (added as directed below)
INSTRUCTIONS:
Combine the flour, sugar, and salt in a roomy bowl. Work in the butter and Crisco using pastry blender or two forks. When mixture resembles gravel, and is even in texture, take the bowl to the sink where you will actually drizzle just enough cold tap water around the edge of the bowl, turning it as the water is added, to make one complete rotation – which equals about 5 TB of water.
Quickly mix it only until it comes away from the sides of the bowl. Shape into ball and cover the bowl. Refrigerate it for about an hour (or up to three days if you don’t have time to use it right away).
This rebuilds the shortening particles so that during baking they will break down and distribute evenly with the flour. The sugar also creates the little pockets that create flakes in the layers of pastry once it has been baked.
After dough has chilled, spread a pastry cloth out on a flat working surface. Use a rolling pin cover over your rolling pin, as well. Sprinkle some flour into the center of the cloth and smooth it over the surface. Also rub some flour into the cover on the rolling pin.
Work quickly, rolling out the dough to about a 12-inch circle. Invert a greased 10-inch pie pan or Pyrex pie plate onto the circle. Trim away the dough, with a sharp knife, 1 inch from rim of inverted pie pan.
Set the pie pan right side up and fold the circle of dough in half. Lift it carefully to fit into half of that pipe, carefully unfolding the dough was so that it fits evenly, without much handling!
THE MORE YOU HANDLE THE PIE CRUST THOUGH THE LESS FLAKY IT WILL BE!
Ease the dough into place in the pie pan. Crimp the rim. Prick the crust with the tines of a fork in about 20 or 30 places. Bake at 375°F for about 25 minutes or until golden brown. Cool and fill with a no-bake type filling.
Makes two10-inch pie shells or one double crust 10-inch pie.
FOR THE TOP CRUST:
Gather up scraps from dough after fitting bottom crust into place. Roll out again to 10-inch circle. Add filling to unbaked bottom crust. Fold the second circle of dough in half and placed carefully overfilling, unfolding the dough to ease it into place.
Seal rim and cut slits in top crust for steam to escape. Wipe the top crust evenly with Half-and-Half or butter. Bake the pipe per directions for the filling you were using.
THE HOTTER THE OVEN, the more your pie shell will shrink! For best results – and never mind what the other cookbooks tell you – bake a double crust pie at 375°F, until crust is golden brown and the filling begins to bubble up through the slits in the top. This takes about 45 to 55 minutes, depending on the type of fruit you will be using.
Please, don’t ask me to use pectin if I don’t have to! Give me the simple life – even in the kitchen. I found that there is enough natural pectin in rhubarb that you really don’t have to use the powdered or liquid pectin to equal a very dignified jam product.
Somehow, the rhubarb loses its own identity when combined with other fruits and takes on the flavor of the fruit you mix it with. The jelling is done with boxed, fruit-flavored gelatin – the same kind that Dennis Day sang about when he opened the Jack Benny Radio Show on Sunday nights, ages ago!
Do you remember Dennis? He was a gorgeous tenor who could sing the birds out of the trees. At home, he had a marvelous family. Their son, Tom, was in school at the Art Center in Pasadena with our son, Mike.
When Mike was describing the McNulty home to us (that’s Dennis’ real last name), he said their house was so big and they had so many kids, that one of their daughters moved out and it was 2 weeks before anyone in the family even noticed!
INGREDIENTS:
4 cups sugar
4 cups diced rhubarb (fresh or frozen)
1 cup sliced strawberries
one 6-ounce box (or two 3-ounce boxes) strawberry gelatin
INSTRUCTIONS:
In a 1 ½-quart sauce pan, combine sugar and rhubarb, stirring over medium heat to draw liquid without adding any additional liquid to it. Increase the heat until it comes to a gentle boil. Stir constantly for 8 to 10 minutes or until a “sauce-like” consistency forms.
Add strawberries. Continue cooking and stirring about 5 minutes. Remove 1 cup of the liquid from the mixture. Add gelatin to this liquid, stirring until dissolved.
Return this into the original rhubarb mixture and remove pan from heat at once. Stir to blend well.
Cool to lukewarm and divide jam between eight 1-cup-sized freezer containers, allowing a ½-inch headspace. Apply lids to the containers, sealing the lids well with masking tape. Date them to be used within 6 months. Makes 8 cups.
*As seen in… Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – The Best of the Recipe Detective (Balboa Press; Jan. 2018, p. 184). [A revised reprint of Gloria Pitzer’s Better Cookery Cookbook (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; May 1983, 3rd Edition).]
[Whipped cream and additional whole strawberries for garnish]
INSTRUCTIONS:
Dissolve Jell-O powder in the boiling water. Over low heat, add the jam and blend well. In a blender, combine cold water and cornstarch. Pour this mixture into the Jell-O mixture until thick and clear. Cool to lukewarm and spoon 1/3 into baked pie shell.
Arrange strawberries, widest ends down, side-by-side, snugly in bottom of pie shell. Spoon rest of Jell-O mixture evenly over the berries. Chill several hours or overnight, until firm enough to cut. Garnish with whipped cream and whole strawberries. Makes 8 slices.
[**Seen, similarly, in… Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – The Best of the Recipe Detective (Balboa Press; Jan. 2018, p. 241). [A revised reprint of Gloria Pitzer’s Better Cookery Cookbook (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; May 1983, 3rd Edition).]
Happy Monday to one and all! And, as usual, #TGIM – because I always look forward to Mondays, for they are my #52Chances each year, in which I have to share my memories of Mom!
Just last week, I saw a commercial announcing the 84th birthday (1936 – the same year that Mom was born) of the “Big Boy” restaurants chain and their signature, self-titled, double-decker, cheese burger. The “Big Boy” was introduced to the public long before Ray Kroc started the McDonald’s fast food chain, offering the same double-decker, cheese burger – slightly changing the name to “Big Mac”!
Funny note: In the mid-1970s, the McDonald’s Corporation was very upset, to say the least, when Mom started imitating their signature offerings and, likewise, slightly changing the name of her products to “Big Match”! The only difference was that Mom was selling the recipes, not the final products, so people could make their favorite products, at home, themselves (and at less of a cost than eating out).
I compared the “Big Boy” to the “Big Mac” – both offer 2 beef patties with a “special” sauce (resembling 1000 Island dressing), lettuce, pickles, onions, and cheese on a 3-piece, sesame seed bun. I found that the “Big Boy” is (normally*) “plated” and “presented” to you, in an eye-pleasing, palatable way, at your table, by a waiter/waitress (*except right now, during Covid-19 restrictions, as you can only get it as take-out/delivery in many areas).
Conversely, the “Big Mac” is assembled quickly, (some might say it’s “thrown” together) without regard for eye-pleasing palatability, and it’s served to you in a disposable, cardboard box at the cashier’s counter/drive-thru window. Additionally, you first have to pay for it, sight-unseen; then you can take your food to a table, yourself, to sit and eat; or you can leave with it, to eat elsewhere.
That’s basically what separates a restaurant chain apart from a fast food or “cafeteria-style” chain – how it’s ordered, along with being paid for first, and then how it’s received (in disposable packaging). I was inspired to look into what else classifies fast food chains from restaurant chains and which ones were the oldest in the U.S.
Although a wide variety of different foods, in either establishment, can be made FAST, the term, “fast food“, is a commercial term limited to food sold in a restaurant (or “store”) with frozen, preheated and/or precooked ingredients. In the restaurant realm, food that is made fast is called “short order”.
I found that a restaurant chain is a set of “related” eateries in different locations that are either under a shared corporate ownership or a franchising agreement. What depicts a restaurant/eatery (from the fast food establishments) is the majority of its food sales are in-store, with sit-down service, where the food is served in washable dishes and/or baskets for consumption on the premises.
[Of course, Covid-19 restrictions have affected that explanation, as most restaurants are, for now, limited to only take-out, curbside services and deliveries.]
Did you know that, fast-food and restaurant chains have been around for over a century? I formed a list of 30 of the oldest restaurant and fast food chains I could think of, but as I wrote a small paragraph about each one, it ended up being too long for one blog post. So, I’ve cut my list to give to you over the next few weeks’ blog entries. I stooped at 1940 for today’s blog entry and I will continue with the nostalgic list over the next week or two, as well.
Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – The Best of the Recipe Detective (Balboa Press; Jan. 2018, p. 7)
FAMOUS FOODS FROM FAMOUS PLACES
THEY LAUGHED! THEY DOUBTED! They even tried to take me to court when some famous food companies insisted that I stop giving away their secrets. They couldn’t believe me when I said that I did NOT know, nor did I want to know, what they put in their so-called secret recipes. I did know that there are very few recipes that can’t be duplicated or imitated at home. And we could do them for much less than purchasing the original product. I proved…it can be and should be done!
FAMOUS FOODS FROM FAMOUS PLACES have intrigued good cooks for a long time – even before fast foods of the 1950’s were a curiosity. When cookbooks offer us a sampling of good foods, they seldom devote themselves to the dishes of famous restaurants. There is speculation among the critics as to the virtues of re-creating, at home, the foods that you can buy ‘eating out’, such as the fast food fares of the popular franchise restaurants. To each, his own!
Who would want to imitate ‘fast food’ at home? I found that over a million people who saw me demonstrate replicating some famous fast food products on The Phil Donahue Show (July 7, 1981) DID – and their letters poured in at a rate of over 15,000 a day for months on end! And while I have investigated the recipes, dishes, and cooking techniques of ‘fine’ dining rooms around the world, I received more requests from people who wanted to know how to make things like McDonald’s Special Sauce or General Foods Shake-N-Bake coating mix or White Castle’s hamburgers than I received for those things like Club 21’s Coq Au Vin.
Nathan’s Famous is the oldest restaurant chain I could find. It first opened as in 1916 on Coney Island (NY); founded by, husband and wife, Nathan and Ida Handwerker! They built a reputation on and are most famous for their all-beef franks and signature-spiced Coney sauce, which are also marketed in grocery stores in all 50 states. There are more than 300 Nathan’s Famous restaurants. The original one still stands at the corner of Surf and Stillwell Avenues, in Coney Island, New York. Mom developed several of her own copycat versions of “Coney Sauce” over the decades, but never accredited any as being like that served by Nathan’s Famous restaurants.
A&W is the next oldest chain I could find. Originally, it started as a drink stand, founded by Roy W. Allen in California in 1919. Allen’s employee Frank Wright partnered with him in 1922 and they founded their first restaurant in Sacramento, CA, in 1923. A&W developed the first “drive-in” carhop option to “casual dining”. However, It didn’t franchise until 1925. Thanks to A&W, by the WWII era, carhop services for drive-up establishments, serving burgers and other “fast food” choices, became common place. A&W’s signature Root Beer Float was always a family favorite treat for us. Mom developed several imitations of A&W’s menu offerings, including their Coney sauce!
White Castle was the next fast food chain establishment to open in 1921. It was founded, initially, by Billy Ingram, in Wichita, KS. The small, square hamburger (called a “Slider”), for which they are most famous, was declared the most influential burger ever, by Time® Magazine, in 2014! White Castle was one of the few fast food chains that were actually FLATTERED by Mom’s imitations of their products, sending her a very complimentary letter and a check to purchase a bunch of her cookbooks for all of their company’s executives.
Howard Johnson’s was founded in 1925, by Howard Deering Johnson; starting as an ice cream/soda fountain shop, near Boston, that was very popular. It later grew into a full-service, family restaurant in 1929, in Cape Cod.
Most famous for its signature orange roof and cupola, the Simple Simon and the Pie Man plaques, and its limited-menu food items – including it’s most famous 28 flavors of creamy, “homemade” ice cream, GRILLED hot dogs, and fried clam strips – it officially became a chain in 1935, when the first “link” opened in a “hot spot” in the Orleans district of Cape Cod, where Routes 28 and 6A meet. Howard Johnson’s continued to grow, becoming one of the biggest restaurant chains in the country. It evolved even more, in 1954, by becoming a chain of motels, as well.
Mom developed her own versions of their ice creams, sherbets, Boston Brown Bread, and Clam Chowder – just to name a few!
The Krystal restaurant first opened in 1932, in Chattanooga, TN. It was founded by Rody Davenport Jr. and J. Glenn Sherrill, who were “inspired” by the White Castle they visited in Chicago. Like the McDonald’s-Big Boy copycat story (above), they also offered their customers small, square hamburgers called “Sliders”.
In 1936, in California, Bob Wian founded the first restaurant in the soon-to-be-famous Big Boy® chain of family restaurants. The Big Boy® restaurants went under slightly different owners’ names per region/franchise – but always with “Big Boy” in the title. Bob’s Big Boy® is in California. Frisch’s Big Boy® is in Ohio. Big Boy® Restaurants (formerly Elias Brothers’…) are in Michigan and Shoney’s are in Tennessee.
Big Boy® was always one of our family’s favorite restaurant chains! Mom loved to imitate their dishes at home when we couldn’t afford to go out; and she replicated just about every item their menus featured! I’m working on a “Master Index List” of all the recipes from all of Mom’s works. So far, there are 35 recipes listed that Mom developed to imitate her favorite Big Boy® offerings at home – most of which appeared in her first 4 cookbooks, and many of those were among her “Original 200” recipe cards, on which Mom had built her Recipe DetectiveTM legacy.
Also, finding its start in 1936, was Chicken in the Rough; which was founded by Beverly and Rubye Osborne, in Oklahoma City.
Only two other cities, besides Oklahoma City, still serve “Chicken in the Rough” today – Port Huron, MI (just north of where we live, in St. Clair) and in Sarnia, Ontario (Canada), just east of Port Huron, across the southern base of Lake Huron, where it meets the north end of the St. Clair River.
Although most people would assume McDonald’s was the first fast-food chain, it actually didn’t start until after many others of their famous competitors. In fact, it was decades after the launches of A&W and White Castle, in 1954, when Ray Kroc purchased the McDonald’s fast food chain from the McDonald brothers, Dick and Mac.
Mom absolutely loved McDonald’s! She imitated many of their menu offerings. In fact, it was her imitations of McDonald’s “Special Sauce” and the “Big Mac” that began her “Original 200” recipes collection, on which she built her Secret RecipesTM and Recipe DetectiveTM legacy!
The soft-serve ice cream formula was first developed in 1938 by John Fremont “J.F.” “Grandpa” McCullough and his son Alex. They convinced, friend and loyal customer, Sherb Noble to offer the product in his ice cream store. In 1940, the soft-serve ice cream chain, called Dairy Queen, was launched in Joliet, IL and operated by Sherb Noble. In 2001, the “Grill and Chill” eatery concept was added to some of their ice cream shops. Mom imitated several of their sweet treat offerings – but just going there was always a fun treat in itself!
Illustration by Gloria Pitzer
IN CLOSING…
Next week, I’ll cover the launching of other fast food fare chains from 1941 through 1960!
In honor of today, being #NationalTrailMixDay, here is Mom’s copycat recipe for “Snacker Crackers”, as seen in her self-published cookbook, Mostly 4-Ingredient Recipes (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; April 1986, p. 104). Add your favorite nuts, dried fruit, and/or chocolate chips/candies. Enjoy!
P.S. Food-for-thought until we meet again, next Monday…
Happy Monday to one and all! As always, #TGIM – I continually look forward to Mondays because they are my #52Chances each year, in which I have to share my memories of Mom!
In general, heirlooms are a great source of history for families, as well as communities and museums. Family heirlooms are great “treasures”, whether they have monetary value or not; simply, because of the priceless memories and family folklore attached to them. Heirlooms such as a wedding ring, a grandfather clock, a rocking chair, a painting, a homemade quilt or afghan, the family homestead; as well as, journals, photo albums, scrapbooks, and even recipes preserve these special stories for generations.
I came upon a really interesting article, last week, regarding common heirlooms that get passed down, through families. “21 Most Common Family Heirlooms”, which was written by Linnea Crowther, Senior Writer at Legacy.com, on August 12, 2019, can be found at https://www.legacy.com/advice/21-most-common-family-heirlooms/ and I highly recommend checking it out! Interestingly, between the two of us, my husband and I have something from almost all of the 21 common heirlooms listed in the article, in some form.
However, one passage, regarding “heirloom recipes”, struck a particular chord close to home for me. It reads: “Recipes are a very special kind of family heirloom. While things like jewelry and furniture can only exist in one family member’s home at a time, everybody can conjure up memories of a lost loved one by cooking their heirloom recipes. The handwritten recipe cards are especially sentimental for many of us, as seeing that familiar handwriting brings back vivid memories even many years later.”
I certainly can relate to this one and many of my friends, who lost their mom’s too, can relate, as well! After Mom passed away, I got a lot of her albums and scrapbooks (as well as those of my grandmas that she had). I, personally, have scanned tons of photos, recipes, cards, letters, and other bits of our “family history”, which Mom and both of my grandmas felt were important enough to them to save; so that my siblings could have copies and share in the memories too.
As I’ve mentioned in my last two blog posts, June is Country Cooking Month. It is a fairly new observance, as it has only been around for the past few years – since 2017. Nonetheless, June seems to be a fitting choice, since it’s usually the first month when most people tend to spend more time with family – such as on vacations or at reunions, picnics, weddings, graduation parties and so on.
One common element among ALL of these family and friends events is food! We almost always get to enjoy some good, old-fashioned, country cooking from someone’s heirloom recipes. They are the “secret” recipes (and methods) of the family’s favorite dishes that are usually passed down from one generation to the next generation, with each one possibly adding a little of their own flavorings of memories and love into each serving. Heirloom recipes are what down-home, country cooking is all about! There is always some dish that goes over with a bang and everyone wants the recipe for it!
So much heart and soul and love goes into down-home, southern-style cooking! When I think of “country cooking”, I am reminded of the many satisfying, comfort foods I enjoyed while growing up as a daughter of the Recipe DetectiveTM, as well as those we enjoyed on special family trips to visit relatives in West Virginia. Some of the best foods we ate were either fried or barbecued or full of sugar!
The family reunions always included the best fried chicken! But let’s not forget to mention other country-style favorites like sweet iced tea, coleslaw, potato salad, corn-on-the-cob drenched in butter, peach cobbler, strawberry-rhubarb pie, and pecan pie! Like many people, my husband’s favorite country-style breakfast always includes a big meat-and-cheese-lovers omelet, with a large side of sausage gravy and biscuits!
As much as I love all of those “country-style” carbs, I can’t have them any longer. Over a year ago, I made a committed choice to live a low-carb lifestyle based on the Atkins Diet. Thus, as a daughter of the Recipe DetectiveTM, I’ve been going through some of my old, favorite recipes and developing my own new, favorite, low-carb imitations (a few I have shared in previous blog posts); which brings me to mention the following fun ideas for Country Cooking Month.
NationalToday.com suggests three great activities. First, they recommend taking your favorite “heirloom” recipe and putting your own personal, updated spin on it, for something new and exciting. (Check!) Second, they propose making your own recipe booklet out of your personal favorite “heirloom” recipes, with your own twists added. (Check!) Third, they endorse breaking out your grill or smoker and hosting an outdoor cookout. I was already working on the first two suggestions. But the third is something my husband and I enjoy doing every summer, in late July, for our anniversary. We’d like to make it a family reunion thing!
FROM MOM’S MEMORIES…
As seen in…
Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – The Best of the Recipe Detective (Balboa Press; Jan. 2018, pages 141-142)
BREAD-BAKING
In Great-Grandma’s day, baking bread was as much a part of a woman’s household routine as was the laundry or the dusting. In colonial days, bread was often the main dish, used like a sponge to soak up whatever broth or gravy might accompany a meager meal, which most of colonial cuisine consisted of on the frontier.
BREAD-BAKING has filled my house with the most delicious aromas – on those occasions when I have ventured into the catacombs of conscious cookery. I was taught by a grandmother who believed that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach; and, if you kept your man well-fed and loved and listened-to, everything else would fall into its proper place in perspective. Well, we can’t all be right all the time. Grandma tried.
Bread-baking was not the Elmer’s ‘Glue-All’ of my marital bliss and stability. In fact, on occasion, it might have threatened our harmony – considering that, before I learned a few chosen shortcuts to better baking, I could (at the drop of a hat) clutter the counter-tops with every bowl, dish, spoon, pan and ingredient possible! This, of course, necessitated having to ‘eat out’ on those nights when there was no place to prepare a deserving dinner at home.
It reminded me that somewhere there should be a clause in every cookbook warning young wives with old-fashioned morals about marriage that there are some things Mother never told us… Or if she did, I just wasn’t paying attention! In any case, I recommend cooking as being thoroughly therapeutic! Bread-baking includes the energetic kneading of the dough – which enables one to work off pent-up emotions that one cannot otherwise rid themselves of verbally.
Whenever I had problems to work out (which was like every other minute or so) I would either be in the kitchen, cooking something, or at the typewriter, writing about cooking something! Kneading a large batch of yeast dough is a great way to unwind and relieve tensions. Of course, it didn’t always solve my problems, since most of them were directly related to my finding my utensils, which I had to locate before I could start relieving myself of unwanted tensions. I’ll bet I was the only woman on the block who had to sift through the kids’ sandbox before I could set the table or bake a loaf of bread!
THE SECRET OF GOOD BREAD is in the kneading and rising. If given enough time, bread will rise anywhere – in the refrigerator, on the sink top, in a dark closet! The more you allow the dough to rise, until it is doubled in bulk, and the more you punch it back down again to let it rise once more, the better the texture. Not enough salt in the dough will make it course. Too much shortening will make it heavy. Not enough shortening will make it dry. Eggs will make it soft like a coffee cake. No eggs at all will make it spongy like old-fashioned bread. Homemade bread can be anything you want it to be, depending on the amount of time and effort you put into it.
The kitchen has always seemed to be my family’s center hub. The place where we all gathered, ate, laughed, talked about the events of our days, made plans for our future, and created happy memories. I have a sign in my kitchen that reads: “There’s a room in every home where the smallest events and biggest occasions become the stories of our lives.” Ours is usually the kitchen!
MORE FROM MOM’S MEMORIES…
As seen in…
Eating Out At Home Cookbook (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; Sep. 1981, 12th Printing, p. 25)
LIVING AT HOME
(A story by Gloria Pitzer, based on family folklore.)
CROOKED PATH was a mid-western, sage brush hamlet, settled shortly before the Civil War by pioneers in covered wagons. Grandma was born there a few years after the war – the oldest daughter of her father’s second marriage.
Fortunately, for Grandma, her father dabbled in a little of this, a little of that; owning the saloon in town, a boarding house, and the town’s mercantile [store]. Her diary tells how she learned to cook at the boarding house, where she met Grandpa, who was renting a room there.
He married her in the parlor – much against her parents’ better judgement. On her 16th birthday and 17th birthday, they were blessed with the births their first two of eleven children – six boys and five girls. We were never quite certain what work Grandpa was in, but it took them from the plains of Nebraska to Ohio, to West Virginia and, eventually, to Michigan, with abbreviated residencies in Pennsylvania and Indiana.
From her ‘Recipe Journal’ notes, it seemed clear that Grandma’s ‘Back Door Bakery’ supported the family’s income rather substantially for many years. Grandpa was probably a professional handyman from what we’ve been able to piece together from Grandma’s ‘Recipe Journal’. She made meticulous notes on recipes, to the effect: ‘This is the pie I baked from the California lemons that Gus Maxwell gave Pa for fixing his plow.’
[Another entry said:] ‘The hens Pa got in payment for the book cases he made for Judge Burns made a fine stew, good soup, and six loaves of chicken sausage.’ [And another said:] ‘The sack of brown sugar Yostman gave Pa for mortaring up his stove pipes made a good caramel pie – sent to ailing Bessie Forbes, down the road.’
From studying the quill-pen entries, I gather that work was the most essential part of life 80 years ago. By contrast, today’s workmanship is inferior to anything produced by the craftsman of yesterday. I wonder why people, today, are so unhappy with their own work – as if the tedium of labor is not really the problem; and isn’t it typical that those who hold work to be without value are, themselves, empty? To imply, today, that work is without meaning is actually to also imply that life is without meaning – which most of our social influences do rather thoroughly.
Grandma’s cookery appears to let nothing go to waste. The broth from Judge Burns’ hens also made the gravy for the stew, the meat portion made the sausage and the bones from the carcass were ground fine and buried in the vegetable plot in the back of the firewood shed.
Apparently, Grandma and Grandpa were considered among the prosperous of their community because they were productive, although, never wealthy. At least, we do know that they were indeed happy. But the definition of ‘happiness’ in Grandma’s own handwriting was: ‘Happiness sometimes comes from ignorance – from not knowing how much better our life might be.’
One of the aunts confided that Grandma placed great importance upon the strength of her family and the respect they gave their father because her own life, with her parents, was less than memorable. Her life centered around her family – the heart of which seemed to be the kitchen. Their nourishment, however, was not [solely] food but [also] love that came from ‘actions’ rather than lip service!
‘The healing meadows of memory lift more than spirits.’ – Unknown
SPECIAL NOTE: For the strawberry jam, in the above recipe, try Mom’s freezer jam recipe below, which she learned from my dad’s mom (my grandma)! And, for the pie shell, I highly recommend Mom’s personal favorite heirloom recipe, from her own mom (my grandma), for “Butter Pie Crust”, which follows the jam recipe, below.
P.S. Food-for-thought until we meet again, next Monday…
