If you haven’t read Anne’s Blog you might enjoy her July 23 entry from 2006 and the current reference. She had some interesting reader comments as well. We all enjoy doing our special things on July 23 as you can see. It will always be a holiday for us.
Anne goes shopping for flannel, Joe does something related to baseball, Marge does something musical (or maybe a number of musical things) and I bake a pie with her pie crust recipe.
Usually I make a peach pie, but this year I had to make some adjustments. Due to the drought in the southeast, the peaches aren’t the best this year but more importantly, we thought we’d be out of town on July 23rd. So I made a coconut cream pie for our lunch with Scott’s family. He took a photo that will be on their upcoming video on Waun.net. The really fun part is thinking about Mother during these activities. All four of us enjoy it immensely.
The Chicago baby has not yet arrived, but Kate and David assure us that he’ll be born soon! They have not forgotten about this project!
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9 comments:
Karen, thanks for the reminder to revisit Anne's sewing blog. I enjoyed reading it all again today. I'm glad you made the pie, your usual activity on July 23. It's nice to have all these traditions. I don't have a special annual tradition, but I do concentrate on prayers throughout the day and feel like I'm actually having a little "visit" with Mother. I wasn't able to get Mass yesterday until noon as I was downtown working at the Women's Shelter all day. I was able to race over to the Cathedral only about 4 blocks from the shelter. I love being able to go there when I'm working. The cathedral is old and dark, but it's nice to be there with so many elderly, tourists, etc., all of whom I don't know. But, that's where I thought that I'd relate a story about music and Mother. So glad we've all had so many loving thoughts of her, especially yesterday. Thanks to all of you for your responses and photos. One of these days we'll sit down and actually post some pictures!!
Interesting, but just by coincidence, Allison was making her peach cobbler dessert last night, with the recipe directly out of the blue Kitchen Klatter cookbook that Grandma gave me when I went away to college. I didn't make the connection with the date and the cookbook until I saw your comment, Karen, about baking the pie, but there it is!
John, I didn't know that you still have that cook book! Allison will find some great recipes there...you know, good ol' farm-style cookin'. How was the peach cobbler? Did she use fresh peaches?
How typical of her---to give John Dean, the cool college freshman, a copy of the Kitchen-Klatter Cookbook!! I'll be laughing all evening about that one!
BUT note that the recipes in KK are for the mid-western tastes and taste best with a bit of vanilla ice cream!
The peach cobbler was delicious, according to my sources within the family. She made one last Friday and it was gone within an hour, and so she made another one Monday night which also didn't last long. I didn't have any myself as I'm not a dessert person, but the three others on our panel loved it.
She did not use fresh peaches, though, since the ones we saw in the store did not look quite up to par. I hope Grandma would forgive her use of cold Del Monte peaches slices in the glass jar.
I was actually quite touched by her gift of the cookbook, and that's why I've kept it all these years. I imagined her picturing me in a co-op house near campus, standing in a kitchen cooking up a casserole for seven guys wearing college sweaters with a gold letter on the front, who are all waiting patiently at a clean table with napkins and placemats for me to serve the evening's repast.
I do remember using the cookbook twice in college, once for home-made breakfast potatoes, and once for a sugar cookie recipe. The cookies were good, enjoyed by all, but the potatoes came out crunchy, kind of like eating carrots. It turns out you have to cook the spuds first before frying them in Crisco. You'd think a college student with a Kitchen Klatter cookbook would have known that.
John, this is so interesting. Mother would be incredibly happy to know that Allison is using the cookbook! She knew that some day you'd really enjoy it!!
I just did a Googgle search and found that you can buy the KK Cookbook (very rare) for $125!! We all have 'em and we're not sellin' Let the price go up more!
Karen
http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/ListingDetails?bi=543257925
Thanks for the link, Karen. The description on the website is exactly the one I have.. light blue, black spiral-bound. Mine is the 1983 edition, though, so maybe it's a little different. I think the one they had up there was the 1975 edition. No matter.
Mine is not in perfect condition, though, as it's stained along the sides of many pages from some long-forgotten cooking mishap of mine.. like mixing lemon juice with baking soda. Don't try that at home, kids.
But along those lines, Karen, did you ever do experiments in your chemistry classes with corn starch? Allison used some for her peach cobbler and I remembered our Chem teacher, Mr. O'Shaughnessy, telling us about how you can mix a box of it with skim milk or something and then turn it into a liquid, or solid, or some other substance just by moving it around. I'm sure you have some insight on that!
Good to know I wasn't the only one baking the last few days. On Sunday night I made a fresh blueberry/rhubarb pie. Although I have my own pie crust recipe it was still great. I remember always helping g'ma make cookies over on g street. It was my job to roll the balls in the sugar before they were baked. It was always fun to help out now whenever I see Mo we make ginger snaps and Mo has moved up to sugar roller. Love you Grandma.
I actually own the 1975 edtion as it was a gift when we were first married. I still use it for several recipes and would never get rid of it, even for $125. It is a hoot to read. One of my favorite recipes is one that involves cooked rice, leftover pork roast ("as much as you can get your hands on"), cooked celery, and the water from cooking the celery. Layer it all, top with toasted almonds and bake. I think that it is "extra delicious" or some such decripter. Living large. It is plain to see that many of those recipes go back to times when money was tight and meat had to be stretched over several meals.
I haven't baked anything exciting lately except zucchini bread with two 3 year olds helping. Perhaps that does qualifies as exciting.
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