Early Stories – Page 3 – writinghersense

A Winter’s Day

Snow days are not what they used to be for me, and for most adults, I think. This winter has been extra-super-awful so far, all across the country for the most part. It’s rare for businesses to shut down and for the governor to say, “Stay off the roads!” So most of us have to try to get to work through the aftermath of snowstorms or spend hours in traffic (or on stalled trains) trying to get home. I end up tired, cranky and sore from shoveling my car out of its parking spot.

When I was a child in Tennessee snow days were a rare treat. Even an ice storm was welcome as long as the power didn’t stay off very long. If we got one or two per winter we were thrilled. Mother always said, “You won’t be so glad when you have to stay in school this summer,” but summer was far away. A day out of the normal routine was well worth making up in May.

Once the snow stopped falling we usually managed to get out and visit my aunts and uncles on the neighboring farms. Daddy’s truck could go most anywhere once he put the chains on. He made sure everyone had groceries and would make runs to the little store at Stringtown, which never closed for anything (except the owner’s whim.)

Often Aunt Eunice would have us up for lunch, for her version of chili spaghetti, made in a crock pot. Don’t ask! It bore no resemblance to either dish, but it was tasty and warming on a cold day. Mother and Daddy would then play Rook with Aunt Eunice and Uncle Tip, while I read a book. Then we would slowly grind our way down the hill in low gear all the way home, the chains on the tires smacking the pavement.

If it was cold enough I would get to let our dog in the garage for the night, which was a huge thrill for him. Normally he slept in his doghouse, or in warm weather he slept in a hollow he dug below my bedroom window. He was never allowed in the house per se. Mother thought having animals indoors was dirty and was impervious to pleading on this subject.

I remember getting up early the next day and listening to the radio to see if school would be out again. I don’t think we ever got more than a couple of days in a row. So I’d have to get bundled up and stand out at the bus stop in the dark, waiting for the sun to come up and the bus to come. Back to normal again–with hopes for another snow day soon.

Shopping on Christmas Eve

My dad always bought our Christmas presents on Christmas Eve. This was before online shopping, so people did actually shop in stores (as some still do.) I’m not sure why he waited until then, but it may have had to do with not having the money until he was paid, which seemed to happen right before Christmas. Once or twice Mother put money in a Christmas club at the bank (now there’s another antique concept!) but usually our Christmas was dependent on credit at the store and Daddy’s paycheck.

I made a Christmas list, being careful not to ask for anything I knew we couldn’t afford, or at least, as far as I knew. Sometimes Daddy’s perception of what fit the bill was a little off. One year I asked for a guitar, and I got a plastic one from Santa Claus. Ooops! Not what I had in mind. But I was grateful and started learning chords. The next Christmas Mother made sure I got the real thing, a 1968 Sears Silvertone Spanish acoustic guitar, so I could look mournful and sing “Where Have All the Flowers Gone,” an essential for any moody teenager at that point.

Sometimes Daddy got taken with a toy himself. At least that’s the only way I can explain receiving a Charley Weaver Bartender mechanical toy when I was pretty small (see photo above, from an eBay seller.) He was a character on Jack Paar’s Tonight show, invented and played by Cliff Arquette, telling old jokes and stories about “Mount Idy” and its residents. In later years he was on the Hollywood Squares, and a heavy user of double entendres.

My family was teetotaling Southern Baptist. So it was a little odd to get a Charley Weaver toy which shook a cocktail shaker, downed the “drink,” then turned red and spouted smoke from its ears! If only I had kept that thing–it’s worth up to $200 on eBay at this point.

So to all my family and friends who are celebrating Christmas, have a merry one! And I hope your shopping is done.

Pecan Pie Recipe, With a Bit of Serendipity

I recently found a pecan pie recipe online which was a little lighter than the classic Karo syrup recipe. I made it a couple of times, then I began changing it up a bit. The first time I added more pecans–I’m sorry, 1/2 cup is not enough for any respectable pie. Then I went to bake it, found I was short on maple syrup and dark corn syrup (Karo), and had to improvise. The changed-up recipe is a new favorite!

I’ll give you both the basic and supercharged versions. The basic version is still plenty sweet, but is lighter and has a faint maple flavor. The supercharged gets depth from a little molasses and is mellowed by the blend of corn syrups. Using an egg white gives a lighter texture to both versions. My friends say the little-bit-of-molasses version brings out the flavor of the pecans and goes well with a sip of brandy. I’ll let you be the judge of that.

Pecan Pie, Two Versions

9 inch pie shell, or your favorite bottom-only crust, unbaked

1 cup dark corn syrup and 1/4 cup maple syrup, OR 3/4 cup dark corn syrup, 1/4 cup light corn syrup, 1/8 cup maple syrup and 1/8 cup molasses (not black strap)

2 tablespoons all purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 large eggs

1 large egg white

1 cup chopped pecans

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place the syrups and ingredients through egg white in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended. Stir in pecans and vanilla. Pour into prepared crust. Bake at 350 degrees until center is puffed and edges are brown, about 50 minutes. I usually cover the edges of the crust with foil at the 30-minute point to keep them from browning too much. Cool on a wire rack.

Winter Blues

It’s a melancholy day here. I can’t believe it’s snowing this early in December. And it’s snow mixed with freezing rain, forecast to turn to black ice later tonight. Too miserable to go out, but I’m restless inside.

When I was growing up in Tennessee snow was a rare occurance, and greeted with delight. A snow day! We got to stay home from school! I remember one storm when I was small that left over a foot of snow, something that almost never happened. My brother went out sled riding with his friends and got run over by one of the boys. The sled runner must have been sharp because it sliced his knee open and he had to have stitches.

Ice storms were more common. They were actually frightening because the power could go out in addition to the roads getting slick. Once when I was home from college there was a massive ice storm and the power was out for a few days. Mother cooked on the wood-burning stove in the garage, and Daddy hauled water up from the well since the pump couldn’t work without electricity. It was so cold that Mother even let my German shepherd come in the garage with us. He was rarely allowed to come inside since Mother thought having pets in the house was low-class and dirty. Poor Chico was so happy! He always wanted to be an indoor pet, despite his size.

In recent years we’ve had ice storms here, which used to be uncommon. One of my friends calls it “global weirding,” to explain the more violent weather we seem to get. Big parts of Connecticut were without power for weeks due to tree branches taking down power lines.

So I guess a relatively mild snow and ice event is nothing to complain about. Still, I feel grumpy and blue. So I’ll post a picture of a Christmas tree and go watch some cat videos. Light activities for dark days! Any hints for cheering yourself up in the winter weather are welcome!

Not Quite a Recipe: Cornbread and Biscuit Dressing

I wanted this to be a recipe but realized I don’t have any quantities, so this is more a description of a recipe, or a memory. My mother made the best cornbread dressing ever. She did not believe in stuffing a turkey or chicken, feeling that the stuffing took much longer to cook and that it was unlikely to get done and be safe to eat. I know a lot of people are fond of stuffing, but not my family! So the way we always had it was baked separately in a pan, after the turkey was done and was resting.

Here’s what I recall went in it:

1 skillet cornbread (homemade), crumbled

1 pan biscuits (either homemade or canned), crumbled

1 or 2 onions

celery

boiled eggs, chopped, I think about 4

salt

pepper

poultry seasoning

sage (just a little, she did not like too strong a sage flavor)

some juice from the cooked bird to stick it all together and make it soft

maybe a little bacon grease or melted butter to give flavor (margarine, in those days)

All this was mixed up in a huge bowl. Then she spread it on a baking sheet with sides or another roasting pan, and baked it in the oven, I think at 350 degrees, until browned.

Mother also made gravy to pour over it, from the pan drippings, the giblets and neck (which she sauteed and chopped), more onion, celery, butter, salt and pepper.

I was always pleased when we had chicken and dressing, and the dressing was my favorite part of Thanksgiving. We always ate it until we felt sick the next day, because Mother insisted on throwing out the leftover dressing after Friday. She thought it wasn’t safe to keep because of the eggs.

So I’m remembering my mother, and wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving! I’m grateful for my family, my friends, my cat and all my other blessings.

Day of the Dead: Remembering the Food They Loved

Day of the Dead, or Dia de los Muertos, is celebrated in Mexico after Halloween to honor the spirits of their ancestors. Family members and friends gather to pray for and remember family and friends who have died. Families prepare special breads, cakes and candies to honor the day, the familiar skulls and skeleton shapes you may have seen. They also cook favorite foods of their loved ones and have a feast in honor of them.

This season made me try to remember the favorite foods and meals of the family members I have lost. Some are easy to remember. Aunt Eunice, one of Daddy’s sisters, loved the creamed corn that Mother would cook in the summer. Fresh corn just picked from the garden, creamed and cooked with a little bacon grease in an iron skillet just until it stuck a bit–what’s not to love? Sometimes Aunt Eunice loved it too much and would actually get sick from eating so much.

Daddy had a lot of different dishes that he loved. For some reason, today I remembered how he liked buttermilk and cornbread. He would crumble cornbread fresh from the oven into a large glass, then pour buttermilk over it and eat it with a spoon, drinking the last few bites like a corn mush. He was also fond of fried chicken with mashed potatoes and brown gravy, as well as slices of country ham fried in the skillet and served with biscuits and red-eye gravy.

Mother loved anything she didn’t have to cook, since she spent much of her time growing vegetables, canning, freezing, making preserves and pickles, and cooking our meals. Don’t let anyone tell you this homemade stuff was fun to do–it was hard, tedious labor. The fruits of her labor were delicious, but it was hard work. So she adored eating out, especially going to the Pic-a-Rib for pit (pork) barbecue after church on Sunday. She also liked being invited to other people’s houses for dinner. It was a big treat when Aunt Eunice would do a fish fry and have us over, or when Aunt Mattie Lou (one of Mother’s sisters) would invite us and make her fabulous biscuits. They were kind of a thorn in Mother’s side, however, because she could never get her biscuits as light.

Uncle Preston (one of Daddy’s brothers) had a special treat he adored. Back in the day, fresh seafood was nonexistent in our area. Whenever anyone went to Florida or anywhere on the Gulf Coast, he would ask them to bring back a bucket of oysters in salt water. With luck, most of the oysters would survive the trip. Aunt Mary Emma would dip them in cornmeal and deep fry them.

You’ll notice most of this was fried and pretty high in salt and fat. In recent years this has come to be known as the Southern stroke diet, it is so highly correlated with strokes and heart disease. At least at our house the ingredients were mostly unprocessed and fresh, although a lot of salt went into preserving that country ham.

Aunt Geneva’s coconut pie (a custard one, not cream), Mother’s chess pie, my grandfather’s favorite country ham, boiled in a lard stand in the back yard–and always biscuits and cornbread, it all brings home back to me. So on this chilly fall night I think of the ones who are gone, I miss them, and I remember what they loved.

Happy New School Year

The start of the school year always feels like the beginning of a new year to me, even though it’s been many years since I boarded that school bus or headed off to college. September is a time of reflection and remembering as autumn moves in and summer dissolves like the early morning mists. But there’s still the hope that it’s not too late to plot a new course, try something new, find a better way to go forward.

As a small child in the South, the weather was still punishingly hot when we started school in August, and schools were not air-conditioned. My main concern then was school clothes. Girls were not allowed to wear pants (can you imagine?) so we wore “dark cotton” dresses, usually plaids in fall colors but made of cotton so we weren’t too hot. School supplies involved having the correct pencils, tablets and crayons so you could carry out your assigned tasks. No computers, book bags or backpacks!

Elementary school was both a delight and a punishment to me. I never fit in from the very beginning because I had learned to read, write and do basic math at home, so I arrived in first grade ready for second grade. My mother was adamant that the school should not make me skip a grade because I was small, shy and among the youngest in the class. So for the first three years of elementary school I sat in the back of the class and did my own work for the next grade, only joining the rest for art, music, phys ed and math. I never really felt like part of the group, even in later years when I was “tracked in” and joined the rest of the class.

But I learned. I made friends, I got along, I kept working to learn new things and do better. I wanted to make my parents proud, and I wanted a college scholarship. All those things came true, and I am grateful. This was the foundation of the life I’ve had since then.

At this point in my life back-to-school just marks the end of summer. But it still feels like a time of possibilities and new plans. Here’s to the new year: It’s never too late to learn and grow. My wish for us all is health, prosperity and curiosity!

Summer Tomato Salad

Now that summer is winding down, tomatoes are at their best. I am grateful to my friend who has shared her homegrown tomatoes with me! Here is a recipe for tomato salad, with a couple of variations, to take advantage of them at their juiciest and ripest.

The salad will have the best flavor if you use a mix of different kinds–heirloom tomatoes preferred, and include yellow ones, striped ones, and cherry or grape tomatoes. This recipe was inspired by Jamie Oliver’s “Mothership Tomato Salad,” but I changed it a bit. His calls for dried oregano, which I’m not crazy about, and a fresh red chile. I use fresh basil instead, and no chile. Feel free to experiment! The cucumber is optional. I’ve made it with and without; both versions have their virtues.

Enjoy the end of summer…..

Summer Tomato Salad

2 1/4 lbs. mixed ripe tomatoes, different shapes and colors, or less than 2 lbs. tomatoes and 1 cucumber

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Several leaves of fresh basil, to taste

Red wine or balsamic vinegar

Extra-virgin olive oil

1 clove garlic, peeled and grated (or use the minced in oil kind, which comes bottled)

Slice up the tomatoes, some in chunks, some in quarters, and some in half if they are small like cherry tomatoes. Put them in a colander and season with a good pinch of sea salt. Give them a toss, season again with sea salt, and toss again. The salt won’t be drawn into the tomatoes, so don’t worry that the salad will be too salty!

Let the tomatoes sit in the colander for 15 minutes and throw away any juice that drains out. Transfer the tomatoes to a large bowl. If you’re adding a cucumber, cut it in thin slices or small chunks and toss in with the tomatoes. Cut up the basil into strips (kitchen scissors are good for this) and add to the bowl. Toss all this a bit.

Make a vinaigrette of 1 part vinegar to 2 parts oil and the garlic. Add the dressing and toss lightly to coat the salad. Add fresh ground black pepper to taste.

This would be terrific with some mozzarella or some rustic bread.

Summer Vacations

Some of my friends have jetted off to exotic places, and others are staying home and picnicking at outdoor concerts, going to dance performances and generally enjoying summer stay-cations. I have been remembering vacations in my childhood. We couldn’t afford to fly anywhere, much less to stay in a motel (remember motels?), so our vacations were either day trips or long drives to visit more distant relatives.

One trip we made many times was from our home in Tennessee through Kentucky to Ohio, to visit my oldest sister and her young family. This was in the early days of the interstate highway system, and Kentucky was pretty low on the priority list for completion. I think we went KY 68 much of the way, and finally got to the Bluegrass Parkway, a toll road.

The route was mostly two-lane blacktop highways with the occasional passing lane. The roads wound around the hills and hollows, passing through towns like Horse Cave and near Mammoth Cave National Park. I was in the back seat, trying not to get carsick as our un-airconditioned car swerved around the curves. Daddy liked to drive fast, and Mother was constantly front-seat-driving from the passenger side. “George! You’re making me nervous!” was her frequent cry.

From www.stuckeys.com — From http://www.stuckeys.com

My favorite part of the trip was stopping at Stuckey’s. Any Southern or Midwestern road warriors will remember them. Often they were the only place to get snacks and gasoline on these highways winding from one one-horse town to another. Their claim to fame was the famous Pecan Log Roll. Stuckey’s also sold the driest, nastiest pralines on the face of the earth, but we thought they were great since we’d never had the real thing.

It was a tremendous treat to stop there, look at all the tourist junk, and maybe get a candy bar or a piece of pecan divinity. I coveted the small figurines of horses made of ceramic or plastic–I was into collecting horses and reading horse stories at that time. They also sold novelty goods like cups that spilled on you, and I think I remember comic books.

We’d get Cokes to go with Mother’s box lunches (another big treat, since Cokes were forbidden at home), park in the shade, and gas up and hit the restrooms before getting back on the road again. A road trip, indeed!

Generations of Irises

My mother was always fond of flowers. Wherever we lived, she planted bulbs and weeded flower beds. Our yard was never elaborate or manicured, and she certainly never read gardening books or drew plans. But I remember four o’clocks which bloomed in the evening shade, and beds of zinnias and marigolds scorching in the summer sun. She planted tiger lilies on the edges of the back yard at the house we lived in when I was in elementary school and phlox clinging to a rocky outcropping by the kitchen door.

When we moved to the farm someone gave Mother several varieties of irises. Some of them were the classic purple ones which are the state flower of Tennessee. Others had huge blossoms in unusual colors, including peach. They were the last of the bulbs to bloom each spring (technically speaking, they grew from rhizomes) and gave us a week or two of glory before the heat set in. In order to keep them blooming year after year, the rhizomes have to be thinned out. Mother gave some to my sister Sherrie, who planted them in her yard. As recently as three years ago they were still blossoming.

I’m not sure how some of Sherrie’s rhizomes got to my niece Judy in Ohio, but they did. The photo is of a peach-colored iris blooming in Judy’s yard this spring. She has two plants that still come up and flower, descendants of the original stock that was planted in the late ’60s on our farm. Out of those roots….maybe they will last long enough to provide rhizomes for another generation, another yard, more springs.

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