Photo from Wikimedia Commons, Flickr uploadI was hunting for a topic to write about today and decided to look through Mother’s recipe cards for inspiration. Baptist pound cake is a recipe I remember using when I was in high school, and as a fallback dessert when a pie wouldn’t do as I got older. It’s similar to bourbon cake, but without the whiskey (hence Baptist!). It’s moist and dense, and is super with fresh strawberries or other fruit.
The recipe card is pretty old. It was nice to see Mother’s handwriting again–leans slightly to the right, not too loopy or feminine, very clear and easy to read. As she got older her writing deteriorated. Cursive writing is becoming a lost art. At least the pound cake recipe still survives on its yellowed index card.
Baptist Pound Cake
1/2 cup shortening (Mother recommends Crisco–not sure what to substitute)
1 stick of margarine or butter
3 cups sugar
5 eggs
3 cups plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
Cream butter and shortening with sugar. Add one egg at a time, beating well after each addition. In a separate bowl, sift flour, add baking powder. Add milk and the flour mixture alternately to the creamed mixture. Pour into a prepared tube pan (use Pam for baking, or butter the interior lightly and shake flour to coat.) Put into a COLD oven. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour 15 minutes.
Photo by Oddman47. Not the guy in my post!I live in a small town in the Hudson Valley, not in the big city, although it isn’t far away. Most of the people who live here commute to New York City or work for a company nearby, and a few work for the people who live in the area. It’s become increasingly more expensive over the years, both for real estate and the cost of living. So the people who live here are less working-class than they were 20 years ago.
On the other hand, there is a wider variety of ethnic groups than there were several years ago–everybody isn’t Irish or Italian any more (although plenty still are.) But people tend to be prosperous and suburban. You don’t see women with multi-colored hair or men with multiple piercings. We’ve started to see bushy beards and tattoo sleeves as hipsters have started moving in to raise families.
There’s one guy who is different. He’s lived here for several years. He is big, brawny, with long grey hair and a grey beard. He looks like he ought to be riding a Harley. Except he wears a skirt.
He is not the least bit effeminate. He wears athletic socks and running shoes, flannel shirts in winter and voluminous dress shirts or t-shirts in the summer. And he wears them with a pleated or gathered skirt, sometimes in denim, sometimes in a lighter cotton fabric. Once I saw him in a wool kilt, but only the once. His skirts generally come just below his knees, so he can walk along with an easy stride. Sometimes in the summer he wears a broad-brimmed straw hat, like people wear in the tropics for sun protection. So far as I can tell, he doesn’t wear jewelry or makeup.
I have seen him walking along the sidewalk with grocery bags, by the main road that runs through the river towns. I saw him on a winter day picking his way along the sidewalk through the snow. In a flannel shirt and a gathered skirt.
Every time I’ve seen him I was driving, so I’ve never had a chance to ask him what his story is. I’m not sure I could be rude enough to do that, anyway. Does he find pants constricting? Does he sew his skirts himself? They’re pretty big, like him, so I don’t know exactly where he could buy them ready-made. Is this some kind of political stand against sex roles as defined by clothing?
Whatever his reasons, I admire the way he does what he wants without regard for public opinion. I hope no one hassels him for wearing his skirts. And I’d love to know why he does it.
Photo from ohiostatehouse.orgI was very sorry to hear that Neil Armstrong died on Saturday. I’ve had a number of where-were-you-when moments in my life so far, and most of the ones I remember most vividly are the tragedies, not the triumphs. But the walk on the moon in 1969 was almost impossible to believe, even though I saw it with my own eyes, and was so inspirational! I really felt there was nothing the American people could not do.
My sister Juanita and her family were staying with Mother, Daddy and me on the farm that July. We had all been eagerly following the news as the Apollo 11 spacecraft reached the moon and went into orbit. Juanita’s husband, Larry, was an Army officer, a helicopter pilot, and he was nearly beside himself with excitement.
The moonwalk was going to be later that night, and we made plans to stay up and watch it. This was history being made. And we could watch it on TV! It was going to be a late night for me, as an early-to-bed teenager, so I was excited by that alone, much less for the first man to walk on the moon.
Juanita put her small sons to bed, and the five of us sat in the living room under the drone of the air conditioner, spread out on the couch, chairs and the floor (for me.) We watched the blurry black-and-white video stream as the Eagle landed, and waited what seemed like hours for the walk on the moon. Finally, at nearly 10 p.m. Central time, NASA Mission Control and the TV reporters announced that Neil Armstrong was going to leave the lunar lander.
Larry ran out of the living room and pulled the boys out of bed. He carried them, clinging to him and full of sleep, and put them on the couch. “What are you doing?” Juanita said. “They’re too small to remember this.”
“They can say they saw it, even if they don’t remember,” Larry said. The boys soon drifted off to sleep again on the couch. Larry rode one of the couch cushions and punched it in his excitement. Mother and Daddy seemed stunned. That the world could hold this!
So today I am remembering Neil Armstrong and his “one small step for a man.” He did not behave like a hotshot flyboy; he was modest, low-key, and a test pilot who changed history.
We watched the landing and the moonwalk on CBS, being loyal watchers of Walter Cronkite, but here is video of the original footage, from ABC News:
Summer doesn’t officially end until the autumnal equinox on September 22, but for most of us Labor Day weekend spells the end of summer. My teacher friends are already going back to work! So this is a short recap of inexpensive summer pleasures. I hope you’ve already enjoyed most of them. If not, you have two weeks!
Pedicures. There’s something about bright toenails that always cheers me up. Getting your nails done is cheap in my area. But I spent many a day in my youth with Revlon or Sally Hanson products, striving for the perfect red. Boys, please don’t do polish unless it’s black!
Homegrown tomatoes. The season is peaking here, but it won’t last much longer anywhere. Get ’em from your neighbor, get ’em from a farm stand, but don’t miss that juicy flavor. A childhood favorite: Sandwich with toasted white bread, mayonnaise, thick slices of tomato, sprinkle with salt and pepper. Add bacon to that, and you have heaven on earth. Purely southern edition: Hot biscuit with butter and thick slice of tomato, salted and peppered.
Re-read a favorite book. Some of my friends think this is crazy, but I count a summer wasted that doesn’t include either Pride and Prejudice or Persuasion. Romance novels and Agatha Christies count as well–whatever makes you feel relaxed and good.
Ride a bike. Not a racing bike with all the paraphernalia, just a plain old bike like a beach cruiser with coaster brakes. It’ll make you feel like a kid again.
See a movie in an actual movie theater. Bonus points if you can find a drive-in and stay awake through the feature!
Go to one last free outdoor concert. Especially since the heat has finally broken, it’s a great time to hear music in the open air. This is a pleasure that definitely disappears when fall draws in. It’s extra fun if you can bring a picnic, especially one that doesn’t take a lot of work.
Baseball. They don’t call them the Boys of Summer for nothing. If you’re not a baseball fan, then watch anyone do something that requires them to run around in the hot sun (and you to watch.)
Get one small thing that reminds you of this summer, whether it’s a photo, a postcard or a picture torn out of a magazine, and put it on your refrigerator or bulletin board. Do not look at it until the first rainy day in November.
Let me know if there are any other pleasures I forgot. Grilled hot dogs? Watermelon? Kickball? And enjoy the remaining days before the leaves begin to fall.
This may sound strange, but I think the best year of my life so far was when I was five years old. I was the youngest in the family and everybody’s little princess.
My sister Juanita spoiled me terribly. Her senior year in college, when I was five, she got a small, white, rather ancient Austin Healey convertible. She liked to dress me up and drive around campus with me riding shotgun. Her friends and boyfriends always clustered around the little car whenever we stopped.
Juanita got me a library card when I was five. I had already learned to read, so this accelerated my love of books. When she graduated and got a job as a secretary and bookkeeper, she bought dresses for me. I remember a green one with white puffed sleeves and white embroidery, vaguely like a German peasant dress. She took me to her hairdresser for my pixie cut.
Juanita even wrote to Miss Norma who was on the Romper Room children’s TV show in Nashville, so Miss Norma would see me through her Magic Mirror and call my name. I thought Juanita was beautiful, with her tiny waist, short dark hair and blue eyes, and her party dresses, frothy with crinolines.
My sister Sherrie, who is 9 years older than me, played school with me, so besides knowing how to read I had basic math down as well. She was patient with me most of the time, which was especially meaningful since we shared a bedroom and she was a teenager. She moaned when I woke her up at 3 a.m. on Christmas Day, but she got up with me to see if Santa Claus had come.
My brother Gil was more problematic. He got me to quit sucking my thumb by convincing me it would turn purple and fall off if I didn’t stop. He also liked to use me as a human shield when he and Sherrie were fighting. But how annoying is a five-year-old to a 12-year-old boy?
The fun was over in late August of that year, when school started. I went into first grade as a five-year-old turning six in October, among the youngest, smallest and most scared in my class. And I stuck out like a sore thumb because I’d already done all the first grade work. My teacher gave me second grade work to do, by myself, and I joined the class for arts and crafts and recess. No wonder I cried to stay at home!
Eventually (in second grade) I got over the strain of being alone and different in school. Mother bribed with a Madame Alexander doll to go to school and stay there. So life went on. And I grew to love school, do well, and fit in. But I still remember playing school with Sherrie and riding around in that Austin Healey. At least I got to be a princess for a year!
Photo by Alan CleaverI have an emerging alarm clock crisis. This is not an issue, I find, that most people deal with these days. Kids use their mobile phones as alarm clocks, as well as wristwatches, and have just about made those timepieces obsolete. Watches only survive as fashion items and status symbols among the young crowd. The bedside clock has become a charging stand for your iPhone or iPod.
However, some of us still like to have an alarm clock on the nightstand. My problem is that I want an analog, silent, not-illuminated alarm clock with hands that glow faintly in the dark–in short, I still want the G.E. electric alarm clock I have had since I was in high school decades ago.
My parents gave me that clock so I could be responsible for getting myself up and on the school bus at the crack of dawn. They were up, too, but the idea was that I needed to learn to do it myself, because they would not be there to get me up when I went away to college. I was never a heavy sleeper, so one buzzing alarm was enough. I carried the clock with me to college and after, and never saw the need to replace it. Clock radios? I didn’t want to hear music at that hour, much less talk. Battery operated? Only if I had to travel. I never thought about the little clock at all. I realized this is the last remaining appliance my parents gave me. Pretty amazing when you think about it.
I love this clock and it has served me well, but the alarm seems to be wearing out. It just hums now instead of giving a full-out buzz. Frankly, at its age, I can understand, and most days a hum is enough. But what if I really need it to wake me? So I started on a search for another clock this weekend.
I know you’re thinking, why not just get a digital clock and shut up about it? The answer, my friends, is the amount of light those blasted LEDs put out. When I sleep in a hotel room, I cover the standard bedside LED clock-radio with pillows to block the light. I need it dark to sleep! Okay, so why not get a clock that you have to push a button to illuminate? Well, unfortunately, I wake up a lot in the night, and I think that Indiglo is disruptive. And I’d have to reach over the cat to hit it, most of the time, which would certainly wake me up all the way. How much simpler it was when I slept like a log through almost anything!
I bought two different clocks this weekend and returned them both. One had all the attributes I wanted, except it was battery-operated and ticked so loudly it could wake the dead. The other was silent, but had a light-sensitive face that immediately illuminated in the dark and couldn’t be turned off. So I searched Amazon and finally googled every attribute I wanted. The Seiko is in the mail, and we’ll see if it performs. If not, I may have to enter the age of iPod/iPhone as alarm clock, but I will be unhappy!
MotherI was feeling a bit down today, and decided to cook a bit in an attempt to cheer myself up. Not too much, mind you–cooking, I mean! So right now I have yellow squash and onions simmering in a pot, “cooking down” with a little water, salt, pepper and a bit of butter. I’ll let it cook until it’s pretty limp or I’m ready for dinner, whichever comes first.
The smell of squash and onions cooking always reminds me of my mother and summertime on the farm. By this time of year we were inundated with squash and tomatoes, but there was never too much corn. I dug out Mother’s Sunday school class cookbook, looking for recipe inspiration. The cookbook was a fundraiser for the class; there are companies that still produce these today. Mother wrote inside the front cover, “For Connie, 1990.”
The recipes are not “authentic southern cooking” at all. These ladies were in their 60s and 70s then, and to them, fried chicken and homegrown vegetables were not “company” dishes. So many of the recipes call for Campbell’s soup, Jello, cream cheese, cake mix, and other convenience foods. I understand their point of view–when you were cooking three meals a day, every day, convenience was a wonderful thing! And you know what? It still is.
However, I was relieved to see that Mother’s contribution did not involve any of those, or even “oleo” as some of the recipes called it. Here is her corn pudding recipe, which I suspect she got from my sister Glenda. I don’t remember having this as a child, but it does sound good!
Corn Pudding
2 cups fresh corn, cut from the cob
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 to 3 tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt
2 cups milk
2 eggs, beaten
2 tbsp. butter or margarine
Combine corn, flour, sugar and salt. Stir well. Combine remaining ingredients in another bowl, mixing well. Stir into corn mixture. Pour into lightly greased 1 1/2 quart casserole. Bake at 350 degrees for one hour, stiring twice during first 30 minutes. Yields 6 to 8 servings.
There was always a half-gallon glass jug of sweetened iced tea in our refrigerator, all year long, when I was growing up. Daddy drank a huge glass every day at lunch and every night at dinner. In the heat of summer he drank more than one. I still have that old glass–it is a big amber-colored glass from some gas-station giveaway.
Mother made the tea fresh every day. It was strong and sweet. She put in two scoops of sugar with a red plastic scoop from the copper-colored sugar cannister on the kitchen counter. Sometimes we had lemon wedges to squeeze in your glass, which was my favorite way to drink it (still is.) Nothing was more refreshing on a hot, humid day. Sitting at the dining table, air conditioner humming, with fried chicken, hot biscuits, creamed corn cooked in an iron skillet with bacon grease until it stuck, homegrown tomatoes, and iced tea–heaven!
Here is Mother’s methodology, which made sweet tea strong enough to stand up to ice cubes but never bitter.
Sweet Tea
Take 2 large or 4 regular tea bags (Lipton’s preferred.) Put in a teapot. Fill the pot with boiling water and let steep 10 minutes. In a half-gallon glass jug or other non-reactive pitcher, put 1/2 to 1 cup sugar. Pour in the hot tea when it finishes steeping, and stir to dissolve the sugar. Then add tap water to fill the jug, stirring.
Ready to pour over ice or cool in the fridge. Makes a half-gallon (2 quarts.) You can serve with lemon wedges or fresh mint if you have it. It should be a deep ruby color, even when poured over ice, and never bitter!
I thought it was wrong about some things, however. Are your best friends throughout life the ones you make in high school and college? I think that’s unlikely, unless you all stay in the same area, have the same educational and financial circumstances, and see each other often. Like the article says, proximity and time to build a friendship are essential. If you move away, things change. It’s easier to make close friendships when you are in high school and college, but that doesn’t mean they will stand the test of time.
All of us have work friends, neighbor friends, friends we share interests with, and for people with families, your kids’ friends and their families. How does that progress to become the friend you call when your mother dies, or that you can ask to feed the cat, or the friend you can wake up at 2 a.m., or the one who will take you home from the hospital?
My closest friends now began as acquaintances, work friends, or people I met because we shared an interest. It took years in most cases before they became intimate friends. We helped each other out and learned we could count on each other. We learned we had fun together but that our relationships didn’t have to be only fun and games.
And what do you do when those relationships begin to change? Some people get busier. Others, while still working, are no longer working full-time and are away for weeks at a time on vacation or travel. Some get richer, some get poorer, some are unemployed. It’s difficult when you’re no longer all at the same level and able to afford the same things.
All I know to do is to try to share new experiences with good friends as well as remembering the past, and to try to stay flexible as circumstances change–and try not to be hurt if close friends become a little more distant. And I keep an eye out for potential new friends at “entry level.” You never know if you’ll find another BFF. And life is too lonely without people who are more than just casual friends.
Looking at old photos sometimes prompts a memory or gives a blog topic. This one says, “What were we thinking?” on so many different levels. My sister Sherrie came to visit me in New York a few times in the ’90s. We went to Broadway shows, standing in line at the TKTS booth in the cold and snow. And we had dinner at inexpensive Italian or French bistros–I miss Quatorze to this day.
We walked and walked and walked. Things were a little grittier then. Times Square still had a rough edge, and the High Line was just some rusted railroad track in Chelsea. We visited museums. Sherrie was teaching high school biology, chemistry and physics, so we made a pilgrimage to the Museum of Natural History, where this was taken.
The main thing that strikes me is, we both had perms. Back then, that was a good “working girl” alternative if you didn’t have time for hot rollers every morning. But what a terrible look! It wasn’t flattering for anyone. If you don’t believe me, just look at Meg Ryan’s hair in “When Harry Met Sally.” That movie still gives me the shivers over how many of those hairstyles I went through! And look at the glasses. I think I was in a contest with myself to see how ugly I could be!
I always had fun when Sherrie came to visit. She wanted to get up early and see as much as she could. “We can sleep when we’re dead,” she would say. So off we would go. Sherrie wasn’t snobbish or over-sophisticated or picky. She just wanted to see it all. She’s my favorite tourist.
writinghersense 