Many of my fondest memories include being in a kitchen. Families gathered in a kitchen, laughing, debating, playing cards at the kitchen table and sharing...not always just eating but we can count that as a good memory too! Whether gathered around a bowl of caramel corn, cracking nuts on Christmas Eve, playing Take Two or Euchre, smelling fresh baked cookies or dipping into the chocolate fountain, precious memories are made and bonds built. I remember my Gramma Hines in her kitchen baking bread, making oatmeal (not instant!), stirring up a batch of sugar cookies and pulling fresh baked pies out of the oven and all of the aunts, uncles and cousins gathered round waiting for a taste! Gramma McClain diligently stirred up batches of oatmeal raisin cookies, ground up elk roast for toasted sandwiches, and cleaned up Grampa's latest catch from the flooding to fry up in a pan for supper. She even snitched a little morsel of raw hamburger every now and then which still disgusts me but she lived to a ripe ol' age with no "raw meat consumption" problems! As kids we celebrated being able to make homemade pizzas (Dad hated that night), pulling taffy (it seems like it was always GREEN!), hulling strawberries, making sauerkraut (yuck-the house was smelly for weeks after that!), making kleenex pom poms for the big sisters' class floats for the homecoming parade, snipping and canning green beans and even pushing back the kitchen table and chairs so we could square dance in the kitchen! I remember Mom cooking cow tongue on the stove in a boiling pot of broth (I DON'T remember eating it though!), covering the countertops with newspapers to make homemade fried donuts and golden marble squares. Mom's sewing machine was even in the kitchen a lot of the time! Dad was the master at frying eggs-just a couple of drops of water in the fry pan at just the right moment, cover with the lid for just the right amount of time and presto...perfect fried eggs! I learned how to make my first buttercream frosting rose in that kitchen from neighbor lady, Nora. I also remember helping my nieces crack their first eggs into a mixing bowl while others were worried that those little girls would get eggs shells in the bowl. Kitchens are a good thing...not just for the food we eat but for our "food" of life. What are your kitchen memories?
4 Comments
Ronda S. Snyder
6/1/2013 02:12:47 pm
Picking and snipping string beans by the "tons" for canning. Remembering G'ma McClain saying, "If you pick that one, then no one else will have to do it."
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Casey
6/1/2013 04:37:19 pm
In that very same kitchen that you talk about, my favorite Christmas tradition was making tons (or so it seemed) of sugar cookies and decorating them with some of the cousins. That tradition is one of the reasons I still love Christmas time so much!
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Dawn
6/2/2013 04:24:00 am
My best kitchen memories covered 3 kitchens. Ours in SC making christmas cookies and candy, but never the ones that G. Hines would send because those were special treats. Now I make the beaver bars every year!!! The Memories in G. HInes kitchen were of huge tables full of food and lots of music outside under the willow tree, the freezer full of untold goodies, and the GIANTsheet pan of mississippi mud cake sitting on the counter, but I learned the most and best things from you!! The summers that I spent on the farm helping you with the kids are some of my best memories. I learned how to oil paint, cook, sew, and got free stuff from the cereal boxes from your little kitchen. I still remember you mixing chocolate chip cookie dough with the bowl rested on your belly when you were pregnant with Zach. I look forward keeping up with your blog and enjoying the memories as the recipes come in.
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What sweet memories Dawn. It just seems like yesterday that you were sitting up on the countertop cracking eggs at Gramma Hines' house! You're right about the Mississippi Mud Cake...I remember that now too! I did not remember that you got free stuff from cereal boxes!! LOL! Maybe you can be a guest blogger for me sometime!
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AuthorFollower of The One, Wife to 1, Mother of 3, Mother in law to 2, Gramma to 3, teacher of many! Archives
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