My mother making toast on the wood stove.She spent a lot of time in this hot little room with the wood stove, either cooking or supervising the cooking. There were no convenience foods, so she made everything from scratch. She is still the queen of ingenious ways to use leftovers and was a past master at magical substitutions in recipes when the called-for ingredients were not available! She knew how to use sour milk to make something good and was used to sifting grubs and weevils out of the flour. She coexisted with cockroaches because there was no other option. She learned how to protect her sugar from sugar-eating ants by setting the canister in the middle of a dish of water. She made sure our fruit was safe to eat by washing it all in a purple solution of potassium permanganate.
She learned 101 ways to fix rice -- rice porridge in the morning, rice and gravy at noon, leftover rice in fried rice balls or rice pancakes at night, and the best rice pudding ever made. (I think she secretly thanked God every night that she could not get any potatoes, because she never liked them anyway!)
4 comments:
Great pix yesterday and today!! I have NEVER seen either of them! These were taken, I'm sure, after I left home because the water filtre table is different!
TOAST! That must have been a Sunday morning! That's the only time we had toast!
I remember going out to start the fire one morning and deciding to shine a flashlight into the kindling box before taking a handful of shavings ... there was a tarantula all spread out comfortably! YAH! Oh Shiver! I am so NOT a bush girl anymore!
And remember when the chimney caught on fire? Were you there then or was that during the year that I went back to visit? People came running from Giadyu Town because they saw the heavy smoke on the mission! Thankfully, the soot burned out of the chimney before the house caught fire!
I'm pretty sure these were both taken by Gord and/or Paula. I have quite a few picture that include them and my parents-in-law that give a clue as to the time frame. These are probably 20 to 25 years old, I think.
Being wary of spiders got to be second nature with us, didn't it! In my case, that carried over for a very long time. When Trent was a baby, we had a stove that had a sort of spider-shaped star-like thing on the middle of the back control panel. I cannot tell you how many times I would turn around and suddenly see that thing and think it was a spider! It got to be pretty funny what a slow learner I was regarding that stupid "spider" on my stove!!
And yes, I was there for that roaring fire going up the inside of our chimney. All the paint on the wall around the chimney upstairs melted, it was so hot. I do believe we saw a miracle that day!
Oh, this picture reminds me of my grandmother. She was a cafeteria cook at a school for years. Later in her life, she cooked for the forestry department of Stephen F. Austin State University. She could cook anything.
I bet she and your mom would have been great friends! She passed away in '93, and I miss her. Thank you for sharing these wonderful pictures with us.
Hi Renae! I loved reading your comment, and I'm sure my mother and your grandmother would have been friends. I wish I would have the confidence to do the kind of work your grandmother did. What a wonderful skill that is! I love it that my picture reminded you of her and brought back great memories for you!
1993 is a long time ago and you are still missing her. I know what you mean. It just seems that when someone we love very much passes away, some intangible something is gone from our world forever no matter how much time goes by and no matter how accustomed we get to the absence of their physical presence.
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