There are literally a dozen things I should be doing today. Instead, I've accomplished basically nothing. Spent the day at home letting the Girl and the Boy burn energy outside.
My dad would have called me a bum. As usual, he would have been correct.
Actually, I spent a part of the day looking through my mom's old recipes. In March, my sister-in-law Marilyn (the world's best cook, just in case anyone was wondering) brought a cardboard box full of my mom's cookbooks and recipe cards for me to look through.
I already had a large box of recipe cards (all in Mom's handwriting) and this is a wonderful addition to my collection. I'm trying to decide what to do with all of them and I'm seriously thinking of launching another blog dedicated exclusively to her recipes. Most likely, this will be my next winter project (always thinking ahead, I am).
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One of Mom's worn and much-used cookbooks. This one is from 1967.
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Mom loved to cook and there are hundreds of very tasty (and on occasion, very
interesting) dishes on those tattered pages and stained 4x6 cards, complete with comments and notes to herself.
I chuckled when I found her infamous horseradish sauce recipe... a sauce that would make your nostrils flame and eyes water if you came within 24 feet of it. As Mom noted at the bottom of the card, "Makes about three pints of stout horseradish sauce."
Stout? Mom was a master of the understatement.
It is fascinating to read some the ingredients in these morsels of goodness: Suet. Lard. Butter. Bacon fat. Vinegar. Sour milk. Whole cream. Buttermilk.
Hard core stuff, folks. This was way before anyone knew (or cared) what cholesterol or triglycerides were. Back when advertisements looked like this:
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| Why would you smoke anything else? And don't forget the "T Zone." |
As I flipped through these recipes, so many meals made so many years ago, I was taken back to a much simpler time. For a while, I swear I could almost smell Mom's fried potatoes. It was wonderful to reconnect with her, if just for an hour or two.
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The Wife's birthday was earlier this week. We celebrated a day early because of our goofy schedules. The Girl and the Boy helped me with the cake before the birthday girl came home from work and we had a nice little celebration, just the four of us.
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| Decorating Mommy's birthday cake while the Incredible Hulk looks on. |
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| The finished creation. |
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| The Boy "practicing" blowing out the candles, even though it wasn't his birthday. |
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| Making a wish and blowing 'em out, much to the Boy's delight. Meanwhile, Humphrey practices photobombing. As you can tell by the somber expression on his face, he's not terribly impressed with the festivities. |
We went out to eat yesterday for our Friday fun. We tried a new place in town called
Boomer Pizza. They feature gourmet pizzas made from scratch, baked in a wood-fired oven and have craft beers on tap, including Jack Pine Brewery right here in Baxter and Liftbridge Brewery in Stillwater. Great pizza, great beer, friendly staff, quick service and a relaxed atmosphere. We liked the place a lot and will definitely be going back.
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| The Girl at Boomer Pizza, face painted after the school carnival. Yes, that's a mustache under her nose. Don't ask. |
Well, it's too late to do something productive today. Maybe tomorrow?
Maybe not.
