Recipes Galore and Other Things

This time of year when the sun is never far off the horizon and noon shadows are long and frozen, I really start to get stir crazy. Cabin fever, I suppose. 

Perhaps you can relate?

Lately it is been ridiculously cold outside, so activities in the great outdoors are limited. Many of my indoor projects are completed, although the downstairs living room still needs to be painted (I am not doing that in the winter, sorry). 

I can only read so much for so long. I am a notoriously slow reader, but I've already polished off several novels this winter - two were almost 900 pages long each - which is impressive by my standards. 

So, as I do on occasion, but not nearly often enough, I turn to writing. But what to write about? Usually that's a difficult subject with which to negotiate, but today it is easy. 

This time of year I think of my parents more than usual. They are always on my mind, but especially so in the cold, excruciatingly long winter months. In fact, two days ago would have been my dad's 101st birthday. It doesn't seem possible, but the math says it is true.

I remember as a kid, cozy in the living room with my parents on those frigid winter evenings; the smell of woodsmoke and baking bread intermingling to make an unforgettably pleasing memory. The three of us would sit hours on end drinking hot chocolate and playing cards, a game we called "31." 

It's a very easy game and recently I taught the Girl how to play; one frozen evening last week my family sat around the dining room table playing the game and the memories came rushing back. 

What was old was new again.

Making it more poignant, we used a deck of cards that once belonged to the Wife's grandparents. The cards are very old, but in pristine condition. (Yes, we were careful).

The Girl's great-grandparents' playing cards, now being put to good use once again.

So it was in this sentimental mood that I began looking through my mom's recipes today. 

It may not sound like much, sifting through recipes, but you'd have to have known Phyllis to appreciate the task at hand. (Those that knew my mom have a knowing smile on their face right now).

I have, literally (yes, I am using that word correctly here), glanced over a thousand recipes today and I've barely gotten started. 

Mom's method was to cut out recipes from any possible source - magazines, newspapers, cereal boxes, cake mix boxes, even comic books - and tape them into writing tablets. She would send away for Joyce Lamont's recipes from WCCO Radio (WCCO Radio was a staple in our house. I grew up with Boone and Erickson, Joyce Lamont, Howard Viken, Jergen Nash and the incomparable Steve Cannon); she'd copy them down from television shows, exchange them with friends... really, this was Pinterest decades before Pinterest was a thing. Mom was way ahead of her time.

Joyce Lamont's recipes from January 1976, part of Mom's collection.  Lamont was on the air at WCCO for more than 40 years and, yes, I can still remember her voice.

I remember Mom sitting at the kitchen table cutting and taping these very recipes. Eventually, she lost patience and started stuffing them between pages. 

A few loose clippings from a page.

Thousands of cookies, cakes, casseroles... canning and freezing ideas and cleaning tips... breads, bars, baking suggestions... dozens of meatloaf varieties, dressings, salads, hot dishes you won't believe; "can't-miss" pancakes and waffles galore... 

Home Made Bright Red Ketchup? Yep.

Can't-go-wrong Herman recipe? (do you even know what Herman is?) Got it.

Impossible Pie, Applesauce Custard Pie, Karo Six-Minute Pecan Pie, Swedish Apple Pie? It's all right here. And that's not even one page.

Lefse? Of course!

Tom and Jerry? Absolutely.

How about Sauerkraut Cake? Yes, Virginia, there is a Sauerkraut Cake.

And good Lord, the uses and recipes for zucchini are endless.

But sometimes what is on the backside of the recipe is more entertaining than the recipe itself, especially when it was trimmed from a newspaper. On occasion, it is like taking a quick peek into a time machine.

In one such case, we get a glimpse of an opinion column in which the author is ranting about these new-fangled telephones. I believe this is from the Fergus Falls Daily Journal, although I do not know the author; I can surmise, however, this individual was a grumpy old man (or woman). I also know it had to have been written shortly after January 8, 1982 (when the Bell System monopoly was broken up).

It reads, in part:

"Today most phones don't ring. They chirp," Grumpy complains. "And be careful not to get your brains blasted: When off the base unit, cordless handsets ring through the earpiece - loudly. A few cases of permanent hearing loss have already been blamed on cordless phones." 

Really? Permanent hearing loss? I'd like to see those cases. 

But Mr. Good Day Sunshine wasn't finished: 

"The biggest change we'll face is durability. When Ma Bell was the only game in town, she made phones you could kick across the room, then pick up and use. They were intended to last 30 years or more [because] Ma wasn't selling them - she owned them and made them to last. Now, with price competition, they're just not going to make 'em like they used to."

Well, Miss Rainbows and Unicorns got that right. Nothing is made to last anymore.

Selling telephones as if they were toasters. It's turning into a "cold, confusing world." Shit, if only our world was so confusing today.

Now, back to those recipes...