There were 10 writing prompts this week on Purple Ink, so I've been posting a few at a time over more than one day. I posted three on Wednesday, four on .Friday and the rest are here.
Remember: if you like journal writing, join Purple Ink!
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8. List the dishes your mother or grandmother made that you would love to have the recipe for
9. Name all of the books you have in your possession that you've never read.
10. What is your most prized possession?
8. List the dishes your mother or grandmother made that you would love to have the recipe for
Ah… but I do have those recipes! I made sure to get them, years ago!
My Nana's cobbler recipe. My Mom's Pork & Sauerkraut. Burger bundles (though I never make them). Lemon sponge pie. Gram's salad dressing. Mom's fried chicken and potato salad (which, sadly, Hubby doesn't care for). Fashnachts. Sand Tarts. Cranberry fruit salad (with or without the Jello). Corn fritters (which Hubby doesn't like either). Mom's fruitcake (say what you will about fruitcake, go ahead and make jokes – this one is GOOD). Everything is there (including recipes from my Junior High Home Ec class) in my personal cookery book.
9. Name all of the books you have in your possession that you've never read.
Surely you're joking. I don't have enough time (or enough space) to list them all. I have stacks. We have our own library. (I really do plan to read everything eventually, even if I may not succeed. I don't "just" collect books. Although sometimes it seems that way!
Rich reads faster than I do. We have similar tastes. He's read a lot more of what's on the shelves than I have. Ricght now, he's zipping through Barbara D'Amato's "Cat Marsala" series (of which I had read two before he passed me and left me in the dust.)
I have the full set of Terry Goodkind's "Sword of Truth" novels in hard cover (I've read three to date). I have the full set of Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" novels (I've read 5 of those). I have the full set of Harry Potter but haven't read the 5th one yet. I have the full set of Baudelaire Orphans "A Series of Unfortunate Events" and have read the first 4.
I have stacks and stacks of mystery and fantasy fiction, often full sets of a series (e.g. I recently purchased all of Barbara D'Amato's Cat Marsala novels and have read the first two). I have pretty much every Charles de lint book I can find (that I can afford 😉 and have read a bit over half.
With the shelves full of books of Rich's and my choices, we have oodles I've never read and may never read, but I do try to get to each and every one of them. Eventually.
10. What is your most prized possession?
My Hubby and my cats! Although I don't really 'possess them" any more than they possess me.
I have a dollhouse I painted, decorated, and filled ( http://cantaforda.com/~vlb/Elmwood/ ). I don't work with miniatures anymore, but I'll never give it up. It's carefully stored in a back room where the cats never go.
I don't do needlework anymore, but I prize each of the pieces I have done ( http://cantaforda.com/~vlb/Needle ).
I have a large and lovely collection of ruby red glass – along with some green – that I prize highly ( http://www.cfcl.com/vlb/h/redglass.html ). I also prize my collection of Vaseline glass – stored in a display cabinet fitted with blacklights by my ever so creative spouse! (Vaseline glass glows under blacklight – http://www.vaselineglass.org ).
Finally, and by no means least, I have a beautiful fire agate ring and stickpin, gifts from that same creative spouse over twenty years ago and prized above anything I have bought for myself, before or since.
Slightly Off KIlter 
One response to “Purple Prompts #8-#10”
AUTHOR EMAIL: jirb@cfcl.com
As far as making things with recipes from my mother or grandmother, I don’t think I really do. Though, of course, there is no nutmeg in the pumkin pie.
I often talk about food that mother made. We had our own chickens so I seem to remember there was “chicken every Sunday.” Though we cured our own hams so we often had fried ham and ham cooked with green beans or cabbage or turnips. Dad says that his mother always cooked the cabbage or turnips with beef. We didn’t butcher a beef until there were cold storage lockers to rent but we butchered pigs, usually on New Year’s Day. Cured some meat and canned the rest. We also canned chicken. I don’t remember helping with the canning part. Mother hired a woman to come in and help with things like canning, cooking for the thrashers, hay makers, corn cutters, spring and fall cleaning.
One of the things we ate was fried or baked rabbit, roasted pheasant and, one time, even a ‘coon. Don’t think I liked that. We also had venison sometimes and once someone gave us some bear. I remember quail though not often. Since we also had a huge garden we had vegetables that mother canned as well as some we kept in the cellar under burlap bags and ground. That was turnips, cabbage, parsnips and carrots. I remember that mother fermented sauerkraut and dried corn and string beans. I can’t remember that she dried apples but Mrs. Chambers did and I remember going there for “snitz un knepp.”
As I said I don’t use mother’s recipes because I don’t really cook with a recipe, except if I’m making cake or pie dough. Many things that I make I simply make the way I may think I remember seeing my mother, or Lizzie (the woman who helped) or Mrs Thomas (when I lived in Gettysburg) make things. I even do some things like Dad’s mother, I suppose. But I think I always helped to cook and just learned to do. I love to “put things together.”
Over the years I’ve made some pretty good stews or vegetable soups and not always the same way as the time before. Sometimes Dad will ask what we’re having for dinner and I say, “something, I’m putting together.” Later he’ll say it was good and we can have it again. I’ll answer, “right, if I ever have all of those same ingredients at the same time and can remember how I did it.” I think cooking is fun.
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