Four years later, longer even, still going through my mother’s things.
Stuff.
Can’t just throw out all her crap.
Can I?
Like her recipe box. The length of my forearm. Hundreds of formulae for good eating. Many handwritten, cursive.
Handed down from friends and family o’er the generations.
A surprising number featuring Bisquick. Impossible This, Impossible that.
I don’t cook, I don’t bake. I heat.
Hesitate to toss a aged stained faded three by five card labeled in Mother’s hand:
“Best ones I have ever eaten.”
BROWNIES
Cream one stick oleo with one cup sugar.
4 eggs – beat in one at a time.
1 lb. can chocolate syrup
1 cup of flour
Grease and flour 9 x 13 pan.
Bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes. (test)
When Brownies are done and while warm, top with following mixture:
3/4 cup sugar, 3 tbs oleo, 3 tbs milk – boil for 30 seconds.
Remove from heat + stir in 1/2 cup of chocolate chips till smooth.
Distinctly remember I weighed one-hundred-and-fifty-five (155) pounds when I was ten (10). Not much less – eighteen pounds – than I weigh now, nearly a foot taller, some six decades later. I say that to brag. Don’t know exactly about what. Exactly.
Think of Mom as the woman who introduced TV dinners to Carmel, New York, back in the early Fifties. Don’t even know if we had televisions yet. Then those damn astronauts go to the moon and suddenly, you’re drinking Tang and greeted with pre-prepared meals in reflective aluminum trays. Frozen food a gift from God.
For those of you paying attention, that paragraph right there points out the beginning of The End.
Mothers go to work, wages stay low, meals go to crap, nutrition takes a header, everybody gets fat, medical costs skyrocket, we all die.
This so-called Farm-To-Table trend makes me want to piss on a haystack.
Farm-To-Table was normal life two or four generations ago and now you are expected to pay extra.
Harvey Wallbanger Cake. Bourbon Balls. One dessert card is titled The Next Best Thing To Robert Redford.
Note the recipe calls for nuts and cream cheese and a chocolate bar, two kinds of pudding and Cool Whip. I can’t go on…
Whole section on party beverages.
VIEBROCK’S FIRE-WATER PUNCH
1/2 cup sugar and 1/2 cup water – boil and let cool in a large container.
Slice one lemon very thin, put in the container, add 5 tblsp. lemon juice and one frozen can of orange-pineapple juice concentrate and one box frozen strawberries.
Add 1 1/2 cups vodka and let stand for a couple of hours.
When ready to serve, add 1 1/2 quarts of Gallo Rhine wine and one bottle of ginger ale.
Food heals.
MUSTARD POULTICE
Two tablespoons dry mustard.
Three tablespoons flour.
Two tablespoons cooking oil.
Mix together with hot water to a thin paste.
Remove after two hours.
The woman was nothing if not organized, so I was only a little surprised to find – packed in the back – a medical prescription for emergencies.
RECIPE FOR CONSTIPATION
1/2 lb. pitted prunes, 1/4 lb. black figs, 1/4 lb. seedless raising – put thru meat grinder
Add two tsps. powdered senna. Mix well.
Heat with enough water to prevent burning.
Store in refrigerator.
Take 1 tsp. every morning.
If you don’t go for a few days, take 1 tsp. Agerol [sic] at night.
What goes in must come out.
Mom was emphatic about that.
