A Thought

Here's a thought for you.  When you die, what recipe would your family want the most?  Not YOUR favorite, but the one you are known for, the most requested, the one that will send the family scrambling for when they can't ask for it anymore.

I learned this the hard way.  After both grandmothers passed away my brother and I would ask each other, "Did you get the recipe for....?"   He had the Sicilian grandmother's recipe and technique for her spaghetti sauce but neither of us got the brownies.   I searched and found recipes for the Polish grandma's placzek and cruschiki and city chicken and apple pie.  I spent more time with her and watched her during baking and cooking times.

I've asked two of our grand daughters what they will want the recipe for.  Elizabeth, without missing a breath, said "cruschiki."  And Adelaide said, "peanut butter cookies."   Well, there are hundreds of recipes for peanut butter cookies but the one SHE eats is the one I make.  

I take a Sharpie pen and write across the cover of a cookbook that the special recipe is inside.  Peanut Butter Cookies In Here   or Easter Recipes in Here (for the cruschiki)  and Corn Fritters In Here.  So when I die and they are sorting through the cookbooks it's there, right on the cover.  

 I came across this cookbook and Friend Laurie sent me a photo of it, "This looks like you."  And I agreed so when it was published I bought it.  

This author discovered favorite recipes engraved on gravestones.  She collected them and the stories of the women who made them and put them together in this book.   They are mostly common recipes that we all pretty much know. Chocolate chip cookies,  spritz cookies, no bake chocolate cookies, snickerdoodles, etc.  Each recipe is preceeded by a little story about the woman so we kind of get to know her.  

One woman, the one who made the spritz cookies and apparently had quite a following absolutely refused to share her recipe.  Until she died.  Then it went on her gravestone, carved in granite for anyone to see.  

I love the idea of this, I had never heard of recipes carved on gravestones, I thought it gave new meaning to "you can't take it with you."  

But it also gives my "When I Die" mantra new meaning.  I KNOW what it's like to be sorry not to have asked the questions or gotten a recipe or memory.  I walk around saying "when I die...." every time I see the grands but now they know. 

Chestnuts Roasting

 Like pumpkin spice and the comparison between pumpkin and squash, this will be my last lesson on chestnuts and I'm doing this because I've had lots of emails about them.   I realize chestnuts aren't in Australia unless they are water chestnuts that come in a can and eaten in a Chinese dish.  

These are totally different.  So, here goes:

Straight out of the shell and dried a little bit on newspapers they are ready to roast

First, though, you have to cut into the pointed tip, a cross cut that doesn't cut the fruit, just the shell

It helps if the pan you are using has bottom openings.  If you don't have one, punch holes in a pie tin. I 'borrowed' these four from daughter to roast in the oven for blog purposes.

This is the group on Santa night at the Showboat, getting ready to roast.   It's a fun night for the kids, there are ice carvings, live reindeer, free hot dogs and cookies and hot chocolate and chestnuts, sleigh rides around town and of course, Santa.

And here they are, hard at work, notice the two pans roasting.  It's cold, notice Elizabeth's clenched hands, but the line is forming and it's time.

 I tell you, the smell of roasting chestnuts is irresistible.  See how that slit helps to open them for peeling?  It also helps them not to explode!  I wish we had smell transmitted across the web, you'd all be hooked, I'm sure.

After they are roasted, peel off the outer shell. It comes off easy.

And here you have it.  Hot chestnuts 

They are delicious, and I said before that to me they taste a little bit like a baked potato.  Some disagree, but it's all subjective.  And you need to eat them hot.  

So, if you are in the US or maybe Canada and happen upon a bag of them in the grocery produce aisle this time of year, give them a try.  

Foraging

 

Yesterday we went with our daughter to pick chestnuts.  Our Elizabeth loves them roasted so much she will eat a hot bowl of them like popcorn.  

Picking might be a term you can't use for chestnuts, though.  It's more picking them UP from the ground because on the tree they protect themselves very well.

The outer casing, those burrs are PRICKLY

When they are really ready, start opening, looking like a Muppet mouth,

they fall and you want so badly to just pick them up from the ground and open that casing.

But they are very protective and needle sharp.

But if you want those beauties that are still protected, you have to use your shoes. One on each side you slide the casing off.

For the most part, you just walk along the ground and pick up the ones that have fallen from the outer casing 

It's not picking, it's picking UP, step and bend, step and bend.

In our daughter's family THIS is the sign of autumn.

We picked 18 pounds and it didn't take anytime at all 

This should be enough for Elizabeth, but she would say "only just!"

It was a fun time topped off with a visit to a farm stand heavy with pumpkins and squash and mums and donuts and a small country diner for lunch.

 

I Need Your Help

 

I need your help.  Truly. 

I've had this fabric for many years, like probably over 10.  I loved it at first sight and thus didn't want to cut into it unless I could find a way to make it the star. And so it sat.  Every time I looked at it hiding under something as the stash grew I'd stroke it and tell it someday....

I am working out of my stash and want to use this before I die. I'm not planning on that anytime soon but the horizon is a lot closer than when I bought this.  I'd like to use it.

It occurred to me this morning that I could ask you all.  If I was there I'd go to Scrub Stitchin' and get lots of help.  This is the next best thing.

It is not directional, like birds and trees, the design goes every which way.  This is a good true color representation.   I just want it to be not so cut up that it gets lost. I absolutely love this and don't want to ruin it. 

As a background for an applique?  Large pieced design?  I want it to show.  There are 2 yards.

Any ideas? 

Exhausted

Saturday was spent bent in half. 

I had three quilt tops I was desperate to get layered and ready to be quilted. I needed to get them to this stage in the process of being born to just get them off my mind. 

Layering for me isn't easy.  I have to put PH's puzzle table up against the dining room table and they aren't as long as each other.  Close but no cigar.

The Liberty circles was started during covid.  Friend Barb and I decided to do this together.  Well, she  finished several circle quilts while I struggled with the boredom of circle after circle.  But finally it was done, and this one is definitely going to get quilted soon.  Too much has gone into it, including for the most part buying these fabrics in London.

I know it looks like a mess of mish mash but I really like this blue and green quilt.  It was the easiest to layer because it fit on the two tables with no overlap.

This was one Friend Marilyn started and abandoned. The pieces were found in her stuff and she didn't want it. I liked it enough to work on it. It was intended as a Christmas quilt.  I added two rows to brighten it up a bit but still using the fabrics she had stored with it, the second and fifth rows to make it bigger than a table cover.  This was the last one to be pinned and as you can see, the corner overlaps the table sizes.  By now I was exhausted.  It was a hot day, batting had to be pieced, and I was physically done.  But I was also this close to finishing the three so kept going.

I've never layered three quilts in a day.  Anything I work on now is going to be small!!  In face I'm thinking of using even more scraps for some little quilts, not placemats but Kathleen Tracy doll quilts. 

Today is going to be a book day.  No needles, scissors, pins.

 

I Like Old Things

 I like old things. When I used to frequent estate sales, I'd head first to the bedrooms for the linens, pillow cases, etc. then to the kitchen for the tools someone else used to stir, mix, mash with.  Very few of my kitchen utensils are new.  

I like old food.  Years ago I was talking with a chef and he ended by saying, "you're an old world cook."  And he's right.  Not necessarily healthy in this day and age, but I cook like my grandma did and the foods she made.  

So it's only natural I search out old or heritage apples. They fascinate me.  There used to be about four orchards in Michigan where growers nurtured the old varieties but they've gone now.  There is only one very near me that has some and they are so fun to try.  Some varieties date back to the 1700s and as they ripen I go get more and more.

We had heard of an area of Michigan (the tip of your little finger as you look at your hand representing Michigan) that was settled in the 1850s but is now part of the National Park system.  The National Park system took over the area to protect it from development, it is a very sensitive area and needs to be protected from huge developments.

From October first through the month they allow people to pick the apples from the abandoned farms.  People here didn't grow the apples for commercial purposes, they grew them for their own use as food and cider.  

So we went.  Turned out to be a beautiful drive in beautiful weather to a beautiful place but disappointing in apples.  We found out that people had been going into the area picking for two weeks prior so what could be reached had been picked.

The red dots are the abandoned farms

We didn't get many and they were in the condition we expected, pitted, pocked, bruised because the Park service doesn't spray or tend to the trees.  The farm area is being stabilized but not overly preserved.

I got three pints of applesauce from the apples.  I baked the sauce this time.  Peeled, put in a baking dish and into the oven.  I don't ever season applesauce, I just cook them down.  No sugar, spices, nothing.  

This one, though, I got from the orchard I am frequenting near home.  I can't remember the name of it, Red something.  But look at the flesh.  It's as red as the skin.  It really wasn't the texture I like in an apple but I wasn't planning to eat it out of hand.  This is a heritage variety.

Here it is cut

And here's the applesauce.  I didn't buy many so got two pints and one small container.

I also don't hot water process them.  My freezer is my best friend so everything goes in the freezer. 

As I'm collecting different varieties from this orchard I plan on a pie.  Using all different kinds, textures and tastes makes the BEST pie!