Dear Mothers,

Ya know when Dan worked in NYC before moving to Oregon last week, he worked in a neighborhood restaurant close to Christian Joy’s apartment. Their specialty food was comfort foods. Stuff like biscuits and gravy and cornbread and greens. Down home hillbilly food like bean soups and potato soups. And the New Yorkers love this restaurant. It’s a very popular place to go. Dan told everyone there, “This is food I grew up on.”

Last night I made ham gravy and biscuits for supper and a baked potato. I just got out my big cast iron skillet and poured a bit of oil in the pan. Then I fried up some ham and then I put in about a fourth cup of flour and smashed it in with a big enamel spoon. Then ya just pour in a scant 2 cups of milk and go to stirrin’. Let it bubble and thicken. Put in salt and pepper. And that’s the gravy. That’s how I made it for Wild Man. For biscuits, you just put 2 cups of self rising flour in a bowl and then throw some shortening in — about a fourth cup. And work the fat into the flour with your fingers until the flour looks like cornmeal. Then throw in a scant cup of milk and make a dough and then pat it out on a floured table. Then cut the biscuits out with the top of a tin can. Or use a biscuit cutter, or a glass or something round at the top. Be sure to have your oven preheated to 450 degrees. Quick breads need a hot oven. Put the biscuits in a greased pan and bake about 15 or so minutes until they are brown.

But they say the Mothers during the Depression era saved their families from starvation because they knew how to make biscuits and gravy. Just always make sure you have flour in the house and some shortening and your family will never go without. You can make gravy and biscuits with no milk or meat. You can just use water instead of milk. You could flavor the gravy with onions if you have no meat. Or use some cheese if ya have that. I know Wild Man loved creamed peas. That’s just the gravy with a can of drained peas in it to go over the biscuits. And cornmeal is easy to come by, too, and cheap. You can feed a lot of family with a pan of odds and ends vegetables and a pan of fried potatoes and a big pan of cornbread. Even if you only have two slices of bacon, you could fry that up and add it to the fried taters.

The old time Mothers usually canned up a lot of stewed tomatoes in Fall, and they added these tomatoes to the gravy or to any vegetable dish. Some old timers love just plain macaroni with stewed tomatoes over the top. You could fry up onions and green peppers and put this in, too. Add a bit of butter if ya have it.

All of these ideas are comfort foods. Just cheap foods that have gotten many people through Hard Times. Kept them off the street?

Wild Man Food

Between taking care of Baby and running about, I was gonna write down some food ideas that Wild Man ate. He would take a big bowl and crumble up leftover homemade bread. And over this, he would put milk and sugar and ate it like cold cereal. Sometimes he put fresh fruit in it, too. This would taste awful with store bought bread. But with dried out homemade bread, it is good. Well, he and I both did this with leftover cake. In the old days, I would put milk on Jello and stir it up real good.

Another Wild Man food is this. He liked plain gravy with chopped up boiled eggs in it. He always told me, “I could eat this stuff at least once a week.” He called this Creamed Eggs. I would fix him potatoes with this, too, and a vegetable. Papa loved mashed potatoes with any kind of gravy on it.

In the summer, he would eat radish sandwiches with fresh radishes from the garden. He put salad dressing on it, like mayonnaise, but never Mayo — he hated it. A popular sandwich from the Depression era was baked bean sandwiches with a slice of fresh tomato and an onion with mayonnaise. This is my favorite sandwich on homemade bread in the summertime. In the Depression era, if you didn’t have meat, you ate a lot of beans for protein. Also I love chicken sandwiches with Granny Smith apples with mayo.

And I always had a pot of coffee on for Jim when he got home from work. He enjoyed just plain coffee — none of that fancy Hickory Nut or whatever coffee. Jim wanted just plain comfort foods. If he was eating something the boys didn’t like, he would say, “Aww, you boys are a bunch of sissies.” But our boys do love the comfort foods, too, but not as many kinds as Jim did.

As I write this (with a hundred interruptions), I think of the words in Proverbs about how Wisdom cries in the streets and calls to the foolish to learn wisdom. And to me, this place where Dan worked was a call of wisdom to the NYC folks. To come back to the simple things of life. Ya know the comfort foods mainly take flour, eggs, and milk and some kind of fat like lard or oil. Not much meat but some, and a lot of vegetables. The Old time Mothers were experts at making many happy meals with just a few ingredients. They were expert bread makers and their biscuits were light enough to fly away. Their pie crusts were delicious and just made from flour, lard, and water, salt, and back yard rhubarb and berries, or apples, etc. Homemade noodles are just flour and eggs and a bit of butter and salt. All of these foods are cheap to make and so comforting. Potatoes of all kinds are cheap to come by and such a comfort to eat. I know Wisdom calls us sisters of the kitchen to get busy and learn to make plain foods.

Best close as Baby will be cryin’ in a minute. She is just takin’ a cat nap! MEOW.

Love,
Connie

Dear Mothers,

Good Morning! Ya know when my children were little, sometimes if I was low on eggs, I would fix eggs in a frame for their breakfast. It takes a lot less eggs than scrambled.

I would just put a dab of margarine in my cast iron skillet and a bit of oil, then you lay a slice of bread in it. Before you lay the bread down, just take a glass and cut a hole in the middle of the bread. Then as your skillet is on, just break an egg in the middle of the hole in the bread. Fry this on a medium heat and then turn it over to get the egg done on the top. Have patience with it, as the egg has to cook good in the middle or it will be raw and sloppy. Another way to stretch scrambled eggs goes like this. Just break your eggs in the skillet and then cook them up with a couple crumbled up slices of bread. You could add a few Tbs of milk, too.

Sometimes I would fry up a pan of fried potatoes for breakfast. Potatoes are so cheap to buy around here, especially in the Fall. Anyway, if I had a lot of eggs and not so many potatoes, I would fry the potatoes up and then when they were soft, I would add eggs and cook them in with the potatoes. Then at the end, when the spuds and eggs were cooked up, I would sometimes put cheese on the top and put a lid over it to melt the cheese. I mean if had cheese and I usually did. I tried to always have on hand the Velveeta cheese off brand. You can do so much with cheese to make a meal more hardy.

Also to fry potatoes and to get them crisp and good, try this. Oil your skillet with a bit of oil just to make it shine. Then add some margarine to the skillet. The margarine will float on the top of the oil and make the potatoes taste more buttery.

Love,
Connie

Dear Mothers,

Ya know in the old days, when the cool days of autumn would come, the old time Mothers would start gathering all of the odds and ends out of her garden before the late fall freeze came. Nothing was ever wasted.

She would take her basket of green tomatoes into the pantry and put them into paper sacks to wait for them to ripen. Then she would gather up all of the other leftover garden vegetables. Maybe there was a handful of green beans and a few overripe and too big cucumbers. She may have found a couple ears of corn someone forgot to pick. Maybe some small cabbages that grew after the first one was cut off. As she pulls the garden up, she finds some onions and peppers, too. And out of all of this, Mother made Piccalilli.

Mother would wash up all of her gleanings and then put them through her meat grinder. Then she made a relish with just the leftovers from her summer garden. After all of these vegetables went through the meat grinder, she would put them in a big pan of vinegar and sugar, spices and fresh herbs from her herb garden. She brought this mix just to a boil. Then she canned her creation in jars to store in the root cellar for winter meals. She put in herbs like garlic and ginger root and maybe some horseradish. Dill and marjoram. Mother takes the overripe cucumbers and scrapes all of the seeds out and uses just the good part for her relish. She looks in her spice cabinet and gets out the cinnamon and ground cloves and salt.

The old time families always ate a lot of relishes, especially in the winter. They had special relish plates or pickle dishes for their Piccalilli.

Love,
Connie

Dear Mothers,

My friend Julie came over Thursday for a short visit. Julie is on our letters group and has four children under the age of 7. (Correct me on all of this, Julie, if ya have time.) Anyway, this dear Mom and her children were on their way to Bible study and just stopped for about a half hour. She brought me a bucket of wonderful grapes and some grape jelly and it looks delicious. Thanks again, Julie. I plan to have it on toast this morning.

Anyway, she always tells me about the lady who had lived in their 140 year old house just before they moved in. This woman was a widow and lived to be 90 years old. Anyway, the widow had a root cellar and she gardened and canned most all of her own food. In September of last year, she went to the doctor because her legs hurt a bit. Her older kids wanted her to go to a doctor. Anyway, she did and found out she had cancer and she died in a few weeks. But she canned pickles just 2 weeks before she died. Julie told me this widow had large vats in the root cellar and that she made homemade wine from the grapes she grew.

So in her honor, I started some wine. Julie brought me the grapes in a big bucket. So I washed the grapes by throwing them all in my sink and filling the sink with cold water. Then I put half of the grapes back in the bucket and added boiling water to the top and 3 cups of sugar. Stir it up good and put a dinner plate over the top and let ‘er brew in a warm place. Then I did the same with the other half of the grapes. So I have about 3 or 4 gallons of medicine for the winter. I have barely ever worked outside my home so I don’t think I will even get Medicare when I am old. So this will have to be my medicine. Anyway, after the wine has brewed a few weeks, then strain the grapes off of the brew and put wine in a jar and keep in the fridge. Otherwise it will get tooo strong. The cold fridge will stop the yeast action and it will quit fermenting.

But anyway, when I am 90 and just before I die in a few weeks, I hope the younger mothers will find me in my root cellar doin’ women’s work. I can think of no grander way to die than in your own home doin’ what you did all of your life. Every time I see Julie, she tells me of this old widow who lived in her house. I get so ministered to. Thanks, Julie.

And ya know Julie has a wonderful husband. But his work is less in the winter. So anyway, she has all of her dear family to feed through the winter. When she was here, I ran back to my apple trees and picked some apples for her. She plans to make applesauce. But ya know I think of all of the memories still left in Julie’s house from this dear widow who was faithful. Julie said that she knows the widow’s children and they tell her all about Mother. They praise Mom as the virtuous woman. But I told Julie not to worry, that I would help her to make it through the winter. Her emails can’t get through but I plan to keep in touch with her by phone. And, Julie, all of us on here will pray for you and encourage you.

I know what it is like to go through the winter with a houseful of children. It’s harder because food isn’t as readily available. I think potatoes are a bit high right now but will get lower as we get deeper into fall. Pumpkins are so cheap in the fall and are wonderful cut up like potatoes and put in vegetable soup. Or make a nice veggie soup and pour it in a half pumpkin shell and bake it like that in a very big pan. When the pumpkin is done and soft, then you serve the soup and scrape the pumpkin and put chunks of it in the soup bowls. The pumpkin is like zucchini and it takes on the flavor of the soup. It’s really delicious. But you can buy several pumpkins and they will keep very well out on a cold closed in back porch or in a cool root cellar. Or maybe just a cool place in a basement. I have kept fresh peanut squash for almost a year. On Little House, Mother saved it all winter.

Food for the Winter

When I was a young Mom with a houseful of children, a family invited me and Jim to pick green beans from their garden. I was very thankful as it was hard for me to grow enough food for the family in the summer. One time Miss Charlotte went with me to an orchard and we picked sacks and sacks of apples. A dear friend let us pick them for free. (It was Brenda Kelly, Julie.) Apples will keep for a long time but you have to pick through them every day and throw out any rotten ones. Anyway, the home that Jim and I picked beans at invited us in for coffee. The Mother there had two very large containers that she showed me that she had out for flour and sugar. I imagine the containers easily held 50 pounds of sugar and 50 pounds of flour. She had the containers in cool places. But she said this lasted her and her husband for the winter. She had her big family in for the holidays, too, and did a lot of baking.

Sometimes hog lard is cheaper then shortening and you can buy that to store in the freezer for baking. I pray the Lord will give you a big 5 pound bucket of lard, Julie. In the fall a lot of times farmers butcher their pigs. And I think they get the lard free. So I pray someone will give you some, Julie.

Anyway, dear Mothers, try to store up canned items. I know the frozen veggies, etc. are better for ya. But in a pinch the canned stuff is good. Like sit down and write out how many things you would can if you had a garden of your own and knew how to can. You have about 10 months until the next time you have fresh stuff in the garden. So would you can tomatoes? Well, then you have about 40 weeks until your next garden. Would you use a can of tomatoes a week? Then you will need like 40 cans of tomatoes to last you until the next growing season. And how many cans of beans and corn, etc. So I know you can’t afford all of that but I am just showing you how the old time Mothers stored food. Canned vegetables and fruit are wonderful to have if the electricity goes down for some reason.

The Old Days

Well, back in the old days I had to be on food stamps. Wild Man had taken to the road and I was alone with the children. Anyway, the lady from the extension office would grace my home every few weeks. She was a lot of fun and always came with an armload of recipes to use with the free Gov-ment cheese, etc. I always made sure I had my vats of firewater hidden as I know she didn’t have any recipes to use with that. No, I am kidding ya! Well, bootleggin’ was frowned upon, especially for those of us on welfare. No, I am pullin’ your leg. “Quit it. Quit it.”

But anyway, Miss Baker gave me this one recipe. I will tell it to ya. It was one can of creamed soup and 2 cups of pasta and 2 cups of veggies and a can or a pound of cooked meat. So you could make whatever with this. Like cook up a few cups of noodles and add a can of peas and a can of cream of chicken soup and a can of drained tuna. Then heat it all up. But say you have a pound of hamburger — just cook it and then what soup? Maybe a can of tomato soup and a can of green beans and a couple cups of cooked macaroni. Little kids like this stuff usually. And like if you don’t have pasta but have a box of mac and cheese, use that for the meal. Or use rice or any pasta. I used to fix a lot of these casseroles for the kids’ lunch when I was homeschooling. Beef stroganoff would be like a pound of cooked hamburger and the cooked noodles and canned green beans and mushroom soup. You could put cheese on the top if you have it. Or make up biscuits to bake on the top. But these were just recipe ideas in order to use what you had usually in your cupboard. These are quick meals and you can make them with the canned food.

Also I used to get such a kick out of some of these women I was shoved in with while on welfare. JillR and I had to go to these cooking classes because so many women didn’t know how to cook. Jill and I knew how but we were always trying to humor Miss Baker who called Jill “Jill the pickle.” Jill was always makin’ pickles and trying to hide from Miss Baker. But, anyway, those mothers we took the class with ate bullets for breakfast. Jill and I tried to go in and visit with the ladies in a friendly way. But I said something like, “I have three children. How many do you have?” And the lady says, “What’s it to ya?” or “Why do you have to know?” One lady told me that she didn’t have time to cook as it was too hot and she laid naked in front of the fan all day. It was all hilarious and Jill and I would laugh like crazy all the way back home. It was like taking a cooking class on a chain gang. I went to one meeting and you could smell fresh animal hide on this one woman. Man, those women made it one way or the other. They were a tough band of women. I mean Jill and I tried not to laugh as they would take us wrong and try to kill us. Just kidding.

Miss Baker would go on with her class no matter even if the building had been on fire. Nothing stopped her! She was good at humoring the really rough ladies.

But see this is back when welfare was for the stay at home mother who had been abandoned. Most of the deserted Mothers were very serious about making it. If there was children in the home under 6, then you could stay home and get a welfare check and food stamps. But ya know now days, a lot of these women would milk the system and be on drugs and all. But I am glad I didn’t go out to work but stayed home with my children, even if it meant being looked down on by society. At least I could be with my children and keep them somewhat steady. But then when Jim got saved, we went off welfare and never returned again. But if you have to get food stamps, then don’t be ashamed of it. I would be more ashamed of going out to work and deserting a houseful of children. You don’t have to tell the children you are using food stamps. All the children know is that they have food and they are happy.

But back when I was raising my children, Mother protected her children. You didn’t tell them about your marriage if it was hard. Or about the food supply or that you hardly had any money. You held this all in your heart and prayed about it. As a mother, you carried your burdens alone unto God. You wanted your children to have a happy childhood. Children have a right to have decent meals and a warm, safe, quiet bed to sleep in.

Ya know last evening, Miss Charlotte came to visit. She was saying, “Connie, maybe God will use you as a missionary to another country.” And ya know I said that my heart is very burdened for our own country. Char said that when Mother Theresa got the Nobel Peace Prize, she stood on stage with the Clintons. She said at the end of her speech that the USA was the most impoverished nation in the word spiritually because of abortion. Boy, I bet the Clintons hated that.

But, yes, I am very burdened for our country. I want to stay here at my home forever and do as much damage to the devil that I can before I die. I hope to write many books and take care of the children God sends me. I don’t desire to ever leave here or remarry. I just want to live with Papa’s memory.

Love,
Connie

Dear Kitchen Saints,

I have little four-year-old Olivia Jean this morning to take care of. But she is such a good little girl. I don’t know who is taking care of who. Her sister Isobel, 8 years old, is in school but she comes here after school for a few hours. She is a lovely child, too, and sings like a bird. She goes to a Catholic school and Olivia will go to preschool there in a few weeks. Their folks pay me well and are beautiful Christians.

Then next week, I will get the newborn baby Olivia Rose. I will have two Olivia’s. Rose will be about three and a half weeks old when I get her. She is a lovely baby girl. I got to see her once at about a week or so old. I mean, this baby girl is exceptionally beautiful. She looks like an angel. I can’t wait to hold her.

I just have a bit of time here while Olivia Jean is playing and wanted to write about some more meal ideas. Ya know back in the old days, probably about the 1930s, the Mothers made a lot of the layered dishes. They would take a 9 by 13 pan and butter it really good. Then they would layer some vegetables and meat. Like, for example, they would put some sliced raw potatoes on the bottom of the pan. Salt and pepper each layer. Then maybe the next layer would be home canned green beans, then a layer of carrots cut up in slices. Then the next layer onions and the next a pound of partially cooked hamburger or cubed chicken or ham, whatever meat you have. Then over the top of this whole casserole some of their home canned tomatoes. You could even put about a fourth cup of flour sprinkled over the meat and then, with the canned tomatoes poured over this, it would make a sort of thickener or gravy. Then put salt and pepper over the top. Then the Old-time Mothers would put about a half stick of butter chopped up on the top and then cracker crumbs. They had plenty of butter out on the farm and used it liberally.

My aunt and mother have no idea about cutting down on fat and have always used a stick of butter on everything. Their food is so delicious but, man, I would be hard pressed to use that much butter. But the Old-Time farm Mothers used lots of cream and butter and eggs in a lot of what they cooked. And in the old recipes I have read, it seems they threw home canned tomatoes on everything. Well, especially in the winter as they wanted to use up the canned tomatoes before summer of the next year. The farm Mothers also had root cellars where they stored their potatoes and carrots and other root veggies for the winter. So this layered dish was one they made a lot in during the cold days to use up their potatoes and other root vegetables.

Our family ate many meals like this, as we ate a lot of potatoes and veggies and not much meat. Well, we never used a lot of butter — who could afford it? Anyway, this would be a nice big meal for a large family. I made some kind of homemade bread each day. Either it was a yeast bread or cornbread or biscuits. But this meal and cornbread would be a good filling meal for a large family on a cold winter’s day.

Love,
Connie

One year I was writing about a Winter Pantry and I put down in the subject line “Winter Panties” — oh, how funny! Anyway, it’s harvest time and time to pack some things away for winter. I have to be gone this morning to help my Mom with some things. Tomorrow I will start babysitting. So wanted to go help Mom vacuum this morning.

Nan, you wrote in about “How do you make creamed tomatoes?” I have never had them before. We used to eat breaded tomatoes. Just stew the tomatoes and then add bread and sugar and salt. But if anyone has a recipe for creamed tomatoes, please send it in. Ally may have one.

If you are like me, you have a lot of tomatoes to deal with. Homemade tomato soup is good. I freeze a lot of tomatoes to put in winter soups and stews. I am looking forward to getting out my crock pot and making soup very soon here. The weather is cooling off a bit and the summer is coming to an end.

I got my bread and butter pickles made and the kids love those things. I set them out whenever they come over. John and his family came over to mow a few days ago and we had tuna sandwiches and coffee and iced tea. Such simple meals with potato chips, pickles, and sliced tomatoes fresh from the garden.

My apple trees are full of apples. Some I will store in the fridge for the winter months. The plums are about ready to turn pink. Oh, I love those plums. I will just wash them and freeze them.

Also it is time to gather up our flour and sugar for winter baking. It’s time to look in the cupboards and make lists of baking supplies. I will put all of my old spices in a separate place to use as a potpourri on the stove. Just put a pan of water on the stove and use some of your old spices to put a fragrance of home in the air. I use my old, very big 2 gallon coffee pot for this. I put the burner on low and this fragrant brew lasts most of the day. In the dead of the winter, when the house is so dry, this water on the stove makes my windows steam up.

Well, ladies I need to get goin’. Please send in your ideas on your winter pantries and how you plan to stock up for the winter.

Dear Mothers,

Johnny stopped by for a minute yesterday. He and David made it back from NYC almost in one piece. John told me, “Well, Dan broke my rib.” I know Chrissy was waiting for John to tell me that. Those wild and crazy brothers wrestle all the time. After Dan did that, John took Dan’s head and rubbed it on the carpet until he got a big rug burn on his forehead. I bet Dan looks perty. I asked Christine (John’s wfe) what she thought. She just looks at John in silence and shakes her head. I think it’s just one rib. PTL. I told John to put a wrap around his chest but I don’t know if he will or not. But now I know why Chrissy was calling the brothers barbarians.

Chrissy Joy had a lovely wedding. The theme was the 1950s. They had out an old record player with 45 records playing 50s songs. Her wedding gown was 1950s. A very light pink with buttercream lace. Each of the bridesmaids wore a 50s outfit. Christian sang to me on the phone one of the songs that was her favorite from the 1940s. The first part goes, “I don’t want to set the world on fire. I just want to put a flame in your heart.” Oh, I love it. I sang the first part to MaryL, age 78, on the phone, and she recognised it and sang the whole song to me. She said she used to sing that in the 40s.

Joy (Chrissy) got married at a lovely home in upstate NY. In the back of the house were woods and they had a bonfire and just sat around it. Joy said it was very relaxing. Hmmmm, a fire? I am surpised Dan didn’t jump in it and scream “Goodness Gracious. Great Baaaaaaaalllls of Fire!”

Well, anyway, it was a lovely, relaxing wedding. A lot of people wanted to come, as Joy is rather popular in NY. But she was very adamant about just having close friends and family. I think she said she just had 70 guests. This was close and personal as she wanted it. A group of her girlfriends got her and Jason a tandem bike. (Bike built for 2 riders.) Also a group of (groom) Jason’s friends are getting them plane tickets to Bali Indonesia. But I am gonna try to talk her out of that. I think that is tooo dangerous.

Well, it really sounds like they had a lovely wedding. I was hoping Danny would have come back home with them. But, actually, it would be less dangerous for Dan to live in NY. (Just kidding.) I know they all had a great time.

John’s family was coming this morning to help with mowing the lawn but it is raining. Well, it’s just 7:00 am. So maybe it will quit raining and dry up by mid morning. I am fixing Sloppy Joes and will have sliced tomatoes and corn on the cob, and sliced cucumbers. We will pick apples and tomatoes and cukes for them to take home.

I didn’t do very good with the garden this year. Too much to deal with this year. But the Lord kept it and I am getting a lot of tomatoes, anyway. I know I have basil in that weed patch out there, too, and green peppers. Well, I will have to find them. Next year, I hope I will be doing better and be more on the ball.

As I write, I turn around and look at my dining room and living room. I am tellin’ ya, it is so peaceful. It reminds me of when I went to visit my aunt and uncle’s farm in the summer. I know the angels attend me night and day.

Laying Mary at the Cross

Oh, last night, I laid in my bed and prayed for Mary. The Lord spoke to my heart. In essence, He said, “Ya know, Connie, I don’t plan on letting ya go on this. The further that evil rubber band swings back, the further it is gonna shoot forward.” I am really surprised the devil wants to play this game with me. I am assured of winning.

Brandon was in the paper for forgery. I mean, this plot thickens. But it’s good, as now more people will pray for him. He comes from a long line of Christians. All of his relatives live around here and are good stock. They are gonna pray for him and I am certainly praying. His folks range from Pentecostal to Baptist. But I know they won’t eat their own but will put a medicine of prayer on his wounds. He has been a wild cat lately. Mary couldn’t keep up with him and bailed out. But I know if he will straighten up and go back to work, she would take him back.

I am believing that August won’t end without Mary and Brandon back together. Those two were a house of cards that fell little by little. But one thing that I really prayed about is what Toot said the other night. She said, “Connie, we have to look to Jesus and see what He wants to do in us personally.” The Lord showed me that have to come to Jesus alone. And then we have to follow Jesus. Not shadowed with a child but alone we must come to Jesus. I mean, the Lord had hardly heard from me that I wasn’t bringing Mary to Him. But I am also His daughter. The Lord showed me that as I put Mary and Brandon aside and follow His leading, this will turn the kids around. All I have done is wait in prayer for God to do something. But I must go on and hope my little lambs will follow me.

Ya know how, when the kids are little and they don’t want to leave Grandma’s house, and you say, “Well, I am going out to the car.” Pretty soon they will follow ya. But if ya just stand there and complain, the child thinks he has more time to play. Well, the Lord showed me that I have been like this and I need to go on to the car. So I prayed and asked the Lord where He was taking ME? And the Lord gave me a picture in my mind of four angels beside me. Each angel was calling me to a different job — each job contradicted the other one. I knew which way I was supposed to go. It was a no-brainer. But ya know? Knowing something is right and doing it is sometimes hard. But the Lord showed me that, through only having my eyes on the kids, I was running against the road the Lord wanted me on. Like God’s people in the wilderness, I am going in circles. We have to fix our eyes upon the Lord and go with Him. We have to be led of the Holy Spirit and not by the trouble in our families. By faith we take our eyes off the problem and put our eyes upon the Lord. We have to be about our Father’s business.

Satan may know that eventually we will get onto the right path. But he wants to interrupt us as much as he can. We think it is people calling us to do this and that. But the spiritual realm is calling us. The Spirit comes first and then people hear the Spirit — evil or good — and they begin to react to it. But it all starts in the spirit realm. And if Satan thinks he can use our kids to take us away from the call of God upon our lives, then he will do that. He will set us up for that.

Satan wants to be glorified and magnified to be like God. He wants the attention to be upon him. And when we mothers give him attention, then he wants some more. And the fear we have in our hearts is what he rides on. But we must lay our Issacs down. Because some of us make gods of our children. I humbly bow! “Forgive me, please, sweet Jesus.”

Actually, as we fear over our kids, we make them worse. And as long as Satan can use our kids to get us to go in the wrong direction, he will continue to make our kids worse. I am a bigger gun at this point then Mary is. And the devil wants to break me down.

Titus 2 Mother

I was prayin’ and I told the Lord, “Oh, Lord, I have been sending my writing out for 9 years now and I haven’t really accomplished much.” The Lord told me that I should look at it like this. I have hung on for 9 years and didn’t lose the ministry, which is a miracle. All I have been through in the past 9 years and still writing? It’s a miracle! Only Jesus kept me. When I first began writing, the house nearly burned down. And then you all know most of the rest. Right after we had remodeled, we had another smoke fire. Jim had put up white wall paper and had to do it all over again. I was responsible for both fires. I could barely forgive myself. But I kept writing.

I had begged the Lord for an older Titus Mother to rescue me the whole time I was raising my children. Then, when I became 50, the Lord told me I was the older Titus 2 Mother. I am like, “Didn’t we skip something here, Lord”? But at age 50, I just became who I had prayed for. Widowhood is nothing I expected, for sure! I mean, if the Titus 2 Mother loses her husband, what more is there? Well, I have truly lost almost everything. Poor Annie, I know this writing isn’t getting you out from under the bed. But, Annie, God has a perfect plan for each of us. Just because I lose so much, it doesn’t mean you will.

I need ladies who are whole and complete around me. Like Miss Violet who spoke of being organized in the Titus 2 Ministry. Oh, mercy, I could never be accused of being organized. No, I will always be the wind in some of your sails but organization is not in my blood. But, Annie, you are very organized and some of you on the group know what the heck you are doin’. No one could ever think I knew what I was doin’.

My Mother is a perfectionist and I drive her nuts. She said I am the strangest child she has ever heard of, and to think I am her daughter. But some of us have to ride on the wind. We have been pushed off the earth through many trials. And this world is no longer our home. We live somewhere between heaven and earth. If we didn’t live that way, we wouldn’t live at all. We put confidence in the holy clouds of heaven — just holy air. Because we have found out the hard way that this world has nothing to hang onto. The Spiritual becomes more real to us then the physical. The angels become our friends. And we live in a heavenly kingdom. And this physical world will pass away. But heaven will be our homes forever and ever.

This is all true, whether you live in the physical or in the spiritual on this earth. And the heavenlies are very busy lately. Things are going on in the Spirit realm. The Lord knows we are living in DANGEROUS times. And He is sending angels to us all the time to protect us. Angels come down out of heaven as God calls them and they come for a reason. I feel such a peace here at home as the rain gently plays upon my windows. The cool air comes to me from my side screen door just about six feet away. But I know it is the peace that passeth understanding. It is a peace from God. But our earth and the heavenlies are not at peace. Violence is in heaven (Matthew 11:12) and the violent take it by force. What we loose in heaven is loosed on earth.

And, ya know, please, ladies, pray for me and Annie, especially. She is a young mom who has so much responsibility with her own family. Running (or trying to run) with me has got to be hard. We need folks to pray for this group. I am so glad for Artie, Kelly’s husband, that seems to have a heart for us and what we are trying to do. I sure welcome the husbands to cover us spiritually in prayer. I have always asked that all of you who are on the group to really submit to your husbands. I try to submit to Jim’s memory and to not go outside of where I think he would want me to go. I use his memory as a guide to keep myself under submission to the Lord.

But we live in hard times. We need to be doing our canning, freezing, etc.

Bread and Butter Pickles

These pickles are just housewife pickles that don’t take much thinkin’ but Jim just loved them. As I prepare to make them, I feel like I am takin’ a step in faith to re-enter my life of homemaking again. I hear the cloud of witnesses cheering me on. The angels are smiling. Oh, I have done the regular stuff like vacuuming and cooking and stuff. But nothing back to the land where my heart touches Jim’s. I used to make barrels of these pickles but I will just make a crock full for the fridge this year.

I have about 7 big cukes. So I will slice these up with the peeling on them. Also add onion slices and green peppers, and about a fourth cup of salt. So you let these sit in a bowl for a few hours with water over them. Put a plate on top to keep the cuke mixture under water. Most recipes say overnight. Then drain them and rinse them with cold water. So then make a syrup for them on a stove in a pan. I will use my big spaghetti pan.

For just these few cukes, I will make my brine with just 2 cups of white vinegar and 2 cups of sugar, then the spices. Just bring this brine to a boil and turn it off and add the cukes mixture. Push the cukes all under the brine. The spices I will use (put them in when you add the sugar) are turmeric, about a fourth tsp. And about 2 tbs of mustard seed. Some garlic and about a Tbs celery seed. Some folks add cloves and cinnamon sticks, etc. but I don’t. And they cook the pickles longer but I want mine crisp. I like mine about half cooked.

One year I ran out of cukes and used zucchini to make these pickles. Jill used to use zucchini for everything. I made an apple pie once with zucchini and gave some to Aunt Toot and she never knew the difference. Poor Aunt Toot!

Love,
Connie

Dear Mothers,

Good Morning! This morning at 11:15, Baby will come for the day. What a joy little David is and he is only a month old. Later on, I want John, my son, to drag my big baby buggy down from upstairs so that I can take David for a walk. I want to show him off in the neighborhood. It’s very cool out today so it won’t be a good day to take him out.

We have our gardens all plowed up and soon will be planting, probably after Mother’s Day. We will have mainly tomatoes and peppers, so it has to be warm for these. John’s family will have their garden here, and David’s. John’s family will come over this morning to help me with some household things.

I had fixed some chicken breasts yesterday for dinner and I have some left over. For today, for lunch, I am making a Macaroni Chicken Pasta Salad. I will just mix the bite sized pieces of cooked chicken with that curly pasta and some raw vegetables, then just pour the Italian vinegar and oil dressing over the top. My herbs are thriving and I will cut up some fresh chives and marjoram to go on the cold salad. I need to get that all made this morning so it can sit in the fridge a while. Then I will make cornbread, too.

I made two nice rhubarb pies yesterday that we will have today. I try to use all of my rhubarb in the spring so the new stalks will grow up again and I can use it all again in the summer. Then I try to use it all again so the new stalks will grow again for the fall. I plan to freeze some for the winter for at least two batches of winter pies.

Also, a few days ago, I had John dig up some horseradish root. I hope I can get some of this made this morning. We just dig up the roots and I soak ‘em in a bucket of water to clean them off. Then ya just cut the root up and peel like carrots? Then, after it is clean and cut up in small pieces, just put it in the blender with a dab of salt and white vinegar to partially cover it. Then just blend it up. Oh, we love it on sandwiches. Well, a little bit in potato salad or whatever is so delicious.

I am cooking this morning as I write. I have to vacuum, too. Need to pick fresh lilacs for the table, too. So I had better run and get goin’.

Oh, I miss my Jim but I know he looks down from heaven at me. He longs, as he always has, for me to be happy and into my homemaking. So I honor him today with a smile on my face and courage in my heart. I am wavin’ at ya, Papa. I am OK.

Love,
Connie

I am up cleaning and cooking and getting ready for my day. Johnny will pick me up this morning to go to the hospital about midmorning. He is off today so we can go together. Thank the Lord, they took Jim’s breathing tube out yesterday. I almost threw up when they did, as I had a fear he wouldn’t be able to breath on his own. But he is fine. And when I had to leave, Jim called out, “Good-Bye, Honey Bun.”

Aunt Toot said that Jim is the KING of the Come-back Kids! I agree with that. See, he hasn’t been able to talk because of the breathing hose in his mouth. All he could do was squeeze my hand or shake his head yes and no. We are so relieved that he is on the mend.

I haven’t been hardly eating so I am making bean soup this morning so I can have that to eat for a few days. I am going to write in small parts today as I have so much on my mind. I need to go wash my hair and then I will come back and tell ya how I made my soup. I have to have time to dry my hair so I can have it fixed before I go to the hospital.

Bean Soup

Well, I just got my hair washed so it can dry before I go to the hospital. My hair is very long and will take some time to dry.

The house smells wonderful with the fragrance of the Bean Soup in the oven. I just used the package of dried beans that has all the different kinds of beans in it. I bring them to a boil, then turn them off and let ‘em rest. Then I drain them of that water and rinse them and put ‘em back in the soup pot. Then I added a half pound of fried and drained hamburger. Some sliced onion and green peppers, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Then I added some of the frozen tomatoes I had in the freezer from last summer’s garden, and a can of tomato soup and taco seasoning. Then water to cover it all. I put this all in the oven with a lid on a low heat like about 250 degrees. This way, I can have it anytime this afternoon. Whenever I am home from the hospital to eat. Oh, La _Dee_ Da!

Dear Kitchen Saints,

Good Morning! We will get to have Baby Rose today and we are happy about that. David and Tiff take care of an apartment complex. David does most of the work but Tiff needs to help clean today. Tiff has become a stay at home mother. I am so happy about this. We still help out with Baby Rose about once a week. David is learning to repair the appliances at the apartments and does remodeling, etc. So the kids are doing good. Tiff does paperwork and has an office at home. But she can care for Baby and does a good job.

Anyway, I am making chili for the day. It’s only 6:30 and I am making soup. I don’t make it hot and Baby will eat it, too. Also I have made some fresh yogurt and it’s nice and thick. Jim will buy some fresh fruit and we will have the yogurt. My favorite would be a can of stewed peaches with bananas and the yogurt on the top.

I think if I could give you one household tip that has helped me a lot through the years it would be to get up early in the morning and start a meal for the day. I used to always do that when all the children were home. This way, if your day gets busy, then you always have a meal ready and you don’t have to think about it. And often on a Saturday, if we had to do errands, we most always took the kids with us. Well, of course they are hungry right when ya get home at noon. And I think often if we have a meal on the stove, then the family doesn’t resort to junk food or fast food.

One quick meal I used to make for the family that is simple is just Sloppy Joes. I would just fry up a pound of hamburger and drain it and put in a can of tomato soup. My kids liked it just plain like that. Or you could add mustard, onions, green pepper, and spices. Also, for another meal, I would just fry hamburger and drain it. I would cook it in my big cast iron dutch oven with the bale handle. Then I would add vegetables, whatever I had. And over the top I would pour a can of tomato soup or any soup I had. I would dilute it with water, about 3 cans of water. Then just put this back in the oven and let it bake on low. This way, if you have to go to the store or whatever, then you have a nice comfort food to come back home to.

My grown children miss these soups and stews and often talk about them. Dan says he doesn’t like for me to make soup in the crock pot as he is used to the big black pot on the stove. Cast iron does give food a different flavor. I like it, too.

And then I always had homemade bread to eat our meals with. If it wasn’t a yeast bread, I would make baking powder biscuits, cornbread, or a quick bread. Peanut Butter Bread was good. I haven’t made that in a long time. The quick breads are easy to make. I loved them, as I didn’t get out my mixer for these as you just stir them up like you would muffins.

I enjoy stirring things up in my bowl with a favorite spoon. I have a nice collection of crock bowls and also I collect the speckled enamel spoons. I have all sizes and I have the blues, blacks, and reds. This is what I enjoy looking for at garage sales in the warmer months. I don’t like to get an electric mixer out when the family is all home as you can’t hear anything when it is on. Also you can’t cook and mix things up and talk at the same time. I like to visit and teach my daughters and daughter in laws what I am doing as I cook. And they give me some modern tips, too, which I love.

One of my favorite kitchen chores is when Papa and me are here alone in the evening. And I will stand in the kitchen by myself and stir gravy. If it’s quiet in the house, I love to stir gravy on the stove. But if the house is busy and I have to run back and forth, I don’t enjoy the stirring. It’s too hectic. With gravy, you have to stand there and stir and if ya don’t it will get lumpy. After I fry meat, I just add about a fourth cup of flour to the skillet. I smash it in with my spoon. Then I add about 3 cups of milk or water and stir.

Here’s a story I don’t know if I told you all yet and it I was so funny.

Well, when the kids were all home, I had a hard time keepin’ food on the table and the kids all fed. Anyway, I had decided to buy a beef roast. It was small but all meat and I planned to slice it thin so we would all have a small slice. I had made mashed potatoes and gravy and it was a nice meal. So at the last, I called the kids to get the milk on and to help set the table. So I put the roast on a nice plate and began to slice it. I took a little piece of fat off and laid it beside the plate and decided I needed a sharper knife. So John was about 12 and was standing near me. And I said to him, “Here, John, give this to the dog,” meaning the little piece of fat I had stuck beside the plate. John misunderstood, as he is a dreamer and an artist, and he gave the family beef roast to the dog. So I go to the kitchen to get the sharper knife and come back to cut the meat and it was gone?

I was hysterical! I am like, “Where is the meat?” John’s answer was, “Well, Mom, you said to give it to the dog.” I was at the table standing and I turned around to see if Jim heard this. I thought, “He will kill the boy.” I mean, we rarely had a piece of meat and now it is gone. Well, our dog Daisey loved it — she ate the whole thing in no time. But here I am, with all the fixings for a beef roast, and we have no meat in the platter. I just went in the living room and told Jim, “John accidentally gave the dog our dinner.” He took it well and didn’t kill John. It’s a wonder! But, anyway, we just ate the potatoes and gravy and went on our way. What a scream!

Then after that, about a month later, I was fixing a small chunk of ham in the oven with potatoes and carrots. I was checking the dinner and had it on the oven door. Daisey came along and snuck the ham out of the roasting pan. But I caught her and yanked it back out of her mouth and washed the ham off and put it back in the pot. I thought, “I am not goin’ through that again.” I didn’t tell the family what I did. They would have killed me! We fed our dog and she didn’t need to do that stuff. She was fat and healthy and lived to be 15 yrs old. But she was half pig and loved to eat. But back then, in the old days, tryin’ to keep food on the table was an all day occupation.

One time we were goin’ to visit Jim’s sister for the day. We were to be gone the whole day. I told John to change the cat litter as we had two cats. Well, I had put the cat litter outside as it had stunk. But I wanted fresh litter in the pan before we left for our trip. So John goes out and empties the cat litter and fills it with new litter. On the way up to Aunt Mary’s house, my mind is racing and hoping we turned out all the lights in the house, etc. etc. So I am asking the kids, “Did you do this and that as I had told you?” Then I ask John if he had done what he was to do with the cat litter. Then fear grips my heart. “Now, John, you brought the cat litter in the house for the cats — you didn’t leave it outside, did you?” He says, “Well, the cat litter box was outside, so I cleaned it out and left it out there.” So the cats were inside and the cat litter was outside for the day.

This was a regular life for me when I was raising John. He was always dreaming of firecrackers and inventions. He is a wonderful artist. The boy can fix anything. But he tried my patience as his mother. He wouldn’t wear underwear to school under his jeans, as he said Indians didn’t wear underwear. I told him, “Well, this Indian will.”

In the evening, a lot of times before I had the kids to come in to help with supper, all the neighbor kids would come over and play hide and seek with our kids. So the house would be kinda quiet in the late afternoon. So Jim would be watchin’ TV and I would run into Jim and say, “Honey, MUTE the TV — I think I heard the kids on the roof.” So Jim would quick mute the TV and we would stand in silence.

Joys of Housewifery

So, anyway, we would try to catch the kids on the roof and then get after them. Jim would holler, “This is why my roof is always leakin’ because of you kids getting on the roof!” Our kids and the neighbor kids. Boy, Jim would he be mad.

Another time, my nerves were shot tryin’ to keep up with my kids. So I got up really early one summer morning and just decided to go outside with my cup of coffee and look at the garden in peace, as I thought all the kids were sleeping. So I barely got out the door and was heading for the garden and a lit firecracker exploded right in front of me. Jimmy had gotten up early and was lighting firecrackers and throwin’ them over the house. He didn’t know I was in the back yard.

Well, I should have known better than to have four boys. What was I thinking? We had two girls, too, thank the Lordm and they were always helping me put out firecrackers.

Jimmy was in the Navy and came home with these bottle rockets when he came home on leave. Everything would be quiet in the house and I would hear a bottle rocket go off by the side door. Jimmy would shoot them off when I wasn’t looking and then keep the same conversation going on with me in the dining room. I thought someone else was shooting them off. (Hoping, anyway.) He would shoot them through the snow. And he had some that would go off underwater.

Then we had this Catholic school fair and they had this beer tent? It was right up by our house and folks would get drunk and try to park their cars by our house. So for about 3 days in the summer, we had a lot of noise and drunks walking by our house. One night Jimmy got up in the tree by our house. He was about 16? And he had this pellet gun and if folks were really drunk when they walked by, Jimmy would shoot ‘em in the butt with his gun. They didn’t know where the shot came from as Jimmy was hiding good. Then he had this gorilla mask that he would wear and he rigged it up so it would light up with this switch he held in his hand. So if someone was really drunk, he would jump out of the tree at night and land in front of the drunk and scare the livin’ daylights out of ‘em.

Really, it was terrible as the drunks would pee in our neighborhood yards, etc. So we were all tryin’ to discourage them from parking around our homes. Aunt Toot’s husband is black. And he said all he would have to do is sit in our yard on a lawn chair and all the white folks wouldn’t bother us. “As everyone knows Black folks steal hubcaps.” Oh, what funny days those were. Luther was always good for a laugh. He was supposed to have died a month ago but hasn’t and is getting better as he goes.

Well, Jim is up and I guess I should go.