Recipes

In going through things in Miss Doozie, I'm having to be realistic about what I can carry along with us in the Dutch Star... there just is not as much storage.

I came across recipes that had been in my mother's recipe box... I decided to carry them along electronically by taking pictures of them rather than carrying the paper recipes... Besides the recipes, so many memories and thoughts came to mind...

Mom was such a baker of pies - she would always have Pecan Pie for any special occasion (there needed to be company coming... she didn't have Pecan Pie just for dessert at a regular home meal!)

I wonder who this "Mary Hunt" is referencing... Mom's maiden name was Hunt, so it was probably someone in her family, but the only "Mary Hunt" that I can think of would more commonly be called "Irene" by Mom.

This one is actually in my handwriting, with some notes written by Mom -- she added the source ("Dorothy Hunt") and the directions for 2x that made 3 pies. It is neat to see different handwritings on the same object.

I think this "Dorothy Hunt" was married to one of my cousins. This pie was a more recent addition to her set of recipes (added during my young adulthood).

Mom typed almost everything - even her to-do lists and shopping lists. She had a very hard time writing - I think she had a hard time gripping the pen and making it write. She used fountain pens because the ink flowed more easily. She was also left handed, so that may have made writing a challenge. But... what I found interesting, just as I can recognize our different handwriting - I can recognize her typewriter font! I know that she typed this!

I am surprised not to see a note on this recipe to indicate "Cold Weather Cookies". I know that at least one version of her Snickerdoodles recipe included that caution!

I thought this one was funny because we obviously had the recipe on the counter / table where we were doing the grinding and it got spotted from some of the fruit! I also like all her extra notes: "freeze (the cranberries) for easier grinding", "Food Processor metal blade for cranberries", etc.

Oh, I remember this Pound Cake. And Anna Davis was a friend from home in New Kent County.

This was a more recent addition too... though maybe in my high school life. I don't remember her making these a lot later in life, but my memory of them is that they were like Hostess Chocolate Cupcakes without the frosting.

This one reminded me of Cecile Graves... if I remember correctly, she played the piano or led the singing for the children during Sunday School when I was growing up. (I checked with Jimmy, and he said that Lovey Graves helped with the singing for the Sunday School... so I may be remembering incorrectly.)

Goody Nuggets ... these were such a challenge to Mom! She would get frustrated because the nuts would fall off of the top of them when they were in storage. And... you can see that she decided that the butterscotch morsels did not add to the cookies because she did "not know of anyone that especially like".

Mom would make LOTS of cookies at Christmas. She would have all the different kinds of cookies, each in their own tin in the freezer. Then she would make a "serving" tin of cookies with a few of each kind, replenished as needed from the other tins.

Aunt Libby loved cookies - so Mom made sure to have cookies available for her at Christmas.

This is the one of the few recipes that I took a picture of that is *not* a dessert... but it is pretty close to a dessert!

Ah, Mexican Wedding Cookies, from Florence Harper -- the Harpers were neighbors of my parents before I was born... maybe until I was a couple of years old.

It is interesting to see Mom's different handwriting styles on this - all caps and also cursive. I also wrote a note on this one ("use the larger amounts of flour and sugar - otherwise too short"). These were also "cold weather cookies"...

Other side of Mexican Wedding Cookie recipe card - ugh - I don't remember using nutmeg with the 10x sugar... I don't think I would have liked that.

This was one of the first cookie recipes that I could make on my own. I remember I learned from this recipe what "bake" meant - I thought "bake" meant to "cook" and I questioned Mom on why these were "No-Bake" when I cooked them on the stovetop.

Also, this recipe was from Mary Julia Pomfrey - she was such an influence in my life. She was my Latin teacher in 8-10th grade, took me to Certamen events (like a "Latin Bowl" quiz event), was the teacher sponsor for the Beta club at school, made almost every item of clothing I wore from childhood to about 7-8th grade (she made the clothes for her daughter and I got the hand-me-downs)... Mrs Pomfrey wrote to a group of shut-ins every week for *years* - Mom was one of the recipients -- I think that Mrs Pomfrey wrote to 50-80 people - every week! She would write what would fit on the front side of a piece of paper... when she got to the end of the paper, if the story wasn't finished, she would write "more next week" and then start up where she had left off the previous week in the next week's installment. She would then make copies of the letter to send out. Mrs Pomfrey took school groups on summer tours to European destinations -- in our Latin classes, we would study where they were going to go the following summer - so I got to learn about Greece, and Rome, and London in the 3 years I was her student, even though I didn't go on the trips. Years and years later, when I got to London the first time (on an IBM business trip), I remember that we got to the hotel and couldn't check in yet (we had arrived early in the morning) - so I told Dwayne, "let's go to the British Museum"; we left our bags at the hotel, took the tube to the British Museum, and I got to see the Elgin Marbles that I had learned about from Mrs Pomfrey so many years before.

This one is in my Granny's handwriting (with added notes by Mom with her typewriter). Mom called her mother (my Granny), "Moma" as seen in the "Recipe from the kitchen of" line.

 

Another recipe from Mary Julia Pomfrey.

Mom was in a "Home Demonstration Club" with Mrs Pomfrey - I think she brought these cookies to one of their meetings. I remember that Mom said that Mrs Pomfrey liked "Eatin' Meetin's".

I also like that she give specific information about how long and what temperature to bake these in "Crowder's oven"; the Crowders were the owners of the apartment where she lived before she moved to Texas.

I had to keep this recipe because it was the frosting that I remember that she put on the Pound Cake that I included up above.

What memories... just from recipes! I've enjoyed my trip down memory lane, although it has brought a few tears too!

Although the hardcopy recipes won't be traveling with us, they will be stored in the container here on the farm, available to join me in a sticks-n-bricks house later if we end up with one!