If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!Memories. Blending families. New Traditions. What kind of stuffing do you make? Thanksgiving Dinner with All the Trimmings Do you remember your mother’s turkey dressing? Is that the kind you make now? Wonderbread breadcrumbs with egg, onion and sage? Pecan? Cornbread? Oyster? Gizzard? Inside the bird or outside in a pan in the oven? Blending Families to Make New Traditions One year, we had three kinds of stuffing. My husband wanted to see what oyster stuffing tasted like. We had long before agreed to blend our family... (Read More ...)

Doughnuts Frying The neighbor lady who lived across the street from us when I was in elementary school often hosted backyard parties for neighborhood children. She was not married and had no children of her own. I don’t remember how she got us to clean her house for her. But, she made fresh doughnuts in an electric frying pan at the end of the afternoon. She told my mother once what a big help I was around the house and how thoroughly I cleaned for her. My mother, unused to any but required chores from me, was taken aback. Clearly, my mother did not understand the allure of working for someone... (Read More ...)

Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich My favorite sandwich was and is a banana sandwich. Recipe: 1. Slice bananas 2. Slice 2 green onions, including most of the green stems 3. Spread mayonnaise on 2 slices of white bread 4. Layer the bananas on one slice of bread and sprinkle green onions over 5. Top with second slice of bread. 6. Cut sandwich in half, lengthwise. Enjoy memories of childhood. I don’t know when I made up this sandwich recipe. My mother put peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in our lunch bags. My father made grilled cheese sandwiches with Velveeta  for Sunday supper. These old favorites... (Read More ...)

Lemon Meringue Pie Lemon meringue pie. Cherry pie. Rhubarb pie. Apple pie. Falling off the top of a ladder, stretching to pick cherries. Trying to eat my brother’s lemon meringue pie when he forgot to add shortening (flour + water = paste). Picking rhubarb out of a Chicago suburban garden. Cutting up slices of apples and sprinkling them with cinnamon and sugar. I remember summers, and that my mother made the best pies I have had before or since. Once I was grown, and came to realize how amazing her tender piecrusts were, I asked her how to make piecrust. “Oh, it’s easy. Just don’t knead... (Read More ...)

Purple bell pepper Beets. Eggplant. Red cabbage. You expect these foods to be purple. You might even use beets to color other foods, like pickled eggs, or as a food coloring for Easter eggs. But, where did purple (sweet Bell, usually green) peppers come from? And, why? And, purple potatoes? Are they really more nutritious, in the sense that foods with a deep color are supposed to be better for you? Red (sweet) peppers have twice the Vitamin C of green peppers and almost three times that of an orange. Yellow, orange and purple peppers fall in the same nutritional category as red peppers, but... (Read More ...)