How Laverne helped me to have my cake and eat it, too!

TedTheewen

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I blurve Lavern to bits and would do anything for her. She's my Big Sis.

AW is my home and time away is painful. I have made incredible friends here. I originally came just to get my writing on-track with no desire to be social. Now, I'm as close to many folks on here as one could possibly be.

Sure, there's been a few mistakes here and there, but that's life.

And since we're posting food pron, I can't resist posting this and this. Enjoy.
 

Alessandra Kelley

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I like the colors but would have to pass on sampling the asparagus thing. Reminds me of those sandwich cakes that my mom used to make for her Bridge Club. I think they were called ribbon something. The layers were sandwich fillings like cheese salad, cucumbers, chicken salad. The frosting was mayo. Mom used to get all crazy with sliced pepper daisies as a garnish. Wow--maybe we should start a thread dedicated to Bridge Club foods of the 1950s. Petite Fours anyone?

Oh, I have a whole shelf of those cookbooks. They seem to occupy some terrifying space where women were given ludicrously finicky tasks to do to take their minds off the void of madness induced by the limits on their lives; underlined with an unconvincing attempt to paint homemaking as a scientific pursuit equally worthy as those which actually commanded money, respect, power, and visibility; and shored up by the processed food industry.

I have a book from the 1930s on hors d'oeuvres that could only be made more terrifying if it had color photography. I have one from the 1920s where every. Single. "Salad." Is some mess of random ingredients held together by a thick mortar of mayonnaise, sour cream, cream cheese, or whipped cream (Blatantly, egg salad, tuna salad, and cheese logs are remnants of 1920s "salads"). I have a book called "Ice Creams and Frozen Desserts" from the 1950s that I thought was a cookbook when I picked it up but turned out to be an industrial manual full of fascinating trivia combined with the sort of revolting and possibly now illegal practices that places like Ben & Jerry's were founded in opposition to.

I love this community.
 

shakeysix

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Since I don't cook and my characters do, I have a huge collection of old cookbooks, some from the days when my family farmed for a living, not as an expensive and possibly misguided hobby. Those came from CoOps and Radio stations. Last year I checked a book from our local library about food fads from 1900 to 1990. Browsing through it was fun. There were some ghastly entries. The worst was a giant pineapple molded from liverwurst, pimientos, mustard and mayo. I think. It was pretty horrible so I didn't read the whole thing. The picture haunts me.

I say I don't cook, but I do. My husband loved to cook. He grew up in Long Island. His grandparents were from eastern Pennsylvania--the Wyoming Valley. There were some Kansas delicacies that he refused to make-- like chili and donuts; home made mac & cheese laced with garden tomatoes and served with a side dish of grapes; neckbones and sauerkraut; grilled summer sausage; tomato and peanut butter sandwiches; tapioca stew; kuchen-- all things he labeled Cropper Food. Since I wanted the kids to grow up normally I did learn to cook some simple comfort foods.

My grandparents had cattle so my parents had a side of beef whenever they butchered. When my husband and I were married we had beef from my parents. My husband loved the steaks, roasts, packages of hamburger, the fancy stuff, but then I had to use up the shanks, tongue, stew meat, brisket, cheaper cuts. Things I grew up knowing how to cook but never had the urge to linger in the kitchen prettying them up.


When my husband died, our three girls were in college and almost on their own but finances forced me to sell our house and move to a smaller house in a smaller town--one without a grocery store or a café. Two girls had to live with me. They were both working out of town but I insisted on sit down meals on Sundays and evenings. It was too expensive to go out of town to eat out and after a while it got to be kind of fun, sitting around the table and talking about our day. Now we remeber these meals, even the disasters, fondly.

Things got better, the girls graduated and went on their own. I was watching my 3 oldest grandkids in Florida one summer while their parents were on vacation. The oldest two-- 12 and 9 then--wanted to eat out after a trip to a water park. The toddler was just too cranky for a public eating experience. I was getting a little cranky, too. I said no, we are going to eat around the table like a family. Kenz and Austin were furious. Since I am only a step grammy, I almost gave in. Luckily, there was some kind of meal kit in the cupboard and, somehow, I managed to not screw it up. We put the toddler to bed and had a wonderful, if not gourmet, meal. They told me stories about their Spanish teacher. (I'm a Spanish teacher, so I tried not to laugh, but eventually almost choked.) After that they insisted on cooking for me whenever I came to stay.

Now my oldest grand daughter, a grown up banker and a mom, insists on having a sit down meal whenever we are visiting. She quotes my words: "We are sitting down at this table and eating like a normal freaking family! Dammit!" Anyway, although I don't cook, I do believe in the power of food. --s6
 
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Lavern08

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"We are sitting down at this table and eating like a normal freaking family, Dammit!"
Awwww, sounds just like the top-selling Mother's Day card from Hallmark. :tongue
 

shyne

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Also Jeffrey Dahmer's last words
 

cornflake

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I think that was something about eating A family, not eating like a family....


Ok, sorry, tasteless. I feel bad for him.
 

shyne

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Tasteless? I think the victims would resent that
 

TedTheewen

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I was going to make a joke about Dahmer putting out a cook book, but, on second thought, I have too much class.


Seriously?! :popcorn:

Yeah. And there are guides out there on the web as to which parts are best for what dishes.

Which brings me to a funny story....but this is a family forum and I'm sure Lavern wouldn't like me to tell it.