A now for something a little different...

In addition to being a great cook, Grammy Gertie also makes embroidered table cloths. On of her recent creations is on display at her assisted living community. If you happen to visit her, look for it in the front lobby.

Grammy Gertie also sells table cloths, with proceeds going to support hospice. Art and charity - great stuff!

The "Penny Stretchers" chapter

Grammy Gertie's trusted cookbook, that she used for over 50 years, was a 1942 edition of The Pocket Cook Book.

Due to food rationing measures during World War II, the book is extremely mindful of people's need to be frugal. The book includes such classics as, "Economy Lemon Allspice Cake" and "Inexpensive White Cake Layers". You get the sense, from the description, that there was pride in being resourceful and in sharing the sacrifice.

Excellent

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GRAMMY GERTIE!!

It's that magical time of year again! Today, we're gonna post a memory told by Grammy a few years ago, and then follow it with a cheesecake recipe. As it says on the side, "Excellent"!

"The 4^th of July was always a big day for the Burkey family. They were all farmers and they all had farms around the same area. Everybody would meet at the Hensroth’s and there they had a big long picnic table spread out on the lawn. Everybody would sit down and eat a big meal. Everybody who came brought a dish. All those farm women were very good cooks. We all sat went together and ate – and there were probably about sixty to seventy-five people at each picnic. And that was the 4^th of July, a nice time of year. I always liked those picnics."

Anna's Cheesecake

1 lb cream cheese
1 pint sour cream
1 lb ricotta cheese
5 eggs, well beaten
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 tsp lemon juice
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 TB flour
3 TB corn starch
1/4 lb melted butter

-Cream the cream cheese and ricotta.
-Add eggs, sugar vanilla, and lemon juice, then blend in corn starch, flour, butter and sour cream.
-Pour into spring pan.
-Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hr and 15 min, until the cake is light in color.
-Shut off oven, and leave cake inside for 1 more hour.
-Allow to cool for an additional hour outside the oven.
-Remove from spring pan and serve.

Who are these people?

Yesterday, we paid a visit to Grammy Gertie out in Western MA. She's doing well and sends her regards.
Grammy Gertie, whenever she came across something delicious, would ask her friends for their recipes. I had asked about some reoccurring names that appear on the cards. Here are a few of those people:

In the immediate family, we have her children, Kit and James. James married Ellen (you see her name appear on some of the recipes).
More extended, we have Grandma Beal, Grammy's maternal grandmother (and my Great Great Grandmother). Grandma Beal taught Grammy how to make butter and weave on the rug loom. Grandma Beal also made coconut oatmeal cookies.

Edna Hall - was a librarian in Pittsfield, and her husband was an apprentice at GE at the same time as Grampy Chuck. Grammy met her in 1942.
Edna's Chicken recipe.
Edna's Seafood Casserole recipe.

Dorothy Politis - childhood and Smith College friend of Edna Hall. She taught school in Pittsfield and married a chiropractor named Alex.
Dot's Rhubarb Dump Cake recipe.

Dorcus Lamson - her husband worked at GE with Grampy Chuck.
Here is Dorcus's fruit and marshmallow salad recipe.

Jean O'Brien - her husband and Grampy were in rotary together. She and Grammy were foodies in the Berkshires together, visiting as many restaurants as they could. The O'Briens used to invite us grandkids over to swim in their pool.
Jean's Hot Chicken Salad recipe.
Jean's Punch recipe (contains alcohol).

Grammy's Cookbook

For the past year, I've been holding on to a copy of Grammy's cookbook, a 1942 copy of "The Pocket Cookbook". It's quite fragile, almost 70 years later; I wasn't entirely sure how to scan it without it completely falling to bits.


As suggested by one of my siblings, we decided to photograph the recipes in the book. You'll be seeing a few recipes over the next few months that look like the above photograph.

We love, by the way, that Chapter 9 is called "Penny Stretchers"

Happy Birthday, Grammy Gertie!

"I’m just an old farm girl at heart."

It's time to celebrate another birthday!

Last year, about this time, I posted a small part of an interview I did with Grammy for a grad school project. You can read that here:

Part 1 of Grammy's Life Story Interview

We're going to continue on with more of the interview today. Be sure to wish Grammy Gertie a Happy Birthday when you see or talk with her!

"When I was younger, my mother was a very good piano player. At that time they didn’t have sound in the theaters, so my mother played the piano. The people who played the piano would play fast when it was an exciting part, or use it to speak the parts of the movie, or something like that. She played the piano for quite a few years until sound started to come into the theaters.

And then of course she taught me how to play the piano. I know; no one’s heard me play. I was about 8 years old, and from there on she taught me and a few other people too. I kept on playing and when I was in high school I played for the high school glee clubs and the orchestra. I played for both the boys and girls glee clubs. The band was about half girls and half boys. I think there was about 125 in our orchestra. It was a good sized band.

At that time the music director said to me, "Why don’t you get interested in the percussion instruments?" He started me out with bells and chimes, snare drums, and all those. Then my folks bought me a marimba. It looked like a xylophone. It depends which hammers you use – you can make it sound like a xylophone or softer, which is like a marimba. And so I played that for quite a while.

Lots of groups like the PTA would ask me to come in as a guest and play for them. Either the marimba, or with the hard hammers to make it sound like a xylophone. I also learned to play the timpani, the kettle drums. They call them timpani or kettle drums. They’re the big drums you see in the back at the orchestra. I played those all the time in high school and the first couple of years after that. The music director had me come back and help him out as something special.

I kept trying music. My folks kept encouraging – more my mother with that. When I was playing marimba, my father had a truck at the time and we could take the marimba in that and take me around to different places to play it. Otherwise it would have been very hard to get around. There were quite a few meetings that asked me to come and play.

My father would arrange things where the whole family of us could go out and put on musicals. There were a couple of brothers that played the accordions. And (Grammy's friend/ sister-in-law) Janet tap danced – she was pretty good at tap dancing. She would go with us and we would put on little shows to attract people in the farm areas and the general stores. That would bring the people in to have a little bit of excitement that they don’t normally have."

Cream of Tomato and Cheddar Soup

Another warm recipe from The Red Lion Inn. If you double click on the image, it informs you that:

"This is the official soup of the Red Lion Inn Golf Tournament!!"

Excellent.

Cream of Tomato and Cheddar Soup

1 sm onion, chopped

4 stalks celery, leaves removed

3 carrots, peeled

2 lbs Italian plum tomatoes

3 tsp pickling spice tied in cheesecloth bag

4 TB extra virgin olive oil

1 tsp Worcestershire Sauce

1/4 ts Tabasco

2 Qts Veal Stock

3/4 lb Cheddar Cheese, shredded

5 oz butter

5 oz flour

8 oz butter

1 cup heavy cream

S&P to taste

-Chop the onions, celery and carrots finely. Saute in olive oil.

-Add tomatoes, bag of spices, sauces, and simmer for 1 hr. Stir often.

-Remove spice bag and puree mixture until smooth.

-Simmer mixture with the spice bag and the veal stock. Bring to boil and simmer until reduced by 1/4.

-Heat 5 oz butter and flour until stirred together into a roux.

-Beat roux into soup. Gradually add Cheddar Cheese, remaining butter, cream, and s&p.

Cream of Carrot Soup

It's been a cold, wet week up here in Massachusetts. Perfect for some soup. This recipe also came from The Red Lion Inn.

Cream of Carrot Soup

3 TB butter

1/3 cup leeks, diced

1/3 cup onion, diced

1/3 cup celery, diced

1 cup carrots, diced

3 TB flour

3 cups chicken stock

1 cup light cream

salt, pepper, thyme

1/3 cup white wine

-Melt butter in sauce pan and add leeks, onion, celery and carrots. Saute for 5 min.

-Blend in flour, then add chicken stock. Bring to boil.

-Add salt, pepper, thyme and wine. Let simmer for 20 minutes.

-Puree in blender.

-Return to low heat and add cream just before serving.

Hollandaise Sauce

Since this recipe comes from the Red Lion Inn, we trust it to be excellent.

Hollandaise Sauce

4 egg yolks, unbeaten

4 1/2 TB fresh lemon juice

12 TB frozen clarified butter

salt and cayenne to taste

1/4 tsp worcestershire sauce

-Place egg yolks, lemon juice and 6 TB butter in small saucepan. Cook over low heat, stirring continuously with wooden spoon.

-When butter has melted, add remaining butter and stir until sauce thickens.

-Add salt, cayenne and worcestershire sauce.

Suggested serving over Chicken Almondine, Veal Oscar.

What is a Pandowdy?

Happy Birthday, Grammy Gertie!

Grammy Gertie will be turning 91 in a few days, an accomplishment the rest of us can't touch. In her honor, we are posting a few of her more memorable recipes today (see the posts below).

I did an interview project with Grammy a few years ago. It seems like a fitting day to post some excerpts of that as well. In her own words:

"I was born on the grounds of the Burkey farm. It was a big house, with a big barn and lots of cows. The base of the house was built on a sort of hill. You could open the basement door from the ground level. In it there was big, white room with shelves, and wheel after wheel after wheel of Swiss cheese. It was curing itself. It smelled wonderful in there with all the Swiss cheese. We sold the cheese to different places. I remember the big room where they kept the cheese.

There was a big barn. I liked the animals. We had a few horses. They did maple syruping. There were lots of woods. They’d get a couple thousand gallons of syrup each year. They needed the horses to pull the sleighs or the wagons through to carry the sap back to the sugar house. Of course there were sheep and pigs, things you find in a normal barn.

I didn’t have brothers or sisters – I was the only one. They were big farms, with a lot of distance between the houses. I probably spent a lot of time in the barn, and just walking around.

I don’t remember ever celebrating my birthday at school. There was a boy who had the same birthday that I did, but we never celebrated at school. At home, my mom would make a cake. My favorite cake was white cake with whipped cream frosting. Each year I’d have one of those – she’d make one for me. When I was younger, we’d have two or three neighborhood kids come in and have a little party, but I guess that was about it."

A Letter from Robert Treat Paine

Today, instead of a recipe, I'm posting a historical document from a relative. Robert Treat Paine, who signed the Declaration of Independence, has one of his letters on sale at Sotheby's in Boston this week. It's dated June 17, 1775:

I can't really decipher what he's writing (since his handwriting is worse than my own!), but apparently the letter was sent to David Cobb in Taunton. He wrote, "I have not time to be very formal and may tell you in few words that we have unanimously chose George Washington Esq. to be General of American forces."

Click the image to enlarge.

Cream of Cauliflower Soup

Another cold New England evening... perfect for a big bowl of soup. This recipe comes from the historic Red Lion Inn of Stockbridge, MA -- a favorite restaurant when we're visiting the Berkshires. Click on the image to enlarge it.

Grammy's Cookbook

Along with her recipe box, Grammy Gertie has kept and used a 1942 Pocket Cookbook (from which the previous fruitcake recipes came).

The first page reads "In order to cooperate with the government's war effort, this book has been made in strict conformity with WPB regulations restricting the use of certain materials."

To which, Grammy merrily has added the cooking instructions for a turkey pie.

"Dessert Storm"

This just makes me laugh. It takes a tough man to make a tasty pie. Also, since when does the National Inquirer** have a recipe section?

**no copyright infringement intended; this actually was in the recipe box collection.