chubbyalaskagriz
New member
What are some of your grandma-kitchen memories?
My maternal grand mother was raised in Hickory Flat, Mississippi. She always said her own mother had the biggest hands she'd ever seen on a woman. She later married and moved to Stuttgart, Arkansas and married Floyd who worked in the rice fields and loved to hunt & fish.
They had 7 kids and my Mom and a set of twins were the youngest 3.
Raising 7 kids was hard and Grandpa escaped to the woods and ponds too often to suit her. So came a time when the marriage got too rocky for Grandma to take, so she took her 3 youngest north to Peoria, Illinois where she settled into a 3-room house and a job working in the cafeteria of St. Francis Hospital. After working and saving for a year she sent for the remaining 4 children and they all lived in that 3-room house.
Needless to say- they were poor. But Grandma was a great cook w/ great skills and lack of money didn't stop her from cooking up a storm.
Her Sunday Dinners and Holiday Meals were legendary- pan-fried chicken for a crowd, ham, turkey, cakes & pies... and there was always this bowl of a fruit and coconut thing she made w/ sherry.
...her do-ahead cold Christmas Eve supper menu was the same every year: scroodle salad w/ cubes of spam and velveeta dressed w/ miracle whip, chicken salad finger sandwiches, mincemeat slab pie squares, and always a bottomless pitcher of red fruit punch she made by dumping cans of various condensed juices together w/ 7-Up.
A few things I remember from her everyday kitchen were:
She always had a bundle of sliced American cheese in her fridge that she'd swiped from work- we grandkids usta raid that all the time!
She always kept a bag of jewel-colored Brachs Jube Jell candies in the fridge so they'd stay real hard. Both she and her pug-dog Penny loved those! (Penny also aid Rolaids!)
Grandma's breakfast each morning was brewed coffee that she first poured into a cup- then poured in smaller "batches" into her saucer to cool- then she lifted the saucer to her mouth to sip from it. And always a pair of sunny-side-up eggs loaded w/ the coarsest black pepper she could find at Krogers.
Grandma also always had a cake in her kitchen. Usually on her Sundays off she'd bake the cake she'd found the recipe for the Friday before in the Peoria Journal Star. She kept a 9X13" metal cake pan w/ a sliding lid on a rolling cart near her table and if the cake called for frosting- she'd omit it. I cannot remember a visit to Grandma's where we did not have cake and sneak her swiped American cheese!
She soaked her white polyester uniform dresses in a tub of Miracle White. But on special occasions she always wore the brightest most coloful slacks and blouses and I swear she musta owned a hundred purses in every color possible! She had a matching purse for every outfit she owned!
Growing up we made the trip to Arkansas often to visit relatives. A few times we took Grandma w/ us. Grandpa Floyd never re-married and he kept a terribly messy house- and each time Grandma would spend days at his place cleaning it, washing weeks worth of old crusty plates and dishes, scrubbing floors and walls, even washing/pressing kitchen curtains that hung over the sink. I remember one time she was at the table w/ the wall clock taken apart and she was using Q-tips to clean the grease that clung to it from from hanging over Grandpa's fish fryer on the stove burner!
Grandma was a big woman and not all sugary sweet. But she had a large brood to raise all on her own and focusing on hard work to keep those kids fed was her highest priorty- she had to show her love in other ways. And remarkably she met her most important goal of getting all her girls married off early- and all her boys into the military.
Happy Birthday Grandma!
My maternal grand mother was raised in Hickory Flat, Mississippi. She always said her own mother had the biggest hands she'd ever seen on a woman. She later married and moved to Stuttgart, Arkansas and married Floyd who worked in the rice fields and loved to hunt & fish.
They had 7 kids and my Mom and a set of twins were the youngest 3.
Raising 7 kids was hard and Grandpa escaped to the woods and ponds too often to suit her. So came a time when the marriage got too rocky for Grandma to take, so she took her 3 youngest north to Peoria, Illinois where she settled into a 3-room house and a job working in the cafeteria of St. Francis Hospital. After working and saving for a year she sent for the remaining 4 children and they all lived in that 3-room house.
Needless to say- they were poor. But Grandma was a great cook w/ great skills and lack of money didn't stop her from cooking up a storm.
Her Sunday Dinners and Holiday Meals were legendary- pan-fried chicken for a crowd, ham, turkey, cakes & pies... and there was always this bowl of a fruit and coconut thing she made w/ sherry.
...her do-ahead cold Christmas Eve supper menu was the same every year: scroodle salad w/ cubes of spam and velveeta dressed w/ miracle whip, chicken salad finger sandwiches, mincemeat slab pie squares, and always a bottomless pitcher of red fruit punch she made by dumping cans of various condensed juices together w/ 7-Up.
A few things I remember from her everyday kitchen were:
She always had a bundle of sliced American cheese in her fridge that she'd swiped from work- we grandkids usta raid that all the time!
She always kept a bag of jewel-colored Brachs Jube Jell candies in the fridge so they'd stay real hard. Both she and her pug-dog Penny loved those! (Penny also aid Rolaids!)
Grandma's breakfast each morning was brewed coffee that she first poured into a cup- then poured in smaller "batches" into her saucer to cool- then she lifted the saucer to her mouth to sip from it. And always a pair of sunny-side-up eggs loaded w/ the coarsest black pepper she could find at Krogers.
Grandma also always had a cake in her kitchen. Usually on her Sundays off she'd bake the cake she'd found the recipe for the Friday before in the Peoria Journal Star. She kept a 9X13" metal cake pan w/ a sliding lid on a rolling cart near her table and if the cake called for frosting- she'd omit it. I cannot remember a visit to Grandma's where we did not have cake and sneak her swiped American cheese!
She soaked her white polyester uniform dresses in a tub of Miracle White. But on special occasions she always wore the brightest most coloful slacks and blouses and I swear she musta owned a hundred purses in every color possible! She had a matching purse for every outfit she owned!
Growing up we made the trip to Arkansas often to visit relatives. A few times we took Grandma w/ us. Grandpa Floyd never re-married and he kept a terribly messy house- and each time Grandma would spend days at his place cleaning it, washing weeks worth of old crusty plates and dishes, scrubbing floors and walls, even washing/pressing kitchen curtains that hung over the sink. I remember one time she was at the table w/ the wall clock taken apart and she was using Q-tips to clean the grease that clung to it from from hanging over Grandpa's fish fryer on the stove burner!
Grandma was a big woman and not all sugary sweet. But she had a large brood to raise all on her own and focusing on hard work to keep those kids fed was her highest priorty- she had to show her love in other ways. And remarkably she met her most important goal of getting all her girls married off early- and all her boys into the military.
Happy Birthday Grandma!