January 9, 2015
Dear Everyone:
My car is all better now.
Again.
I took the car in to the same
body shop that replaced the
bumper last
summer. They assured me that
replacing the right-side mirror would be very easy once they ordered the
part. It would even arrive
in the same color as the car, so no three-day waiting period for custom
paint to dry.
Last Tuesday I arrived promptly at 9:00 AM.
I sat in the “front office”, chatting with the lady who basically
runs the place, while someone took the car into the bay and brought it
out again a few minutes later, good as new.
Such a relief to be able to “see” what’s going on “behind” me.
On the other hand, I’m much more conscientious about checking my
blind spot, since it was really, really blind for a few weeks.
Also, much more careful about backing out of my carport.
Meanwhile…
A few months ago, I was digging through my official
Betty Crocker
Cookbook, tenth publication in 1971, when I came across a whole treasure
trove of old, mostly hand-written recipes, shoved into the back of the
book. (Note:
This is not really good for the book’s
spine.
And, yes, according to Amazon.com, you can still buy a real Betty
Crocker Cookbook, although not really bound anymore; they’re spiral
now.)
The hand-written recipes were mostly ones I wanted to keep that had come
from relatives, neighbors and friends over the years.
Such as “Grandma’s Almond Pastry”, which I got from Mother, of
course.
And those cherry cookies that only make an appearance around
Christmas
time, that being prime cookie territory.
Gotta have snacks for
Santa, right?
I remember one time, around Christmas, when I was visiting our parents
in their home in
Moss Beach.
I decided to make
Russian Teacakes, based on instructions hand-scribbled
on the back of a paper bag from a
stationery store that probably
disappeared decades ago. As
I was making the cookies, our Dad wandered into the kitchen, found the
recipe on the paper bag, and started reading the instructions.
Dad: “It says to place the
cookies one inch apart. Now,
is that one inch from center to center, or one inch from edge to edge?”
Me: “This isn’t rocket
science. They’re cookies.”
He left the room, then came back a few minutes later…with a
ruler.
And proceeded to measure the spaces between the cookies, side to
side and top to bottom.
Whether or not the spacing was “correct”, the cookies came out just
fine. And I still have the
recipe.
The recipe is still the same, but the ingredients have changed.
I always bought
granulated sugar in bags.
They came in boxes, too, but that was less economical.
Originally, the bag contained five pounds of sugar.
Over the years, the manufacturers cleverly cut back on the
weight, while keeping the bags nearly the same.
So a five-pound bag became a four-pound bag, at the same price, of
course. Incidentally, they
did the same thing with ground coffee:
A five-pound canister became a four-pound canister.
Like they thought we wouldn’t notice.
But when did brown sugar, and
powdered sugar, start coming in clear
plastic bags instead of boxes?
I don’t remember getting that memo.
And as for things like
measuring spoons and
cups.
Calling the ones I have “ancient” would be a kindness.
The ones with markings that are still readable would be more at
home in a museum somewhere.
So, while shopping, I stopped in the “kitchen gadgets” aisle at the
grocery store and loaded up on “useful things” to have in the kitchen,
assuming your kitchen doesn’t resemble a medieval castle somewhere.
Frankly, one should replace kitchen utensils every forty years, whether
they need it or not. Just a
“rule of thumb”.
For the record, my electric
mixer does still work, although I haven’t
used it for much in the five years since I moved to my current abode.
And I still have the cooling racks that I probably got when I
moved into my first real home-away-from-Home.
I may have used them as broilers from time to time, but they
still work for cooling backed goods.
All of this started, by the way, when I looked at the price of prepared
cookies at the grocery store and balked at paying, on average, $0.50
each. I can make cookies for
less than that! Of course,
we’ll have to add up all the purchased ingredients, not including new
bakeware, etc., to see if that turns out to be true.
If all goes well, I should have a batch of Snowdrop cookies (recipe from
one of Mother’s friends, circa 1967) by the end of the day.
Wish me luck.
Love, as always,
Pete
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