A Sprung Spring

See the plant nursery in the window? Pretty nice “digs” for them, if you’ll pardon the pun.

We try to use as much space as possible for planting. Even vertical shelving and mismatched planters. Soon the pots and shelves will be screened by moon flower and morning glory vines.

Rhubarb!! A seriously under-used food plant.

One of the lucky pepper plants that survived the greenhouse demolition. We don’t really know which of 4 varieties if may be!

Finally!  I got to plant my garden.  It has been a crazy spring.  80 degree March and 30 degree April.  Wind heavy storms.  I happily started seeds in the parlor windows in mid February so my little pretties would be ready to transfer out to the big outdoors greenhouse by mid to late March.  The weather was so nice in March, I was pleased to re-pot the now leggy tomatoes, ground cherries, and peppers, etc. and haul them all out to the sunny warm shelter of the outdoor greenhouse.

That’s when it started.

The Crazy Spring.  It was like Spring sprung a spring and went bouncing off its track.  The weather didn’t just turn cold, it turned frozen with night temperatures plummeting to 23 degrees and daytime ones nudging 40 and 45.  Certainly not growing weather.  I took to hauling the many flats of plants back into the house at night and then, out to the greenhouse by day.

Eh…it’s Michigan.

That’s what I told myself.  You do what you have to, to garden in Michigan springs.

Then, it warmed up a smidge and I let the plants have a sleep-over in the outside greenhouse.  That’s when disaster struck!  Fantastical high winds.  They arrived as if on a freight train and demolished my greenhouse and spilled my lovelies all over.   Broken stems and dashed harvest.  I did my best to find and re-plant what I could and hauled them back into the parlor to stay.  Then, fortunately, I had more seeds, I started new plants.

Here is a young row of strawberries interplanted with asparagus. In normal years, the asparagus would be much shorter! Plus, it has been left to grow healthy roots instead of stalks this first year.

That is one of the great things about starting a garden with seeds instead of nursery plants.  Extra seeds.

Well.  I finally got my gardens planted.  The recovered older plants are in the ground with smaller ones.  Rows of seeds are now sprouting into red trails of beet leaves and fine tendrils of newly emerging green onions.

There’s cabbage, broccoli, rutabaga, potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic, horseradish, sweet corn, peas, beets, ground cherry, squashes, beans, pickles, lots of herbs, nasturtiums, sunflowers, morning glories, marigold….and lions and tigers and…

Beets make a pretty row of red and green. My how the chickens love the little ones I pull out to thin the row.

Already in the ground were the perennial plants.  Strawberries, Asparagus, Rhubarb, Onion, Garlic, Blueberries, Raspberries, Currants, Apples, and Pears.  I’m loving my rhubarb harvest right now.  Couldn’t pick the asparagus as it was planted only last spring and it is best to give it a year or so without harvest to let the plant focus energies on the root growth.  The first crop of strawberries froze off but there’s more on the way.  We surely lost the pears and apples to the Crazy Spring.  I’m also getting lots of spring perennial herbs and the onions that make our food practically dance with flavor.

I can’t wait to start canning season.

I’ve been teaching a lot of canning lately and it is certainly the season

Herbs! Oregano and tarragon in front. Planted area for basil and cilantro next. Then, fennel, lavender, lemon balm, pineapple sage, dill, chives…

for canning pickled asparagus.  Bygone Basics guests enjoy taking their green jars of treasure home.  Now it is my turn.  This weekend…I’m canning as much as possible of this neat treat…for ourselves and our guests.

After that…Jam!…of the strawberry rhubarb varieties…and then…summer produce will be in full swing and all harvest will break loose.

What is your favorite food to grow?

What do you look forward to “put by?”

We grow things in the ground and in pots and buckets….here is some basil that will flourish in vertical space.

A newly “grounded” plant. It had just been rained on so it looks a tad bedraggled.

NEATO!

How neato is this?  kalamitykelli nominated me (icanatbygonebasics) for the Versatile Blog Award.  It sure added a thrill to my day as I was over focused and drenched in paint doing a project (hand-painting a sign for our B&B).

Thank you kalamitykelli.     (http://kellisretrokitchenarts.wordpress.com/)

As a VBA recipient, I should tell you 7 things about myself:

1.  I have 8 children (6 daughters and 2 sons), 2 grandsons, 1 baby grand son due in August, and TWIN baby grandgirls expected next month!
2. I can move my eyes independent of each other (makes me look rather loopy!)
3. I just opened a heritage farm-stay Bed & Breakfast (www.amandasbequest.com)
4. I garden every open square inch possible….vertical and horizontal (I have peppers and tomatoes stuck everywhere in the summer)
   

   This is what I've been doing. Hand painting a sign for our Bed & Breakfast. I covered in paint and am told by my husband that I must roll in paint like a horse in sand. www.amandasbequest.com

5. I am a crazy chicken lady (love my free range “girls”) and they follow me about like ducklings
6. I teach heritage culinary and farm kitchen skills (soap making, pressure canning, gardening, baking breads and pies old-style…etc) in a 140 year old kitchen (www.bygonebasics.com)
7. I have a novel pacing across my brain and back, rattling its cage, wanting to get out….

Here are 15 versatile blogs I enjoy (no particular order):

1.  The Soulsby Farm (http://soulsbyfarm.wordpress.com/) who believe in the same lifestyle I do of self- sustainable living and are random bloggers so you get a wonderful view of their lives.

2.  Jen Maan in Amman (http://jenmaaninamman.com/) an ex-patriot from Southern California who is currently in Amman with her husband.  Her blogs are humourous and cultural diverse…and have some interesting recipes too!

3.  Kath Usitalo (http://kathusitalo.com/) has a couple of blogs and a great writing style…and she’s continuously visiting interesting places and sharing them in her blog with great photography too.  You never know what she’s going to share next.

4.  In Toads Garden (http://toads.wordpress.com/) is a wonderful gardener in Denmark with a very natural earthy style that I enjoy.

5.  Yes You Can (http://yes-you-can-can.com/) is a wonderful country girl’s guide and covers sewing, cooking, gardening…lots of basic “how to’s”

6.  thesolitarycook (http://thesolitarycook.wordpress.com/) is all about FOOD!  She knows her stuff and clearly loves the enormous variety of foods she writes about.

7.  wallopingteaspoon (http://wallopingteaspoon.wordpress.com/) is also culinary pro in my book.  Her blogs are thorough and well written.  She blogs about food from tuxedo cupcakes to a good “sammich” to Red Snapper

8.  Rosey Dow Blog (http://roseydow.wordpress.com/) I like her old house blogs and feel an affinity.

9.  hippie itch (http://hippieitch.wordpress.com/) covers a lot of topics from healthy lifestyles to food to animals.  I love her passion for animals.

10.  The Domestically Impaired Guide to Retro Kitchen Arts (http://kellisretrokitchenarts.wordpress.com/) is a great blog on home canning…a KINDRED SPIRIT.

11.  Aquaponic Family (http://aquaponicfamily.wordpress.com/) is a fun blog about aquaponic gardening.  I live vicariously through them as I would like to do what they are….

12.  Farm Country Crafts (http://farmcountrycrafts.wordpress.com/) Pretty well described in the title but goes much further!  A fun blog and you’ll love her Five Reasons to Do Yard Work in the Shade.

13.  domesticateddilettante (http://domesticateddilettante.wordpress.com/ is a well-written and well-rounded blog about family, food, gardening… I love that she is determined to garden.

14.  The Cosy Creative (http://thecosycreative.wordpress.com/) is about a lot of things.  I really like her motto “feel happy, make something”

15.  Linda Stone (http://lindastone.net/) is a thinker and able to transmit those thoughts with good clear writing.  What can I say, I like thinkers!

Keep up the great posts!  And thank you for sharing parts of your lives with me.

Valerie Hanson

Larry is Gone

Heifer is my most affectionate hen. She is the brown one in this photo. Larry and Darrell follow closely in affection too. Well...not Larry anymore. Larry's sister, Darrell, is the white Leghorn here.

Last night, I lost Larry. 

You might think it an odd name, but Larry is a chicken.  A white Leghorn hen.  One of my best laying hens and one of my two most affectionate and interactive “girls.”

I knew having free range hens was a gamble.

I know I would be furious and out for revenge if Larry was lost to a free running dog that a neighbor should have contained better.

But….Larry was taken by a Bald Eagle…doing what Bald Eagles do.

Now I don’t know how to feel.  Very sad, of course, I love Larry and all her fluffy, happy sisters.  She was a pet to me, like another person’s cat or dog.  But, how can I be furious at the eagle?  I would be a hypocrite if I took issue with nature taking its course.

All of my girls have odd names. Most have barnyard animal names. This is our biggest girl, Dog. She lays enormous brown eggs like clockwork every day.

It seems that I should be angry with myself for not keeping the hens in their little coop and, thus, exposing them to danger.  But…then they would spend their lives in a little pen, eating what kitchen and garden scraps and chicken feed I gave them; rather than running about happily eating bugs and grass seeds, selecting for themselves what foods they needed, with (and I swear this is true) big smiles on their beaks.

So I ask you.

What should I do?  Keep them penned in and safe?  OR Allow them free range in the midst of possible danger?

Here are some of my mixed variety hens. They lay a mixture of brown, blue, green, and white eggs for me.

Do you have chickens? 

How do you handle this problem?

Bunny is a very old Brahma hen. She raised the other's as chicks and really doesn't lay much as she is so excited by all the eggs that she wants to brood them all of the time. She's un pollo loco.

A Compost … Post

Confessions of a Composter

Most who know me well, have seen me spirit food scraps from restaurants. Yes. I admit. I am one of THOSE people.

I can’t stand to see waste. I think it may be a disease, as it is getting worse as I get older.

My possible disease diagnosis aside <wink> .. I’m getting quite a nicely rounded bio-cycle. Food for human consumption enters the cycle (via my own gardens, grocery, gifts from other growers…and um…restaurant take-away… What isn’t immediately consumable is given to the chickens.

What my free-range feathery little girls who run about the lawns with happy little smiles on their beaks then do, is give me eggs! What chickens can’t eat, goes into the compost. The chickens also produce manure; and that, along with their straw bedding, is regularly put into the compost, too.

The compost eventually gets dumped into the garden. The chickens eat bugs from the compost after random spreading there and further spread it out in the garden with their scratching. And I get eggs.

The compost improves the soil, helping grow abundant good food in the garden…and the cycle revolves. Did I mention I get eggs out of the deal too!? So I have learned that the more organic resources I can introduce into this little bio-cycle, the more powerful the food growing cycle is.

Now please note, I live within CITY limits…in a neighborhood. But fortunately, I also have a few acres of space for gardens!  (yay me!)  This style of healthy living is possible even with small patio gardening. (you should fore go the chickens if there is no room for them to be happy) You can compost in small places and keep vigorous plants in that soil in containers on your deck even. I’ll tell you how:

There are some really nice home use and commercial composting equipment you can pay a pretty penny for and if you want to go that route, that’s fine. I prefer to look around first to see if there is something I can reuse or recycle before I go buy new things.

Let’s call it creative composting.  You can have a compost bin made out of just about anything.  Look around, what have you laying about?  Some cinder blocks?  An old tarp?  Old wooden pallets (these work great because you can stand your rakes and hoes, even Shepard’s crook flower holders to prettily screen your pile, in the outer wall).  Old unused small dog kennel?  A few 5 gallon plastic pails?  Discarded window screens (just wire them together).

We use the big bulk food plastic barrels that would be discarded by huge food processors and go to a landfill to never break down.  They are great for rain barrels too.  Since turning your compost is important, you need access into it with a pitchfork…or in the case of my compost barrel…John has made a lid that fits tightly on the top and I just knock it over and roll it around a bit and stand it back up.  When the time comes to put it on the garden, we just roll it there.  He did drill some small holes in the sides and bottom for proper drainage and aeration.

Essentially, you just need something that will contain your compost, give it some aeration and drainage, and allow you to turn it in some manner.

Start your compost with brown matter.  No…not poo.  Lawn clippings, leaves, even cardboard/newspaper.  Yes…paper is organic and will return to the earth as nutrients instead of a landfill if you mix it in a compost pile.  You can even toss in some soil to introduce the microorganisms that break down matter into soil.  Then you can begin tossing in your household scraps.  Keep throwing on the brown matter.  But there are somethings you shouldn’t put in your compost:

• used cat box litter (could spread disease)
• bones (won’t break down)
• large quantities of fat in one glob (add shredded newspaper with it and stir the pile)
• Meat (just be cautious as this may attract unwanted interest in your compost…I have never had a problem)
• non-organic items (plastic, heavily glossy mailings…)

Definitely add your coffee grounds; paper filter and all!

See an earthworm after a rain?  Put him in too, to help break things down.

It works well to have two barrels as it takes about three to 6 months for a good compost to do it’s job.  I fill one and let it sit for a month or two (still need to roll it around once in a while) while I start to fill the other.  About the time the second one is getting full, it is time to put the first one on the gardens.

We have two kitchens at Bygone Basics/Amanda’s Bequest.  We keep two small compost buckets in the kitchen and dump them daily into the larger one out doors.  We just use a bucket we’ve found to re-use for this purpose, but you can purchase kitchen compost containers that are specifically made for this in many home-improvement stores.

Composting is a great way to boost your plants and food output, reduce your trash bill, keep a lot of paper and waste out of the landfill, take care of livestock manure, and of course, get eggs!  

(did I mention I LOVE eggs?)

If you haven’t already, have a look at our websites:

Bygone Basics:  www.bygonebasics.com

Amanda’s Bequest – A Heritage Farmstay Bed & Breakfast:  www.amandasbequest.com

Is Valerie Crazy?

I thought I might have your attention.  <chuckling>  Anyone who knows me may have actually asked themselves that very question.

You may not know that I went from business executive to helping others learn about a more simple life, one that includes hands-on messy work…(compost comes to mind).  Why not just keep doing what I was doing so I could just BUY anything I thought I needed or wanted?

It took me a bit, but I learned what others already knew.  One cannot buy the best things in life.  Love.  Happiness.  Health.  Those things come from a bank of a different sort.  And you have to work for them.

But…I digress…Is Valerie Crazy?

Yep.  Just crazy enough to open two businesses, in MICHIGAN, in this poor economy..and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.  It is quite an adventure too!  Crazy enough to trust the relationship my husband, John, and I have.  Although, maybe he’s crazy-er for smiling and helping to make all this happen!  A very good friend, Gordon, reminds me once in a while that “John didn’t sign up for that.” when I get a bit ahead of our plans.  (John says I do everything fast.)

Bygone Basics is nicely established and picking up steam.  I am thrilled with the uniqueness each guest brings to an experience.  I feel truly blessed by them.

Amanda’s Bequest Bed & Breakfast is just now opening.  (click the name to check out the website) John and I look forward to every guest.  I’m all excited too…MORE PEOPLE TO COOK FOR!  (I can’t help it, I grew up on a rural country farm in a big family….food was a very important part of life…and you fed people as a means of letting them know they are welcome)

Here is the perfect example of why I do what I do:

Bygone Basics' guests sitting down for a hearty farm lunch.

This family planned a vacation in March 2012 around their Experience with Bygone Basics.  They drove through two states plus part of Michigan to get here.  They were a brother, sister, husband, mother.  And oh did they know how to enjoy each other’s company (I can only imagine that road trip)!  They make a point out of celebrating holidays with a unique theme every time so noone takes any holiday for granted.  Isn’t that a great idea?  It might sound odd, but think how memorable a “Mexican” Easter would be.  As each is different, it isn’t as likely that these special family times will fade from memory.  They learned how to can at Bygone Basics, both pressure canning and water bath canning.  I feel certain they will take that knowledge home and have much quality, happy, family times, canning produce from someone’s garden together.

Canning CAN be fun!

People of the past always knew, but we’ve begun to forget.  Many hands make light work and lighter hearts.  Think barn raisings and Amish summer kitchens.  It’s not much work when you are enjoying the company of others while using the time industriously.  Some might even call it a vacation.  Is that crazy or what?

Light is the task where many share the toil. – Homer

On a completely different note:  Here is a link to the March “I Can at Bygone Basics” Newsletter.  Try the dried apples recipe.  They are easy, healthy, and delicious.

Cheery Query

I have a question to pose readers this week.

I make  a living (or rather am working hard at building a living) from my recipes both food and home art.  Creation of good to eat victuals and healthy home products from heritage and/or natural ingredients are a passion for me.  It is so thrilling when someone asks for a recipe or how to make a specific soap.  What is the saying?

“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” (FYI:  Charles Caleb Colton originated this in early 1800′s)

Some of my kitchen tools.

But truthfully, it is conflicting.  When it is a recipe printed in a cookbook I have, originated in recent times, it seems right to share it.  The requester could likely look it up (on the ‘net usually) and by sharing, I enjoy helping that person.   Is it right to share out of a cookbook?  Is it a disservice to the author of the cookbook?

Here’s were it gets personal.  When it is a recipe I have invested a lot of time and resources (failed attempts, come to mind …my apologies to husband John who has to eat the …umm…less than stellar results).  It is a unique recipe  and customers are willing to purchase the product I have developed, how should I respond?  Is it constructive or detrimental?

After all, I love to be helpful and see the many wonderful people in my days happy.

So I query you.  Out of curiosity.  Out of a desire to learn and grow.

What is the appropriate response?  Many of you are incredible chefs and cookbook authors.  I’m just … me.

Your comments are most welcome!!

Therapy Cookies and Suzanne’s Lesson

Back from yet another long trip to Kansas.  This time for the funeral.  A 43 year old vibrant wife and mother of five passed on Valentine’s day.  I really do want to shake my fist and rail at the universe for its injustice to good people.  But, while was mentally considering how to do that without getting struck by lightening or something, I baked cookies. (It’s how I wrap my head around things, I bake)

As it turned out, there was therapy in those cookies as well as the realization that I had just been taught a huge life lesson by my sister, Suzanne.

Abraham Maslow said that we could define therapy as a search for value.

I suppose that defines my thoughts this morning.  I set to work doing my Bygone Basics’ bakery orders (www.bygonebasics.com) with the very recent death of my brother’s wife, Mary, weighing heavy.  Seeking reasons or value to this tragedy.

Toasting the walnuts, tossed with cinamon sugar.

I began by making my special recipe for chocolate cookies.  The first thing was to create small walnut pieces out of whole walnuts.  I will admit to excessive force.  The walnuts were cracked with some malice.  Then I put the walnuts in a heavy plastic bag and whammed the heck out of them with a french rolling pin. …Beginning to feel a bit better.  :)

Next, everything needed to be measured out.  The flour, rolled oats, chocolate chips, butter, eggs, spices….By the time I was finished, the concentration on accurate measurement had actually taken my mind to a better place.  Of course tasting fresh cookie dough helps too.

By the time the cookies were going on the cookie sheets and being baked, I was thinking more deeply about the recent events.  My brother had chosen an unusal passage for his wife’s funeral service.  It began “Rejoice Always.  …In all circumstances, give thanks,…” (Thes 5:16-24).  He had explained that when he was at his lowest point, when it was obvious Mary was slipping away, he heard this passage at Church.  It angered him at first, and then, it served to bring him out of a very angry and dark place.  It caused him to look around and find that there was still good in his life.  His children especially.  His family was brought close by this.What did I have to rejoice in?

What gift has Mary’s passing given me?

The example set by my sister, Suzanne.  Not too long ago, she lost her own husband to cancer at 41 with a young son at home.  It was a long and hard path to (and from) his passing.  She endured a lot that I can’t even imagine.  Yet, there she was, the first one to understand that our brother was alone several states away and needed help.  Placing her job in jeapardy, she made two extended trips to help him.  I was blessed to go with her.  Even though it caused her to relive her own deep pain, she cared for our sister-in-law with such depth and consideration.  She talked with our brother on a level that only those two could understand.  She cried at night and was a pillar in the day.  She made sure our young nieces had what they needed.

I loved my sister before.  But now, I rejoice in the heart and soul of such an amazing woman.  Her selfless example of care will live on in me and in my priorities in life.

Add the oats, toasted walnuts and chocolate chips

Such was Suzanne’s lesson for me.

I feel better.  The cookies are baked.  I’ve had a bit of an epiphany.  I even went on to get my french baquette order done and restarted the Sourdough starter.

…..Heck, I might even feel like doing my blog.  Hope I don’t get to philisophical….. 

By the way…Did I ever tell you that I have started to “Tweet”?  Find me at @ApronsRUs.  (Yes, it is an odd twitter name, sometimes, I just can’t help myself…my humor is a bit …quirky.)

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There’s Always Time for a Quickie

Having just returned home from Kansas after being away for quite a while, helping a very ill family member, I find myself buried in about 7 pages of “to-do’s.”

BUT…I didn’t want to let this week go by without a bit of a “quickie” blog post.

It is hard to believe so much food can come from such a little box.

This post is a gentle reminder about one of the FUN parts of winter….planning your garden and ordering seeds!!

My package containing all of my summer’s bounty arrived while I was in Kansas. …so far I’ve been able to restrain myself from borrowing Dorothy’s “I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore”….oops…   Just can’t wait to sink my fingers into the dirt and plant those little seeds while thinking of all of the good nutritious foods that will come of them.  I’ve made some changes in what I plant this year and am looking forward to gardening with an eye for massive production in small spaces.  I’m going as vertical as possible, using the fence around the garden to grow the cucumbers up, for example.  Also there will be even more companion gardening, as that was quite successful last year.  Growing beans right in between the cornrows was perfect!

If you have any great garden tips, share them!  I love to learn new ways.  ICan@bygonebasics.com

So…..plan that garden….or even just a few container gardens if you don’t have much space.  There’s still time to order seeds and get them growing for summer’s bounty.

I officially CAN'T WAIT for Spring now...

This Week’s post is written by a guest blogger:  Jessica Rabe.

I would like to apologize.  I am a guest blogger today, and I accidentally published something while trying to link.  This is why I don’t have much to do with technology

With Valerie is in Kansas for a week to help with an ill family member, I have the pleasure of being a Guest Blogger for Bygone Basics.  First, I’ll introduce myself, and then, I’ll let you read what you came for in peace

My name is Jessica, and I’m Valerie’s oldest daughter.  Mom, jokingly calles me her Scullery Maid.  I’ve been helping with the heritage kitchen whenever I can, and I love *almost* every minute of it.  (I mean, who truly enjoys the cleanup?)

Waste Not, Want Not

Have you ever thought about all of the trimmings you throw away, or even toss on the compost?  I never really did either, but it turns out the answer is: A lot!  Recently, Valerie and I stumbled upon a wonderful blog post: Five Packaged Foods You Never Need To Buy Again by Jane Mountain.  I’ll be the first to admit that I got a bit carried away in my excitement.  My second favorite part of the Bygone Basics is learning how to take food as far as it will go, so the idea of saving the trimmings, bones, and juices really got me excited.

You mean….. I can use garbage to make all the soup I could ever hope for!!?

(For those wondering, my favorite is the health aspect.  There’s just nothing like using raw closest-to-nature products, and the only drawback is cost.  Hence my excitement!)  Imagine my shock when Valerie told me that she already knew all about this.  It’s so easy, why weren’t we already doing this?  (Her answer was that she found she got great eggs from the chickens by feeding them the trimmings.)  I figured we can do both….first make the soup stock and then feed the skimmed off, boiled stuff to the chickens.  Worked like a charm!  We got four times the product from our food.  ate the carrot, peelings and ends went into making stock….and the the chickens got everything strained out of the stock…and we got our eggs.  NOTE:  chickens didn’t get the bones…those got composted.

A lot of product was gotten out of everyday "trash". This is a shot of our fresh soup stock and some of the day's pasta sauce all canned and ready for the shelves.

After about a week of saving, we had enough to start making a meat/vegetable stock.  (I’m still waiting to make just veggie stock.  There is much anticipation for a huge mess and a delicious way to squeeze every last drop of goodness out of these vegetables .)  It sure isn’t a pretty process, and it takes a lot of time to boil down.  But really, we just did other things while it simmered (sure smelled good).  I have to tell you, I don’t see any future need to buy soup or bullions.

Now is the time

During the summer, everyone is rushing to get their produce in jars before it spoils.  There’s really no time to try out any of the fancy recipes you dream of doing when it’s a race against time.  However, winter is the perfect time to start unsealing some of those jars and making that spaghetti sauce, or to try any other experiment you’ve always wanted to try.  Such an urge grabbed Valerie just last week, at the same time we were doing the meat stock.  She began breaking into some canned basic tomatoes, herbs she’d dried, and threw a few fresh ingredients in there.  This is also a great way to turn disappointment into satisfaction.  Amanda and myself had messed up a bruschetta recipe…she added that too…a perfect way to put some good use to those still-good tomatoes.  The result was a delicious pasta sauce that’s also healthy!  (My favorite part.)

Remedy from Ukraine

In December, I returned home from spending a few months in Kiev.  I was there teaching English, and honing my Russian language abilities.  Of course, I ended up sick a couple of times, and so my host family made me some “tea.”  Surprisingly, it was as easy as putting some lemon slices in some hot water, and squishing the juices out of them with a spoon.  It went down so nicely.  What a great way to give your immune system a boost!  This is the time of year when people begin to get sick, and this is a great, simple home remedy to drink before or after you start feeling poorly.  Stay healthy!

Contact Valerie today by calling (231) 740-4065, or emailing ICan@bygonebasics.com to ask about the February classes, (click to here check them out) put in an order, or schedule your own Experience.  Be sure to visit the newly redesigned (and easier to navigate Bygone Basics website.  www.bygonebasics.com

You might not agree, but I think this photo is a thing of beauty. Stock simmering in the back and pasta sauce simmering in the front. I wish you all could have shared in the aroma!

…wearing a fetching apron,

“And now have a look at you! You’re so pretty … wearing a fetching apron, of course, and your hair’s neat and beautiful, held back by a ribbon”

The title of this post comes from a line (the rest of it is above) in one of my favorite interests…older cook books.

Aprons are fun and VERY handy. I am not sure why they fell out of use. This is one of mine.

This one in particular is special.  It was my first foray into old cookbook land.  I bought this First edition 1955 “Better Homes and Gardens Junior Cook Book for the Hostess & Host of tomorrow” about 15 years ago at a yard sale.  My daughter Jessica was getting interested in the kitchen and I wanted to encourage it.  At the time she really didn’t see the charm in the old book, like I did.

She was 10 and the cookbook was “soooo….yesterday.” 

If you can get past the chuckles you’ll have at the quaint language and gender assumptions, older cook books are fabulous peeks into our history.  They are windows into how family life was conducted in homes during period in which the cook book was printed. By reading them, we are peeping-toms of a sort.  Through the ingredients, we learn what were common staples in the pantry.  In the description of tools to use, we know how much time was spent in the kitchen, or how tricky cooking over a wood burner or early gas or electric range may have been.  Even the portion sizes change over the eras.

One of our fun cookbooks.

I love my old cook books.   I have a lot of them, including one from the White House circa 1901, filled with hand written notes and old news clippings. (and yes, I do wear an apron. We have many of them so our guests can put one on too when they are experiencing our heritage kitchen.)  What makes me sad is that the recipes don’t please the average U.S citizen’s palate today.  The cook books of today use far more sugar and shortenings in recipes.  The scone of today certainly isn’t the scone of a 100 years ago.  I wonder why we have an obesity epidemic in the U.S…?

Now…a recipe from the BH&G Junior cook book:  “Everyday drumsticks”

1 lb. gr beef

1 tsp salt

1 egg

12 soda crackers

6 wooden skewers

3 slices bacon

The Drumstick recipe. Easy for a child...and adult.

Set oven to 450.  Put beef, salt and egg in a bowl.  Mix.  Divide into 6 parts.

Put crackers in a bag.  Roll with a rolling-pin to form crumbs.  Put crumbs on waxed paper.

Shape the balls of meat around skewers to look like drumsticks.  Roll in crumbs; place on greased baking pan.  Bake 15 minutes.

Cut bacon slices into 4 pieces.  Put on meat.  Bake 15 minutes more.

This recipe is what a little girl of 9 – 12 in age could be expected to do in 1955.

If you have older cookbooks that are at least 40 years old, have a look at them with an eye toward looking at the home and family life.  It is a unique way to look at cook books and may just inspire you to make a dish you’ve never tried before.  Share your own cookbook discoveries and new old recipe attempts in the comments area below or by emailing ICan@bygonebasics.com.

A side note of news for you….I’ve completely redesigned our Bygone Basics website.  Please, have a look at it and tell me what you think.  It is easier to navigate, cleaner, and uses photos to show people what an experience is like here at Bygone Basics.

Check it out:  www.bygonebasics.com

Parting quote from the old cookbook:

You’re about to turn the page to a heap of fun. So…hands washed? Have on a pretty apron, and is your hair looking mighty smooth?  O.K., Kitchen, here we come.

And a parting photo…how fun!:

Boys and girls can have fun in the kitchen...even in 1955. Though, it would seem from the photo that boys do take a bit of a back seat ...