"I can't remember a time when we didn't bake gingerbread men," said my sister Joanne at our annual cookie exchange last Friday. The year Joanne was born, my mother ordered a cookie cookbook from the Farm Journal magazine. Today, the pages of Best-Ever Cookies are stained and yellowed and the mustard hardcover is taped and worn (the jacket lost long ago), and Joanne has seven sons and one daughter, and but the Burkholders still make gingerbread men every year. For the last few years, Mom … [Read more...] about Merry Christmas! Plus a Gingerbread Cookie Recipe
food
Tea Party for Six
Enjoy a few pictures from a special tea party I attended last week. I'm leaving on a trip soon, and don't have time to write much, but I thought you all might enjoy these photos. The tea party came about when we had a "bean auction" at church. Everyone attending the auction offered some kind of gift, and then all the participants were given beans to bid on the gifts we wanted. My friend Bettina offered a "tea party for six", and so I was able to take my mother and four oldest nieces to … [Read more...] about Tea Party for Six
How to Pack a School Lunch Like It’s 1962
In this post, I'm going to show you an example of what my parents would eat for a school lunch in the early 1960s. They attended rural public schools and all the students brought their own lunches. Baloney Sandwich Mom's school lunches nearly always had a sweet baloney sandwich, with buttered white bread. If lettuce was in season, they would add lettuce. (Since I'm writing this post in January, no lettuce.) "Everyone we knew thought brown bread was terrible." (By the time my siblings and … [Read more...] about How to Pack a School Lunch Like It’s 1962
All the Tea in Charleston
Did you know black tea and green tea comes from the same plant? And that a tea plant can produce for hundreds of years? Last week, my friend Melissa and I took a road trip to the Carolinas, and one of our favorite stops was the Charleston Tea Garden. Located near the coast, where the weather is wet and muggy, the Charleston Tea Garden is the only large-scale tea growing operation in America. Ever since I lived in Ireland, I've had a fondness for tea, especially black tea. So learning … [Read more...] about All the Tea in Charleston
Beefing Up! An Ascension Day Project
Today I learned that 1/4 of a steer equals a lot of meat! A few weeks ago, we heard a neighboring farmer was selling his grass-fed steers to anyone who wanted one. (Like everywhere else, our local farmers are hurting from the supply chain disruptions.) All you had to do was arrange for transporting and butchering. So some of my family decided to go together and purchase a whole steer and then divide the meat. My sister made the arrangements with a butcher shop and the steer was scheduled … [Read more...] about Beefing Up! An Ascension Day Project