My mother loved all
flowers. But violets were my mother's favorite, and particular Parma violets.
Every Valentine's Day my father would bring her a nosegay of these sweet
fragrant blooms. At one time, small hand-tied bouquets of these could be found
in the flower stalls and shops of cities around the world. I wish today's
flower growers and florists would re-introduce them. Till then, this shopping
bag I found when helping my mother move many years ago, will remind me of my
Mother and her flower love.
Monday, February 4, 2019
Monday, January 21, 2019
“Just dreaming is already important,
I wish you dreams never ending,
And the furious desire to make some,
I wish you to love what to love,
I wish you to forget what to forget,
I wish you birdsongs when you wake up,
I wish you laughs of children,
I wish you silences,
I wish you to resist the stagnation,
To indifference, to the negative virtues of our time.
I especially wish you to be you.”
Jacques Brel
This beautiful keepsake and sentiment is particularly fitting for Martin Luther King Day, and for dreamers everywhere. I found this years ago in a print shop in the Belgian book town of Redu. It has traveled everywhere with me.
Still dreaming,
Marjorie,
Saturday, January 31, 2015
My Taste Memories
My culinary roots are divided between the American South,
and the Finger Lakes region of Northern New York State.
My maternal great grandmother came from farm folk in the
Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. It was a
harsh and a make-due existence. She could
recall a time during the Civil War, when hungry Union soldiers marched onto the
farm looking for food. Luckily her
mother had hidden a ham, the last food her starving family owned, under the
home’s floor boards. Granny, as I called
her, grew her own vegetables and fruit (the surplus she sold to the wealthy
people in town), kept her pantry full of homemade preserves and pickles, and butchered
her own chickens and pigs. She was also famous
for miles around for her signature marble cake.
My first culinary venture nearly ended in disaster. One
Christmas, Santa gave me a tiny electric toy stove. I enthusiastically whipped up a batch of scrambled
eggs which I fed to my baby brother. Unfortunately,
the eggs were raw, and my little brother screamed for days as if I had tried to
poison him!
Thankfully, my Grandmother stepped in, and became my spirit
guide to all the mysteries of cooking. From
measuring, sifting, stirring and timing – I learned it all. And that year, my miniature cherry pies sold
out at the annual church Strawberry festival.
Summer was the time for berry picking in the woods. When we got home, Grandma would always make
a blackberry roll, which she steamed in cheesecloth on the top of the stove. I could hardly wait for it to cool.
Come fall, the New York Finger Lakes region would be dotted
with small farm stands. Tart and crisp native
apples, Concord and Niagara table grapes, and gallons of sweet apple cider were
something to savor.
Spring would bring a family pilgrimage back to
Virginia. Aunt Lois lived in Richmond,
VA, and was a true Southern hostess. Her
big house was always filled with succulent food aromas, and at each meal her
table beautifully set. The memory of her
homemade biscuits (based on a secret family recipe), filled with paper thin
slices of Smithfield ham, makes my mouth water.
And there were always visits to the old Mixing Bowl bakery for their
famous Sally Lund bread and Seven Layer cake.
Aunt Lois worked for the Virginia Travel Council, and her personal claim
to fame was appearing on a television show in NYC with James Beard, and
presenting him with a Smithfield ham.
Aunt Lois was also famous in our family for introducing us to avocado as
used in a salad with grapefruit. Years
later, at my rehearsal dinner which she hosted, she bravely served my soon-to-be
husband’s family, salmon mousse.
My mother’s culinary skills were less refined, and more on
the ready–made side. Many nights we dined
on tin-foil dinners or charred cube steak.
Casseroles were her greatest kitchen efforts, but these were mainly reserved
for dinner parties with friends. We
greedily looked forward to the leftovers.
My own taste was equally unrefined.
For instance, one summer each day of Girl Scout camp my lunch consisted
of a tuna fish sandwich on white Sunbeam bread, a bag of potatoes chips and
lemonade, all packed in my official GS lunchbox and thermos.
Nancy Lewis, my mother’s best friend, a graduate of the Cornell
School of Home Economics, had worked as a food demonstrator at the New York
World’s Fair in the French’s Food Pavilion.
On picnics and at meals at her house she experimented on us. We did not know what to make of this gourmet
fare loaded with some strange spices and plenty of French’s mustard. Poor lady, she was way before her time.
My father’s business partner was an old bachelor, and very
lonely. Each week he took us out to dinner
with him. The destination was often a church
supper in one of the local towns. The
food was good, the lines were long, and we would often have to sit and wait patiently
with the mostly older folks in the church sanctuary. We would be taunted by the delicious aromas
coming from the dining room. But the wait
would be well worth it when we finally spied the vast array of wedges of
homemade pies – which always made for a difficult choice. Sometimes, Mr. Fink would take us to fancy
local restaurants with real white linen tablecloths. Minding our manners, we sampled
such unknown dishes as shrub, prime rib au jus or French Silk pie.
Our family vacation in Europe was full of food firsts - my
first croissant and my first bottle of mineral water. But one dinner at the Hotel de La Poste in
Vezelay France topped it all. My brother
and I watched in wide-eyed amazement as the elegant French lady at the next
table lustily devoured a plate of big juicy snails! I vowed then and there, to never never eat a
snail. That, of course, was a vow that I
did not keep.
When my own children were little, we had a weekly ritual of
making bread. They particularly enjoyed
punching the dough down, and braiding the three pieces together. Influenced by the writer Euell Gibbons, I
became a bit of a food forager, and would drag the children through the local
fields in search of wild edible food.
I guess I would call myself a “foodie”. For the past ten years, I have eaten my way
around the world, but along the way I have done far less cooking. I am anxious to rediscover the foods, flavors
and tastes of my family’s culinary history.
I look forward to taking time to browse through Aunt Lois’s recipe
clipping file and to reading the handwritten recipe book of my paternal
Grandmother (who I never knew). I know I
will learn more about those who have gone before me, and about myself.
I am a great supporter of the concept of “Farm to Table”,
and becoming acquainted with the regional foods and cuisine of the Pacific
Northwest is on my to do list. I am also
intrigued and inspired by the new crop of Culinary Food and Lifestyle bloggers
- who seamlessly integrate cooking, photography and styling with social media.
Marjorie
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
New Years Eve Ladies Night Out
The Ladies of the Flinders Sewing Circle on one of their regular Pub Crawls. You know who you are!
Happy New Years,
Marjorie
Sunday, May 11, 2014
The Geography Lesson
As a little girl in Upstate New York, I often dreamed of travelling to faraway places. These dreams were fueled by stories of my family’s travel adventures. One ancestor was a missionary in 19th century Turkey, where he and his wife ran an orphanage for Armenian girls. Another, my grandfather, was a scientist who made research expeditions the length and breadth of Africa studying the Fruit fly. Then there was my father, who spent most of World War II in Delhi India, as a quartermaster in the Army, supplying the Burma trail.
I loved nothing better than
going up to the attic of our house, and digging through old trunks full of
ancient photographs and mementos from these family adventures. My father had
also given me his childhood collections of stamps and postcards. The bold
colors and designs of the stamps from colonial Africa especially intrigued me.
On rainy days, I used to entertain the neighborhood kids with shows of postcard
images projected on the attic walls from my father’s old magic lantern. At
school, during show and tell, I often demonstrated how to drape an Indian sari
and a turban.
So when I saw the details of an
online course in Travel Geography from a local community college, I was excited
at the opportunity to learn more about these parts of the world, and to retrace
the steps of my ancestors.
Next Stop - Africa and Asia,
Marjorie
Next Stop - Africa and Asia,
Marjorie
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
Bunnies, Bunnies and More Bunnies!
It's Easter, and everywhere you look there are Bunnies and Rabbits gathering for the celebration.
All this reminds me of our time living in the countryside of Belgium. A favorite pastime was watching the local Belgian hares happily dancing and grazing on the lawn of our home. This was not a good sight to our landlord, but for us these persistent visitors provided many happy hours of viewing.
Sending Love and Easter Bouquets to Bunnies, (both human and animal), everywhere.
Marjorie
All this reminds me of our time living in the countryside of Belgium. A favorite pastime was watching the local Belgian hares happily dancing and grazing on the lawn of our home. This was not a good sight to our landlord, but for us these persistent visitors provided many happy hours of viewing.
Sending Love and Easter Bouquets to Bunnies, (both human and animal), everywhere.
Marjorie
Friday, December 20, 2013
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