It’s that time of year again, and I am excited! My hard work is beginning to pay off; my garden is starting to yield fresh produce. I have enjoyed sugar snap peas for a couple of weeks. A few yellow cherry tomatoes have ripened; they don’t last very long after I rinse them off. It is too hard to resist a fresh-off-the-vine bite of golden goodness. I picked some green beans on Saturday, enough to share with a friend at…..
What would life be without asparagus? If that question had been asked of me as a child, I would have answered, “Wonderful!” I hated the stuff. My parents loved it, though, and so springtime meals were often a challenge for me. There was a large patch of asparagus that grew in the backyard of my childhood home. Dad also knew where lots of it grew wild in a ditch close to our house. While other families considered asparagus to be…..
Sandwiched between all the hoopla of Halloween and the Christmas hubbub is the holiday we call Thanksgiving. In years gone by, this day seemed to have a lot more meaning than it does currently. Halloween was less of a production, and Christmas lights didn’t show up until December. Stores were closed on Thanksgiving instead of vying with other vendors for pre-Black Friday sales. We appear to have forgotten the purpose of a time that was supposed to be set aside…..
Last week I finally managed to make a food donation to the Shelbyville/Shelby County Animal Shelter. It is something I have meant to do since I managed to purchase several 4-packs of the wrong flavor of canned cat food. I also took the towels I used to dry my dog, as he is no longer with me. My cat Zander is extremely picky about what moist dinner he will eat. It has to be morsels, not paté. He does not…..
Regular readers of Cooks’ Corner know that I often look to a list of monthly “specials” when I am deciding which type of recipes to feature during a particular week. Some months are overloaded with ideas, while others are sorely lacking. April falls in the latter category, having only three designations. However, one of those is “National Food Month.” Since pretty much all of my recipes deal with food, I can easily handle that one. Then again, the subject is…..
It’s hard to believe that August is almost over. As its last days swing past, it comes to mind that summer is quickly sliding away. Labor Day is often considered its “last hurrah;” that holiday is this coming weekend. To be truthful, I am not sad to see summer depart. For some reason, my allergies have been horrible this year. I think much of it has to do with the fact that I am surrounded by corn. Some of the…..
I sorted through a lot of Christmas decorations trying to decide which ones I wanted to use this year. Many of them brought back fond memories of my husband and children, especially the Christmas stockings that I had made for each of us. One stocking, however, took me even further back. When I was preschool age, my Aunt Barbara sewed preprinted flannel stockings for my sisters and me. We used them for a year or two, but then our parents…..
Thinking of the upcoming Independence Day holiday has me feeling rather nostalgic. For many years, the fourth day of July meant attending my Dad’s family reunion. It was held around noon, so it never interfered with fireworks displays later in the evening. Our gathering was usually held at a park, but occasionally one of our family members would host it at their home. It was my grandmother’s family and was known as the Coleman/Weisgarber Reunion. It is funny what one…..