I was feeling a bit nostalgic tonight and decided I would rummage through some of Mama’s stuff for more ‘history bits and pieces’. I wasn’t disappointed. I found an old recipe book that belonged to my grandmama.

I have to brag a bit here and say my grandmama was about the best cook EVER! I don’t remember eating anything she cooked I didn’t love. Cookies, cakes, meat, potatoes, you name it, my grandmama really could make a delicious dish out of a soup bone and an onion.

Grandmama notes in one cookbook some of these ideas are, “according to the exchange,” which I believe means Henry’s Exchange. Henry’s Exchange was a radio program in the 1940’s, hosted by Henry Hornsbuckle.

Here are some of the tidbits I found while thumbing through her cookbook.

When you mash potatoes, heat your milk before you add it. This will make your potatoes lighter. If you prefer, heat some cream and add that too.

To keep your hands from getting greasy and covered in suet, put sausage, hamburger, etc, on a piece of wax paper. place another piece of wax paper over the top and press the meat into whatever thickness you prefer for patties. No messy hands and no messy cutting board or counter top.

To tell if fresh eggs are good, put them in water. If the large end turns up, they are not fresh.

Pour cold water over eggs before you place them in boiling water. The eggs will not crack open.

If you bake your own bread and you can’t eat it before it gets hard, wet a paper sack and put the bread into it and into a warm oven. The bread will be softened in a short time.

As macaroni and spaghetti boil over so easily, if you grease the top of the pan an inch or so down, the water will not boil past the greased area.

Before icing a cake, dust a little flour over the top and the icing wont run off or tear the cake.

When frying eggs, put a pinch of salt and flour in the oil and it will not splatter.

I also found a couple of cool ideas for problems that apparently are timeless:

To brighten aluminum ware, use lemon juice rubbed on with a cloth and washed afterwards with warm water. This also works on brass and copper.

When anything sticks or burns in a kettle, mix half water and half vinegar, set back on the stove and bring to a boil. Wash as usual with warm soapy water.

To remove hard water scale or stains from porcelain or enamel ware, boil a mild solution of baking soda in it periodically.

And last, but by no means least, this is a personal favorite as I have done it many times and it truly works. When you cook ‘stinky’ foods, like cabbage etc., put a bowl of vinegar on the stove or the counter. It really does absorb the stench.

Cheers to all of you!

September is usually my favorite month of the year. This year, not so much. I lost a dear old friend a couple of weeks ago. Not a human friend nor an animal friend, but, silly as it may sound, a tree friend.

Most Idahoans who live on the high desert steppe of south-central Idaho agree, cutting down a beautiful, mature, tree of any kind is akin to sacrilege. In truth, trees are so important to Idahoans, nearly sixty percent of the state lives in or near a Tree City USA.

Unfortunately, nature sometimes takes its course far more quickly than one may like. Such was the case with my tree buddy. An arborist informed me it wasn’t bugs or even disease that was choking the life from my tree. It was simply old age. The average life span of a silver maple is one hundred years. He estimated my tree was at least one hundred twenty years old.

I haven’t counted the tree rings yet, but now that my buddy is down, I can sure see there are lots and lots and lots of them. I was actually depressed for a couple of days over the loss of my tree. It served as both excellent shade from the brutal heat of summer, and a play ground used by five rambunctious kids for everything from climbing to ziplining. Now, weirdly, my house feels “naked” and my grandkids will lose out on a lot of cool play space.

A couple of days after the tree was down, my Mama came home for the weekend. I told her losing the tree was really bugging me and I wasn’t sure exactly why. Leave it to Mama to have the answer.

“Well,” she said, starting to giggle, “if you think about it in tree terms, you have fifty-four tree rings, about half of that old tree, and your life expectancy isn’t one hundred years. I think you’re feeling as old as your getting!”

By now, one should think I would simply listen to my Mama’s words of wisdom instead of challenging her thought process. But I’m not that smart.

“Geez, Mom,” I said with a fair amount of indignation. “I admit I’m getting old, but you have ninety-one tree rings, and will have ninety-two by the end of October. If I’m old, what are you?”

“Nearly as old as your tree!” she said, now laughing so hard she was bent double. “Look at it this way. The tree is gone but that is one hell of a stump! If I were you, I would build a big ol’ tree house on it. Your kids and your grandkids will love that. Besides,” she added, “That tree was dying and it could very easily have fallen on your house if you hadn’t taken it down.”

Later that evening, it really came home to me what Mama was saying. I would give about anything for her to live to one hundred twenty, but the chances of that are pretty slim. She has already been informed her kidneys are in bad shape, and her children have been told we should “prepare ourselves.”

As if one can.

Still, her amazing wisdom came through to me like the vibrant, shining light she is. Change is inevitable, nothing lives forever, and while your looking for the upside, never forget there’s always a downside.

That’s my Mama. Honest as the day is long, and as refreshing as ice water on a blistering summer day. In her own way she reminded me once again, she will leave us one day.

She also reminded me, she will leave us with one hell of a big stump to build on.