October 30, 2011

Twenty six days and the turkey will just be carcass.  There will be left over mashed potatoes and gravy, dressing, green beans seasoned with bacon, candied yams, cranberry sauce and yeast hot rolls.  The pumpkin pie will barely have a dent made in it because everyone will have eaten so much they are miserable!!!  I can’t wait!!! Thanksgiving is right around the corner.  One of my favorite holidays along with Christmas and Easter!!!  And I will be the cook with my husband’s family here, along with my son Josh!!!  It will be fantastic!!!

This time of the year reminds me when I was a little girl growing up in the country outside of Lowry City.  I grew up on the same farm that my dad grew up on and across the creek from us were his cousin Flay Snyder and wife Dimple.  Flay was an avid hunter and it was nothing to eat deer, wild turkey, quail, rabbit, squirrel.  Whatever was game at that time.  Dimple always had homemade biscuits at every meal to soak up the gravy from the meat drippings.  We would have Thanksgiving over there sometimes and I remember having deer steak and deer roast for the meal. I am not that crazy about deer meat unless it is cooked right and I can’t remember it ever being cooked wrong at Dimples.  My favorite food memory of Dimple would have to be her homemade custard pies.  No one can duplicate this pie for as long as I live.  It is still my favorite pie, but they aren’t Dimple’s!!!

As I was walking over to my friend’s house this afternoon I passed a house with a ladder up against the upstairs windows.  They were washing windows and that brought back memories too.  My mom always washed her windows in the Spring and then again in the Fall.  After my dad passed away she sold the farm and we moved to town that next Spring.  Well, I’m not sure who she got to help her with her windows when we lived in the country but it was me when we moved to town.  Now, I am going to tell you something about myself that I know will surprise you but I had quite the teenager attitude going on in those years and the last thing I wanted to do on Saturday morning was wake up and wash windows.  She made me though and I couldn’t go anywhere until they were done.  We had to unscrew the storm windows, clean them, clean the window sill and then clean the outside of the windows.  Then put the storm windows back on and there was constant bickering coming from me and her.  Don’t break the glass, be careful, hold this still, wait a minute, hold on.  Dang it, I told you to hold that window up.  If you break that window I don’t know what we will do.  We won’t be able to open the windows in the Spring.  By the time we were done with the outside she was pretty fed up with me and would send me away and she finished the inside windows.  Mom was a very immaculate house keeper, to where you could eat soup in her toilet, and I never did anything right when it came to cleaning house, washing dishes or washing windows.  I am a pretty good window washer now but I don’t do it very much.  Except I love a clean window!!!

 Another tradition that I have kept up from my mom is the Sunday dinners.  We always had Sunday dinners even if it was just her and I eating them.  I can remember sitting there eating her wonderful food and to this day I wish I had a pot of her beef and noodles.  They were the bomb.  It was the era of the pressure cooker and she pressure cooked everything.  It made the roast so tender you could cut it would melt like butter in your mouth. 

Anyway I have kept that tradition up and my husband and Josh absolutely love them.  Josh rarely misses them.  I had sirloin steak and mushroom soup gravy baked in the oven, rice and buttered corn.  It was good.  Josh had went to a Halloween dance/party last night and I didn’t hear from him until around 4.  He was hungry of course and came by to eat leftovers.  We watched the Patriots and Steelers football game and when it was over we talked about Josh’s sports career.  He loved his football and baseball but basketball and soccer wasn’t that much fun to him.  I brought up the story of when he was in 3^rd, maybe 4^th grade.  We were playing Raymore/Pecuilar school, aka Ray/Pec.  When we got to the football field Josh got out of the truck and we were heading towards his team, I was walking with him.  As we were walking some of the Ray/Pec boys were walking to their team also.  Josh taps me on the arm and goes, “Hey mom, you see that tall guy?”  I looked over and there was one of the kids that were really tall and big and I told him yes.  He goes, “That’s Ray Peck!”  Trying to keep a straight face I tried to explain to him that was the name of the school, we don’t know what that kids name is.  LOL.  Out of the mouths of babes.  Josh was one delight after another growing up!!!

Well, tomorrow is Halloween and should prove to be fun.  We always get quite a few children and I can’t wait.  Those little ones are so cute!!!  I will post more tomorrow and will let you know how things go.  Man, memories are already flowing of the Halloween’s I have experienced in Lowry City MO.