Tag Archives: baking

Dec31

God Grant Me…

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All that stuff in that prayer, and then some…

A few people recently have asked me about my New Year’s resolutions, if I make them and what, if any, they are.  My answer has been, I’m not resolving to do anything special that I don’t already do anyway.  And that’s sort of the truth.

The fact is that there are so many resolutions I’d like to make, I hardly know where to start, and the sheer number of things I’d like to accomplish makes my head swim.  Of course, as a weight loss patient, I deal with the daily ongoing battle of me versus the scale (one I feel like I am losing right now, by the way), me versus my nutrient levels, me versus the urge to comfort myself with poor food choices.  Me versus me.

A lot of my wish-list-to-do items are small and seemingly random.  Reed gave me a gift certificate so I could go and get some of my rings sized down.  That needs to happen soon…and I’ll get to it.

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My solution of using Band-Aids to snug them up (what I call my Redneck Ring Sizing Kit) is kind of pathetic, and I need to get them properly sized.  Several watches need new batteries as well.  One trip to the jeweler will take care of a number of items.

I did some baking for Christmas, and I’d forgotten how much pleasure I take from making something delicious to share with people.  I’d like to bake more in the coming year.  To SHARE.  I don’t need to be baking a bunch of tasty stuff and eating it all (refer back to paragraph 2).  But sharing is good.  I believe it pleases God when we share.

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Very slowly, I’ve been photographing some local signs and landmarks and adding those pictures to a Facebook album. There are lots more places I want to capture, especially the ones that are not going to  be around much longer, at least, not in the form I’ve grown up with.  So spending some time just out and about with my camera is one of my wish-list-to-do things.  And sooner rather than later.

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All those are concrete, measurable goals.  The real challenge I face is trying to find peace.  Life is complicated sometimes, and relationships aren’t always easy.  I’ve struggled lately with hurt feelings and a broken heart because things change.  Traditions aren’t what they used to be; family is not what it used to be.  Mama and the others who always held our family together are gone, and there’s no “glue” anymore.  As I was told, “It is what it is,”.  And that’s true.

It is my job to balance loving the challenging people in my life with protecting myself from the pain they sometimes bring me.  I need to forgive and to ask for forgiveness. I have a feeling I’m not the only person who struggles with these issues.  So in the coming year, I will pray and work to seek serenity, courage and wisdom.  And peace.

God, grant me.

 

 

Jul9

Close Encounters Of The Kitchen Kind

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Relics of a bygone era

 

I have my Granny’s ancient sifter.  It has shiny red apples painted on it and a crank handle with a red wooden knob.  I have no idea how old it actually is, but it is OLD.  I remember hearing that, in her healthier, more active days, Granny always made a cherry pie on George Washington’s birthday.  By the time I was born into the family, Granny’s health was starting to fail and she had slowed down a lot.  I don’t remember seeing her cook much when I was a child, but I know that, since Mama and my aunts learned how to cook from her, Granny must have been quite the good Southern cook in her day.

For decades she fed and nourished a husband and 9 children, after all.  Mama must have learned how to make cornbread from Granny.  I feel confident that Aunt Ruby learned how to make her biscuits from Granny as well.  (Like Mama’s cornbread, Aunt Ruby’s biscuits were unique to her, and no one else’s were ever as good.  Mercy, what I’d give now for Aunt Ruby’s biscuit recipe in her handwriting!)  Aunt Mary, Aunt Martha and Aunt Elaine would have learned lots of their dishes from Granny as well.

Granny’s sifter must have helped make hundreds of pies and thousands of biscuits in her cooking days before it was passed down to Mama, and then to me.  It is almost like an hourglass in a way, the fine dust filtering through the mesh screen into a waiting bowl, sifting flour and memories.  I wonder what that little sifter would tell me if it could speak?

I can see Granny’s little hands turning the little red knob on the side, or just shaking the whole apparatus to work the flour through.  My hands are small like hers were.  I can remember Mama teaching me how to make pie pastry and from-scratch cake, explaining the mysteries of when to measure first and then sift, and when to sift first and then measure.  (It’s all in how the recipe is written.)

I don’t bake as often as I’d like these days.  But when I am able to take the time to make something that needs sifting, I take down Granny’s little red apple sifter to start the process.  There is something almost hypnotic about watching clumps of flour transform into fine, snowy powder as they pass through the screen…my hands repeating the motions of Mama’s and Granny’s hands before me, resting where theirs rested and touching what theirs touched, all in the process of Making.Image