This is the first thing I have written since May when I started my summer vacation. It is also the last thing that I will be posting on my blog Plate Full of Memories. I enjoyed writing about food and the great memories that come with the foods of our heritage for that last five years.
I spent the day canning. I put up three quarts of homemade tomato soup, three bottles of green tomato pickles and three bottles of cucumber pickles. While putting the juice on the pickles for canning I thought of Omi and Opi’s pickles. They always had a large jar of pickles in their back bedroom fridgerator but I don’t think they were dill but I remember seeing some dill and mustard seeds in the jar. Growing up I never would of have thought to ask for the pickle recipes. For the life of me I can not remember if I liked them or not. I know that I ate them but I can not describe the flavor to you. I just know they were always there.
We used to go there almost every Saturday afternoon. The first thing I would do was go into the bedroom and grab a small Coke from that fridge. I do not remember too much else in that back fridge. I just know they always had the small bottles of Coke when the rest of the world had much larger bottles.
I do remember that Opa had a broom handle across from the fridge where he had smoke meat hung. It was a special treat for him to cut a piece off but that was never done on Shabbos so you had to visit some other day to get some of the meat. What a strange family where the grandchildren not only enjoyed smoke meat (rouch fleich) but we thought it a special treat.
Saturday afternoons there were different from other families. At times it felt like a big weight to make sure we went for a few hours when their were better things to do with our friends. But now I look back on those times a really think it was special since we all spent time playing with each other and got to know each other. Most people I know today don’t know their cousins very well and here we are spread all over and still keep in contact. The part I really like is that we share some of the same memories from being kids. How special is that? I might not have her recipes but I think they left us something more special.
If you still would like to purchase the CD Plate Full of Memories go to the http://lifestorytriggers.com/wordpress to see how you can order yours!
Mother’s Day is this weekend. And you are trying to find a gift that is perfect for Mom but you are having trouble figuring our what to get a women who buys what she needs and really doesn’t ever want anything else. I have solution that fits any size and works for any age, a family recipe cookbook that will highlight Mom’s recipes. Okay it will not be ready for this weekend but you can buy all the elements for your cookbook and show Mom the intention of creating this book in her honor. I think she may like it. It is worth a try….
Thanks JB Biersdorfer of the NY Times for your tip of the week today. Google has created a feature that caters to cooks. When you search dish or an ingredient, Google gives your first batch of results and then presents a recipe option in the list of categories in the column in the left side of the page. You can click the more button if you not like what you see. Here is the cool part—you can filter the results by cooking time, calories and ingredients. Google has more information at
www.goggle.com/landing/recipes. He mentions that other search engines have recipe help—Bing and Yahoo have recipe help with key word.
As Farmers Market open up in the next few weeks, depending on where you, most of the fruits and veggies were not grown in your area. In Minnesota our trees are just budding, lilacs will be out in 4 weeks so veggies found at these markets are not grown in an outside garden but a green house to be local. For my friends in the south this might not be the case but I stress asking where the fruits and vegetables were grown. We all want our Farmers Markets feature local fair most of the year and use local green houses early on to fill the gaps but not use those bought at the warehouses where the local grocery stores purchase theirs. There needs to be local feel and reward for those markets that feature local growers and it is up to use to enforce it with our dollars.
Quick mention, I will be gone next week and not be writing this blog. I hope all the Mothers have a great Mother’s Day and enjoy their families with love from the kitchen and a favorite recipe,
Family Reunion need great planning to make a great event so if you have never done one maybe next year!
So your family has decided that this is the year that you are all going to get together. for a family reunion but that is as far as you have gotten. No dates have been chosen nor hotels have been booked. All you know is you want to get together this year.
May I suggest a reality check. Most reunions take months of planning and that is even if your family decided to hire a reunion planner it takes months There are great websites to help you with your plans but if this is the first time your family has decide to do a reunion, I say make it for next year and start doing all your planning now. Some places are listed below that can help you start.
The better the plan and the better the party. The best you can hope for is a family get together for this summer which might be where you might get your worker bees for this event. There is so much to do, that the more family members that can help can really make it a reality when one person takes the lead who can really lead chosen to make sure everything is being planned that needs to be and those plans are being implemented—a great reunion next may be had.
I discuss this since many reunions have heirloom cookbooks for fundraisers at their reunion or as gifts for the families. It can take months to create one and in some families years. So get started now with the plans and then execute a great family cookbook with family favorite recipes that will treasures by the members of your family for years to come.
You make want to check out Reunions Magazine http://www.reunions.com/familyreunions/family_activities.html
Their podcast may give you ideas too www.reunionsmag.com/podcast/ class="f"> -
or these other websites
www.family-reunion.com/chklist.htm
www.reunion-memory-book.com/support
and don’t forget to order your copy of platefullofmemories to help with your cookbook!
Some chamber of commerces have point persons to help. The Meet Minneapolis group part of the convention and visitors center has one person who helps with just reunions. They want to help to bring people into their towns. And have an enjoyable experience there too.