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!