A Man in the Kitchen 1998
John in the Kitchen
It’s been one of those dreary, drizzly days; however, I promise I won’t complain about rain – we still need it. The ground is not wet, it’s not even damp an inch down.
I’ve been engaged in one of those many projects I have started and this one is a Christmas project I can’t talk about at this time. It’s such a busy time of year – the small children in our family have an advent calendar of a different sort. Beginning December 1 they remove a gingerbread man from the “advent” calendar and eat him, repeating the process daily until December 24. Then they eat the big gingerbread man at the top that has their name on it. Well, baking the gingerbread men is one of my big projects – this week. I’ve baked eight dozen, and I’ll have two more bakings to go. Wow! But this is how memories are made. Hopefully, they will remember to bring the empty part of the calendar to their Gran’s on Thanksgiving and we’ll all have fun together tying the men (each one in a separate plastic bag) on their burlap bases.
Anyway perhaps John knew how busy I’ve been, as I hear him banging around in the kitchen. I don’t know just what he’s up to — sometimes he sends time in the kitchen and then brings out the most delicious peanut brittle for me to sample. However, considering the time of day (late afternoon), I’ll wager a bet this time it’s not peanut brittle.
Many years ago on a day such as this, we’d have hot cornbread – a real treat for my family at suppertime. To bake hot bread back then took more than turning a switch. Stove wood had to be fetched (and maybe the ashes had to be removed from the cook stove, before the fire was built).
Soot Rake
Remember this little rake made just for reaching back in the ash box of the stove to clean the ashes out? It really was made to clean the soot out, too. With a fire going in the wood range, other would bake a skillet of “thin” bread which we buttered, then applied a generous amount of that good old Sand Mountain Sorghum to it. Yum! Yum! We usually ate cornbread and milk’ however, if it was the thin bread, and hot, then we ate it with butter and sorghum. The iron skillet was the vessel used for baking, and to pick up the hot skillet, liftin’ rags were an absolute necessity. One of those pretty little bought “pot holders” was not thick enough – it had to be one padded with a worn out piece of quilt or something thick and heavy enough tor maximum protection. I make the homemade potholders today to give for little Christmas gifts. Those with thick padding can’t be beat.
Can you remember the “eye lifter” used in conjunction with the wood cook stove? Using the “eye lifter,” Mother would remove an eye and drop the old black pot down in the opening so it would be closer to the fire for boiling beans, a fresh mess of pork backbones or whatever.
My nose tells me I guessed right about John (after living together all these years that’s not hard to do) and this night it’ll be hot, buttered cornbread and some of that new $15 per gallon sorghum. I remember when a gallon could be bought for 50 cents and it was in a metal bucket with a bail. I’d better shut down this machine, as I expect the call to supper just any time now. It’s one of the fringe benefits of country living.