Over the Fence: One More for April

 

It's late afternoon.  Late to be stopping for a chat but you see, April ends this weekend and I really wanted to have one more chat before it was over. 

 I'm not really sure that I have much to say.  I'm in a period of writing something nearly every day just now and you'd think I'd have poured myself out and have nothing more but that's mostly been targeted pieces on specific subjects, and I want a chat.  Chats tend to be mostly random things that lead naturally one to another and somehow end up having something in common that reveals itself later on.

I'll have to stop and get supper going here in a bit so I may not be very long.  I'd ask you to stay but I'll share now that it's a little skimpy looking.  In fact, I've been thinking about how I might extend it to look like a bit more.  Feels like the old days when I'd prepare food for 3 teens, one toddler and two adults and then suddenly find I had neighbors and friends joining us, lol.  I always just added more rice or pasta or potatoes or whipped up a quick dessert or even set out sliced bread.  As Jessica at Three Rivers Homestead says, "It will fill bellies."  And it did.  It always did.

No criticism intended but those meals Jessica puts on the table don't look pretty.  That's why she often tags things "It will fill bellies."  She has seven children, one who has severe peanut and dairy allergies and she herself must eat gluten free.  She cooks three meals from scratch every single day and does a world of gardening and canning and preserving.  I admire her greatly.  But I have to say, I do like food to be presented nicely.   I understand that she doesn't really like to cook but it's necessary and that she's keen not to waste food.  Understood.  But I'm just going to make my pretty if I possibly can.

For more years than I can count, I've served meals from the stove.  I've never had space to put food on whatever table we were using until now and since there's only two of us it seems silly to go to all that much work.  However, plating up food prettily is something I've worked hard at honing over the years.  I learned it from the Sunday dinner presentations the little old women brought to church (and those who didn't bother to make it pretty taught me just as much).  I learned long ago that eating is a sensory experience.  From how it smells, tastes and feels on the palate, and how it looks.    I learned from watching others and then when I was 15, I grabbed that old cookbook of Mama's, the one I love best to this day, still use, and I read how things were made.  

Do you know what started it, really?  I think it was an Emilie Loring novel.  She kept mentioning some food that was served with a white sauce.  I wanted to know just what white sauce was.  I don't know why I felt I needed to know that, but it was one thing I knew I could find out about by simply picking up the cookbook and looking.  I was so disappointed to find it was basically what we'd called 'milk gravy' my whole life long, lol.   

I didn't stop reading that cookbook, though.  I went through and read definitions of cooking terms and about vitamin content and the lists of menus and noted how colors and flavors were combined in a meal and contrasts were made between hot and cold, crisp and soft, what seasonings went together with which meat or vegetable or fruit.  I read recipes for things I've never made and will never make.   It was from that same cookbook that I learned the art of Leftover Makeovers.  I learned what to look for when shopping for meat and vegetables and fruits.   

But it was making the food pretty that really grabbed my attention.  It is something I enjoy, that I enjoyed in my teens.  I'd been cooking from age 8 but I came into my own as a cook with that cookbook in hand.  It wasn't just that I liked to eat but I loved planning and presenting the full meal.

 As I went into my own home, I set the table prettily with flowers and napkins, inexpensive plates and glasses, and when the food would come out of the kitchen prettily served there was a collective "Oh that looks GOOD!" from everyone at the table.  We'll just skip the 'Ewww!' years with the picky children, lol.  I cooked for the ones who really appreciated how it looked as well as how it tasted.  I felt I'd done myself and my kitchen and the humble ingredients well.  To this day I'm convinced the reason my children never realized we were poor was because I had taken time to study how to cook and present the humblest of foods in a manner that set them at their best advantage.

Isn't it funny how things come and go?  I didn't know at the time that the cookbook I used most was printed first in the very early 1900's, in cookbooklets.   They were combined into a massive encyclopedia style cookbook first in the 1920's.  That the recipes contained within the covers are delicious tasting to this day is really remarkable.  And they included recipes for ingredients found all over the country and not just in one region.  I might have never seen an avocado but there were recipes for avocados and artichokes and much more, foods I didn't see in markets until I was in my 40s or 50s. 

Well, I suppose supper put me in mind of food so that's right where my chatter went!

I'll touch back on Emilie Loring and Grace Livingston Hill and other novelists I love to read that are were printed in the early years of the last century.  One of the things I love now, reading those books, is that if a certain style of dress, or historical fact or author is quoted or song is referred to, I can go look up examples online.  Patti Bender did a post last week or so on her blog that centers around Emilie Loring and she was referring to all the different roses Loring mentioned in various novels.  Not too long ago, I went on a hunt for what was called "Templar roses".  I didn't find them, but I did find others mentioned and it inspired me to add more roses to my own garden.  

Well, I don't have the resources to do it big things, but that's one reason why I brought home the neglected rose Mama had planted in a pot that is nearly bare rooted at the moment.  It's an Abraham Lincoln rose. I recall Granny had that one in her yard and it was one of Granddaddy's favorites because it is a deep red.  When he died, there were masses of red roses sent and the song sung at his funeral was an old hymn that is so lovely, titled "Where the Roses Never Fade".    I don't recall any of the names of other roses except New Dawn, which I have a bit of, and Peace.  There was a yellow rose, but I don't recall the name of that one.  

Granny was the only one I knew who grew roses except Aunt Mary.  Aunt Mary had lovely roses along one side of her yard.  She grew the most beautiful flowers.  

My roses are budding at present.  The New Dawn has put up tight green buds and the coral rose is budded.  The antique rose that Nancy shared with me many years ago is in full bloom.  Those roses are a lovely red.  

I planted one two years ago in front of the back porch and it shot up long canes well above the roofline.  I've noted that those long canes are not the ones that bloom, but it's a very vigorous bloomer in the spring.   

I always say that Autumn in my favorite season.  I think though that Spring is right up there at the top, tied for first place.  Do you know why?  Because Autumn brings such relief from the summer heat, eventually, and Spring brings color and warmth after the cold winter.   Both are relief from what can be tedious and sometimes harsh seasons.  I think that's why I love them both so.

Well!  I just stepped into the kitchen to see start supper and I have no pilot light on the stove.  It's not electronic, so that's not the issue.  John tried to light the heater in the living room just to see if gas was getting to that pilot and it's not.  We went out to check the tank and it's at 70%.  There were two young men here this afternoon power washing the tank and I wonder if they turned off the gas.  The website says the place won't be open until Monday.  Thankfully John got through on the phone but we're waiting on a call back to determine when someone will be here to set things right once more, or at least discover what's wrong.  Worse come I have a slow cooker, microwave, and toaster oven.  I guess we'll manage all right with those things.  

Now I am completely off my chattering mood, so I suppose I'll end here. 

Update:  The propane company sent someone right out to see what the issue was.  Apparently, the young men doing the power washing cut off the supply line at the tank.  Very nice man turned it back on, came in and lit the pilot lights and we're literally 'cooking with gas' once again.