Cook Book Wisdom

By the time we had kids, the Renken family Thanksgiving was firmly established in Columbia where my aunt Anne and uncle Tony, cousins Tracy and John, opened their gracious home to all comers, adorning the multiple tables with imaginative place cards and setting a glorious spread of food that only encouraged culinary one upmanship among the ever competitive Renken relatives, adding to the general merriment and the tendency to overfill one’s plate.

For several years, Lee and Ann ruled the roost as the only great grandchildren to my Granny.  This privileged position gave them their own bracket in the putting contest, access to the pinball machine in the basement, spots at the card table with Granny, books and art supplies from their doting great aunts, and finally, a chance to soak and steam in the hot tub before we bundled back into the car for the long ride home.  Oftentimes, the girls napped, awaking just as night fell and they could count the Christmas lights that had sprung like mushrooms since morning.

Ben was just three months when we made the trip his first Thanksgiving.  We left before daylight with the grand plan that the kids would sleep a goodly portion of the drive. Back then, almost everything closed for Thanksgiving, so there would be no distracting stops for pop or doughnuts or milk or coffee..just the necessities at the rest areas.  But Ben had a different plan.  He began screaming about Kansas City and continued unabated ‘til we reached our destination.  He was a cute kid and a big hit with his grandma, his aunts, and his granny, and I hoped all that attention would wear him out for the trip home.  No go.  He was nothing if not persistent and wore US all out with his yelling until just north of Kansas City.  As holidays go, it was something less than idyllic.

But I digress.  

One year my uncle Steve rolled out the first edition of the Renken’s Recipes to Die For Thanksgiving 1992. Family get togethers were never quiet: I can remember my uncles castigating announcers, the players, and the officials...on a televised game.  The kitchen at my aunt’s was an open air soapbox of suggestions, despite the fact that each family had already had their say about the menu by virtue of the dish they’d contributed.  There was lots of good natured devil’s advocacy, but at some point in the afternoon, voices would be raised in something pretty darned close to an actual disagreement.

Most of the recipes contain a fair share of editorial content…..

From Steve, regarding “The Best Baked Beans”:

I’m not kidding; these really are the best.  They are far better than anything Liz ever thought about.

From Liz’s corner: “Liz’s Most Requested Baked Beans”.

From Steve, about Liz’s recipe: “You will notice that no one claims these are the best: they are just the most requested.  Probably by Terry and what choice does he have?”

Some recipes are quite brief:

Tim’s Beaver Tail

Take one beaver tail and hold over open flame until rough skin blisters.  Remove from heat. When cool, peel off skin, roast over coals or simmer until brown.

Serves 86

Or this one:

Hard-boiled Eggs

By Laura

Mark’s note: Most of you know that Laura does not have a large cooking repertoire.  However, at this one she is great and you won’t mess it up either.

2 eggs in the shell

4 cups water

1 medium saucepan.

Place eggs in saucepan. Add water and bring to a boil.  After three minutes of boiling, fish one egg out on a spoon and carry to the sink.  Halfway to the sink, drop the egg (accidentally) on the floor.  If it oozes on impact, cook remaining egg one more minute before eating and after cleaning up the floor.

But the recipes I turn to the most often are my mom’s.  Some of them are dog eared and stained, fragile to the point of illegibility. But I keep them for sentiment’s sake, even though those recipes have long since been committed to memory.  

Included in the Recipes to Die For are some of the comfort foods of my childhood, like the Raisin Bars, which my mom made at least once a week for my father’s lunch. I loved the combination of plump, sweet raisins after their bath in boiling water and the layer of sweet frosting atop the spicy cookies.  Or the multiple Jello recipes: the cherry jello with bing cherries that was my favorite, although I also like sliced oranges in lemon jello (not mandarin oranges!) and the apple grape jello with crunchy apples and green seedless grapes.  Yes,I am a kid of the Jello generation.

Some of the notes are windows into my mom’s kitchen after I was grown: the Mulled Wine we  would enjoy during winter visits just before bedtime (Good in cold weather and decidedly beneficial if one has the cold or the flu, ), the Hearty Corn Chowder (I use the microwave and make this in a 4 quart Corningware dish.  Good for a winter supper), the Caramel Corn (This is yummy and freezes well) or the Apple Butter in a Crock Pot (This tastes wonderful on hot toast and makes your house smell wonderful while it is cooking).

There are little scraps of paper with random recipes stuck throughout my cookbooks, like the Salsa Cruda with the addendum: I used three little hot peppers. It gets hotter the longer it “ages”.  I used your canned tomatoes.  Easy & yummy with tortilla chips. Every time I bake a Mrs. Peters’ coffeecake, I hear her admonition: Check with a toothpick for doneness.  It is a horrible flop if underdone! The recipe is one I know by heart, but I repeat that phrase like a blessing every time I bake it.

At the very back of my hyperextended recipe box is an assortment of cards that have nothing to do with food and everything to do with life.  When my aunts (Anne and Liz) hosted our wedding shower, they handed out cards to the guests to fill out with their advice for a good marriage.  Forty years later, those words of cheer and wisdom still reside in my box.  My sister: Keep the plants off the windowsill! My mother-in-law: Just talk things over! My Granny: Recipe for marriage 1 woman, 1 man. 1 lb sense of humor, 2 lbs love, 3 ½ lbs. tolerance, Shut up! P. S. Had a big argument with my husband this morning! Ran out of sense of humor…

My granny is gone...and so is Uncle Steve, the witty curator of the Renken Cookbooks….and his brother, my father, though I am certain heaven is a spicier place with the three of them in residence.

My mom was always more of a listener...and the best....letting me chatter on endlessly about whatever was on my mind. So I treasure the little asides recorded in the cookbook, and the tattered recipes she shared as well as this advice from years and years ago about her happy marriage:

Good companionship and conversation...no secrets (almost) Train him right but don’t let him know you are doing it.

Lots of loving!! (with a giant balloon of an exclamation point)

Ma

Be Blessed this Thanksgiving …..

Harvest Home

COME, ye thankful people, come,

raise the song of harvest home;

all is safely gathered in,

ere the winter storms begin.

All the world is God's own field, 

fruit as praise to God we yield;

wheat and tares together sown 

are to joy or sorrow grown; 

first the blade and then the ear, 

then the full corn shall appear; 

Lord of harvest, grant that we 

wholesome grain and pure may be.

We thank thee then, O Father, for all things bright and good,

The seedtime and the harvest, our life our health our food,

No gifts have we to offer for all thy love imparts,

But that which thou desirest, our humble thankful hearts.

Lord, dismiss us with Thy blessing;

Fill our hearts with joy and peace;

Let us each Thy love possessing,

Triumph in redeeming grace.

O refresh us, O refresh us,

Traveling through this wilderness.

All good gifts around us

Are sent from Heaven above.

So thank the Lord,

 O, thank the Lord for all his love..

Always, Always

A foretaste of winter blew through Atchison county last week...a whirling dervish of leaves and stalks, weakened tree limbs and trash cans reminding us that winter is waiting in the wings.  November has been ever so patient with us; the fields and roads have been dry as we glean the late grain from the bottom ground.  Rain is in the forecast for much of this week; the anhydrous wagons are rolling up route O like schooners on the Oregon trail as fall field work commences.  We hope for good weather to hang on so we get a head start on next spring, but the bottom line is this:  the combines are washed, the crops are hauled or in the bin, harvest 2015 is finished...there is always, always, something to be thankful for.

A trip to central Missouri yielded a double play of  pleasure: a windy afternoon at Redbarn catching up on family news, drinking tea and eating cookies, and bringing home another brown bag of Golden Russet apples, then the evening arrival of Kenzie and Levi to catch up on the wonders of the FB house and the toys there that wait patiently for his occasional visits.  His mother let him run off his six hours of carseat energy before bedtime, but promised a day of play on the morrow.  Sure enough, there was a knock, knock on our door at 6:30 Thursday a.m. and a little boy ready to hit the ground running....there is always, always, something to be thankful for.

Sunday was Josh's number five birthday....and Charlie's five plus seventy five plus birthday.  Some years we stop to sing and eat, then go back to finish harvest.  Sometimes we have a giant party...like last year...with balloons and friends and remembrances.  But we always celebrate these two special people and the happy years of our family they enclose like parantheses.  Needless to say...a party is something to be thankful for.

I am enjoying the evenings spent working with beautiful glass at the Tarkio Glass Company.  It is never too late in life to try something new and always good to concentrate one's mind on the work of one's hands .  A new medium with new tools and new techniques waits just down the street!  A simple pleasure from a gift warmly received....

Sunday evenings mean it's time for praise and pancakes at church, time for kids to practice the songs for their Christmas program, time to enjoy the fellowship of GAs and RAs.  The fellowship hall echoes with chatter; the air is fragrant with frying sausage ; the tables are sticky with syrup and peanut butter. I take the trash out to the dumpster in the sudden silence and say a thankful prayer for the big-hearted men and women giving of their time to these little ones,  feeding Jesus' lambs and loving their neighbors.

So much thanksgiving before Thanksgiving!  Including the third grade program at school (I can attest that three of the third graders do have their parts memorized!) and an invitation to eat Thanksgiving luncheons on two different school days!  I fondly remember eating lunch at Westboro school the week before Thanksgiving; such a generous platter the Pilgrims could hardly have imagined. It is appropriate to celebrate gratitude in our schools; in a way, I am surprised that we are still able to acknowledge this not-really-secular commemoration.  Enjoy it while we can...

Finally....
....I found a mouse on my kitchen floor while I was mopping up toaster crumbs.  Yes, I let out a small shriek.  But there IS always something to be thankful for...

It was dead....

Give thanks!

Comfort and Joy

“In November, the smell of food is different. It is an orange smell. A squash and pumpkin smell. It tastes like cinnamon and can fill up a house in the morning, can pull everyone from bed in a fog. Food is better in November than any other time of the year.”
― Cynthia Rylant, In November

I've lived in a lot of cold houses. The house in Orland Park with no basement, the chilled brown tiles atop the concrete foundation laid across the frozen black earth of northern Illinois. The unheated second floor of the sandstone farmhouse in Calloway where we breathed frost into the air if our noses escaped the mountain of wool blankets. Our first house on the farm with neither furnace nor basement, where the electric baseboard heaters fought a losing battle with drafts from above and below and we preheated our bed with the electric blanket every night.

We fought back. With lath and plastic, hammer and nails, Blake covered every window, shrouding us in a blurry world until spring returned. It was not a pretty sight. When we moved out to the windy hill by Deadman's Hollow, our situation improved with the comforting on and off of the furnace blower and warm air coming out of the register. But I still covered the windows...on the inside this time...and felt virtuous and smart when the plastic breathed in and out like it was alive every time the wind attempted to get in.

This old house on Spruce plays by its own set of winter rules: slippers for everyone, an electric throw for Blake's uber cold feet, the friendly hiss of the gas log in the front room. The new windows thwart the sound and fury of winter with one exception: the sun porch upstairs where the houseplants go to spend the winter. And that's where I spent part of this glorious November afternoon, swatting away sun resurrected houseflies and late season lady bugs, spreading out cellophane and double sticky tape like generations have before me. When I am finished, the sun porch is winterized and the plants as cozy as I can accomplish. One more November task put to rest.

November is full of satisfactions like this. Harvest continues, but the acres are piling up behind the combines and there is cautious talk of an end in sight. The sun greets us in the mornings for a few days after the time change and helps compensate for the long evenings of work after the sun sets when other folks are headed home. By November, the mum mess has been picked up...groundcloth piled under bricks, irrigation lines rolled up, fertilizer machines and pumps put up where they won't freeze and break.The greenhouse work revolves around emails and phone calls and web sites.

This leaves time to cook. After six weeks of harvest meals, it takes some invention to present something for dinner ála Rubbermaid that hasn't been eaten recently and "travels well". Sandwiches are so summer cold cuts. Salad days are gone to frost; time for slow cookers of chili and stew, pot pies wrapped in dish towels, baked pastas of Italian extraction. Food that can be scooped with a spoon or cut with a plastic fork. Food that can be wrapped in foil, eaten in a cab, and doesn't spill enroute. Comfort foods....garlic bread, corn bread, soaking up sauce, mopping up honey.

As the calendar days pile up in November, the days fade and the temperatures wane. There's no better way to warm chilled hands than to put them to work stirring or peeling or soaking in hot dishwater. Cold mornings are an incentive to cook. All the meals in November are just a countdown to the most splendid meal of the year: Thanksgiving.

Sunday morning finds us women folk gathering after Sunday school to pool resources in the kitchen. There's a new recipe to try, a chicken enchilada casserole that promises to feed 12 people. In our line of work, a dozen is always an option, so I screw up my eyes trying to read the capacities of the largest casserole dishes in my cupboard...there it is! Found one....4.5 liters is the winner. The bean dip appetizer is partly for the meal...and partly to accompany the preparation of the meal. The cooks dip Fritos; the oven pings as it heats; the conversation warms as the kids check on dinner's progress and the dog sneaks in from the back porch to sit on someone's feet and be sociable. It's an anti-Martha kind of kitchen, crowded,noisy, busy, steamy, made more so by the growing stacks of dirty pans and the overflowing trash can.

Good news! The harvest crew is switching from corn to beans, leaving an hour free to shut down the machinery to eat while the beans dry on this November day. No paper plates today and no Tupperware! Spread out the tablecloth and count the forks...I'll make the tea. Crumbs and stains and seconds are emblems of plenty. Family AND dinner at the table...not out of a hatchback.

The new recipe is a success, even if Abbie and Josh would rather eat corn than casserole. After cake and ice cream, the guys pile into the pickup and head back to the field. There is a city skyline of dirty dishes in the kitchen. This is November's legacy, November's gift: the comforts of a busy kitchen and the abundance of a big home cooked meal for hard working people. The joy of preparing good food and the satisfying work of cleaning up afterwards.

O tidings, of comfort and joy...welcome, November....

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