Text 17848, 117 rader
Skriven 2014-10-07 21:08:00 av NANCY BACKUS (1:123/140)
     Kommentar till en text av RUTH HAFFLY
Ärende: Re: Sunday dinners
==========================
-=> Quoting Ruth Haffly to Nancy Backus on 10-04-14  17:05 <=-

 NB>> We had similar upbringings, with similar issues... main difference
 NB>> being that my Daddy wasn't big on potatoes... rice and veggies were
 NB>> more common at our house.

 RH> Dad will do rice with Chinese food but not as a sub for potatoes
 RH> unless there's absolutely no way to get any potatoes. Some years ago,
 RH> he and Mom realised on Sunday afternoon that they were out of potatoes
 RH> (before time to start fixing them for dinner). As I understand, they
 RH> had to try several places in the greater M'ville area before they found
 RH> any. (IIRC, the local store wasn't open by the time they realised they
 RH> needed potatoes.) Mom could have just cooked up rice, but it wouldn't
 RH> have been appreciated.

That's determination... ;)   And stubbornness...  ;)
 
 RH>> I'm sure Mom & Dad portioned out for us until we were old enough to
 RH>> dish up our own. I think they let us take our own as a time saver, so
 RH>> all of us would be eating while the food was at serving temperature.
 NB>> I'm talking right up till we left on our own... and we'd still be
 NB>> portioned out when we came home for a visit..   (G)   Of course, there
 NB>> were also little ones still at home for a very long time... ;)   Daddy
 NB>> didn't catch on to the fact that teenagers needed more food until my
 NB>> first brother reached that age... I was married before then, and when
 NB>> we'd come over to eat there, I'd always have to feed Richard either
 NB>> before or afterwards, as he was never served enough to fill him...  ;)

 RH> We never had a problem with amounts of sides to the meat but I think
 RH> Mom cooked more potatoes in proportion to the other vegetable. There
 RH> was usually enough, but not overly so, of the second one but pretty
 RH> much all you could eat on potatoes. My younger brother always had a big
 RH> appetite, even as a young kid, so Mom made sure she had enough potatoes
 RH> cooked to fill him, as well as the rest of us. If there were visitors,
 RH> more potatoes were cooked and meat was portioned out in smaller amounts
 RH> to us kids.

You were fortunate, then...  :)  And the oldest kid in your family is a
boy... that might have made a difference in our family, but one really
never knows...  :)

 NB>> I suspect you had more food on the table... certainly a few less

 RH> Coould be, Dad put in gardens for years and Mom canned a lot. That
 RH> helped stretch the food $$.

Daddy bought wisely, and day-old bread and reduced for quick sale other
stuff... that helped stretch the food budget...  but gardens are a
little hard to do when one is moving often, or the yard isn't very
cooperative...  We did have an old apple tree and a couple of cherry
trees in our back yard when we lived in the Philly area... but never did
any other gardening...

 NB>> mouths to feed.  :)  Dessert was also always portioned out, usually
 NB>> ice cream and cookies, except for birthdays, when there was also
 NB>> cake... :)

 RH> Our desserts ranged from jello to cake (a 13x9 sheet would last 3
 RH> meals) to pies to ice cream (rare when I was growing up, more common
 RH> after I left home) to lots of watermelon in the summer. Birthday cake
 RH> if there was a birthday, but never with ice cream. Lunch dessert was
 RH> always a cookie and a piece of candy. At Christmas time, we could have
 RH> 2 cookies since Mom baked a good sized variety and, by the time I was
 RH> in college, they started allowing 2 cookies. Some years ago they
 RH> switched to all store bought cookies.

We did have jello once in a while, but not often.  Sounds like your
family might have had more sweets on a regular basis..   :)

 RH>> I changed a
 RH>> lot of my eating habits when I went to college, then got married.
 NB>> I changed my eating habits bit by bit when I went to college... I was
 NB>> still ostensibly living at home, so meals there were no different...
 NB>> and meals eating at school were rather catch-as-catch-can for a while.
 NB>>  When Richard moved out of the dorms into an apartment, I started
 NB>> cooking meals for the two of us there... finding that I also needed
 NB>> to change some of my cooking habits...  I was used to cooking for
 NB>> 10... I had to cut it in half to cook for 2...  (G)

 RH> I had to learn how to cook for 2 after cooking for 6 or 7 so I know
 RH> what you mean. It was more like cutting a recipe into quarter size or
 RH> eating the same thing for several meals. (G)

Hah... that's another indicator that you were being served more food
than we were...  I meant mine literally... what would have served 5
people in my growing up family, only served the 2 of us for a meal... If
I cooked my normal amount, we'd have enough left over for the next
meal...  :) 

 RH>>> It also gave you a chance to talk without the time taken away in
 RH>>> the kitchen for your last minute prep work.
 NB>>> That too... Although, had we happened to be having people over,
 NB>>> visiting tended to happen in the kitchen during prep anyway...
 RH>> It would have been hard in the kitchen at my folks house. The one here
 RH>> isn't too much better but the house we're buying has one that is a lot
 RH>> more condusive to poeple visiting while food is being prepped/served.
 NB>> All you mostly need is a chair somewhat out of the way... or a similar
 NB>> piece of wall, for those that can stand for longer periods of time...
 NB>> :)

 RH> Can't really do it in M'ville, easier here because we have the eat
 RH> in kitchen but still, sitting person has to stay out of the way of
 RH> the fridge being opened, etc.

As far back as I can remember, the kitchen (except maybe the one in
Mississippi) was always a decent-sized generally squarish room... with
room in the middle for people to mill about, as long as they moved out
of the way when necessary...  I've seen the smaller kitchens, though...
just not what I normally think about...  :)

ttyl       neb

... The good news is that the bad news was wrong...

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