Text 18120, 116 rader
Skriven 2014-10-15 20:56:21 av Ruth Haffly (1:396/45.28)
  Kommentar till text 18068 av NANCY BACKUS (1:123/140)
Ärende: Sunday dinners
======================
Hi nancy,

 NB> time they realised they  RH>> needed potatoes.) Mom could have just
 NB> cooked up rice, but it wouldn't  RH>> have been appreciated.
 NB>  NB>> That's determination... ;)   And stubbornness...  ;)

 RH> More so the latter than the former. (G)

 NB> And a gead deal of inflexibility to boot... ;)

He's about as flexible as a concrete pole on a calm day.


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

 RH> True, one never knows. Bill was always a good eater, but Don could
 RH> pack away an adult portion at an early age. And we weren't allowed to
 RH> be picky, had to eat whatever was served, like it or not.

 NB> Picky eaters at our house would go hungry, so one had to really
 NB> dislike something to ask for only a no-thank-you portion...  one
 NB> didn't get extra of anything else, or a substitute... unless one
 could trade...

We didn't go hungry but we might not have liked what we had to fill us.
The basics (meat, potato, vegetable & dessert were always on the supper
table (unless it was pasta, then, just a meat sauce with it, sometimes
Italian or French bread) but nothing extra. No trading allowed, no
substitutes if we didn't like a vegetable, just eat it without
complaining.

 NB>  NB>> but gardens are a little hard to do when one is moving often, or
 NB> the  NB>> yard isn't very cooperative...  We did have an old apple
 NB> tree and a  NB>> couple of cherry trees in our back yard when we lived
 NB> in the Philly  NB>> area... but never did any other gardening...

 RH> Moving and living in places with no yard condusive to gardening would
 RH> have put a crimp into growing your own produce. Dad had a small garden
 RH> in the place they rented for a few years when they first moved to
 RH> M'ville but when they bought the lot across the street, he had room
 RH> for a couple of good sized garden plots. He actually could have tilled
 RH> more ground but what he did plant was enough to eat, plus put up a good
 RH> supply for the winter.

 NB> Yup, what one has available can make a big difference...  :)

I believe Dad had grown up with a family garden and was comfortable
working in it. Having one when he was an adult gave him a stress relief
from his newspaper job, besides putting food on the table for cheap.

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

 RH> Dad had/has a sweet tooth so there was always something for dessert,
 RH> even if it was just a cookie. That was one of the things that
 RH> sabotaged Mom's diabetes--if he had something sweet, she had to, also,
 RH> so her blood sugar never really got under control.

 NB> Fortunately diabetes was never an issue with my parents.  Even after
 NB> we'd all left home, ice cream and cookies was their standard dessert.
 NB> They'd usually have about a half dozen or so flavors of ice cream in
 NB> the freezer at all times... Cookies might just be graham crackers, or

My folks usually had a couple of different flavors going at the same
time, but with more options in the freezer in the cellar.

 NB> more
 NB> likely, oatmeal cookies or sugar cookies, or sandwich cookies of some
 NB> sort...  That was pretty standard even when the kids were all home,
 NB> too. The oatmeal cookies might have been homemade, but the rest would
 NB> have been bought.

Mom baked cookies up until probably 20-25 years ago. She'd still do a
variety at Christmas, even after she stopped baking during the year, up
until a relatively short time ago. I think it was the arthritis, more
than the diabetes, that made her stop baking as she just swtiched to
eating store bought cookies instead of home made.

 NB> the smaller
 NB>  NB>> kitchens, though... just not what I normally think about...  :)

 RH> Sometimes it's just the way things are laid out that makes the
 RH> difference if the kitchen is a good one for visiting while the cook is
 RH> working or not. If we didn't have the freezer, microwave cart and
 RH> storage unit, we'd have more room between the table & fridge, making
 RH> it wasier to get around whoever's at the table.

 NB> True, layout can make a difference, too... and how much is stuffed
 NB> into the room...

Yes, and our current kitchen is also a dining room, laundry room and
utility room.


 RH> We'll set up the new kitchen differently--it'll allow more storage
 RH> in cabinets and cupboards than we've got here.

 NB> That can help a lot, too...  :)

Yes, I'm hoping I can stow what's being stored in the storage unit (a
plastic Rubbermaid or Sterlite, forget which, cabinet with shelves) in
the cabinets, etc in the new place. Then the storage unit will go into
my sewing room to help organise that better.

---
Catch you later,
Ruth
rchaffly{at}earthlink{dot}net  FIDO 1:396/45.28


... Are you sure you really want to know that?

--- PPoint 3.01
 * Origin: Sew! That's My Point (1:396/45.28)