FORTUNE magazine called Cincinnati the best run big city in the United States. LIFE magazine said “Cincinnati has one of the best police forces in the country”. TIME Magazine, on the other hand, once labeled Cincinnati “dowdy”!! Dowdy? Cincinnati? I knew there was a good reason why I don’t subscribe to TIME.

To Indians, Cincinnati was a calamity; to slaves, it was a promised land and to the REDS Baseball Team, it’s a place to play ball. To children on skates, it’s a seven-hilled impossibility, while to Proctor Gamble it was a place to make soap. To beer-makers it represented memories of “over the Rhine”. Which Cincinnati you know depends on your point of view…” from “Vas You Ever in Zinzinnati” by Dick Perry, published by Doubleday in 1966.

You may have heard of my hometown, Cincinnati—which I have written about several times on this blog. I was born and raised in Cincinnati; as were both of my parents. My paternal grandparents were German and Hungarian and came through Ellis Island by way of Rumania. From there they went to Cincinnati. Quite possibly, they had friends or other connections which led them to Cincinnati, which already had a huge German population by the time they got there.

My mother’s parents were definitely German as well but we know so little about their roots. My father’s parents immigrated to the United States when they were in their early twenties and we all grew up strongly influenced by our surroundings. North Fairmount was heavily populated by German Americans and Italians. South Fairmount was more heavily populated with Italians. My grandparents bought a house on Baltimore Street when their daughter, my Aunt Annie, was a toddler. (The story was that they bought this house “in the country” because my Uncle Hans was asthmatic. I guess North Fairmount was country to them, back then.)  The three storied big brick house was large enough to raise their children in, and when those children got married, they lived in separate apartments in the same house—until they could afford to buy a house on their own. My parents lived in the house on Baltimore until I was five years old. That meant they lived in my grandmother’s house for nine years. Some of those years were a part of the great depression and some were a part of World War II.

I have no real memories of living in the house on Baltimore Street although when I reflect on scattered early memories, I think some of those must have occurred when we were still living in my grandmother’s house.

Down the street from my grandmother’s house was St. Leo’s church and school. My father, his younger brother and their younger sister all went to St. Leo’s—not only that, but all three had Sister Tarcisius in the first grade—as did my older sister, older brother and me—along with two of our cousins. Sister Tarcisius taught first grade at St Leo’s for over fifty years before celebrating her Golden Jubilee as a nun and retiring to the convent in Oldenburg, Indiana.  There was a continuity to our lives back then—often when I became girlfriends with someone in my class and went to her home, a parent was sure to say “Oh, yes! Schmidts! I went to school with your father”. (Many years later, my youngest brother Scott would buy and remodel the house that had belonged to his first wife’s grandmother. When I first saw the house, I realized it had once belonged to my classmate Joan—whose younger sister, Val, became the grandmother from whom Scott bought the house.

Our neighborhood was all of North Fairmount and extended into South Fairmount in one direction and English Woods in another. Now, if you drive through these neighborhoods they are almost all downtrodden and ramshackle—a far cry from the neat and tidy brick houses that lined all the streets with geraniums in the front windows that were a part of our lives. I think we could have approached any house in an emergency for blocks around—not that anything serious ever happened. It wasn’t anything any of us ever thought about—we rode bicycles and skates and/or walked from one place to another without ever stopping to consider our safety or security.

There was a state of stability and absence of disruption throughout our lives, throughout the lives of our parents (despite the great depression and WW2) that can’t be found in Southern California where I have spent most of my adult life but I think still exists in most of Cincinnati, where girlfriends of mine who grew up in North College Hill married and bought houses near their parents’ homes, to raise their children in close proximity to their parents.

We took good cooking for granted, I’m ashamed to admit. I don’t think any of us ever stopped to think twice about my grandma’s exquisite Palascinta (Hungarian pancakes—like crepes); grandma’s strudels with dough made from scratch—we each had a favorite filling – mine was spicy pumpkin—but any of them, apple, cherry, or cheese, were to die for—or homemade noodles drying on the backs of kitchen chairs—or the German wurst sausages, delicious with a chunk of fresh-baked salt bread.

My grandmother made Dobos tortes with up to fourteen layers of sponge cake, spread with bittersweet chocolate frosting; she made dozens and dozens of cookies at Christmas-time—I only remember the diamond shaped cookies dipped in egg white and spread with finely chopped walnuts and sugar although my older sister swore there were many other kinds of cookies.

We went to grandma’s house for lunch most days of the week during the school year—her house was just a short walk up the street from St. Leo’s—and feasted on Hungarian goulash and salt bread, or a bowl of chicken broth which contained something WE called “rivillies” but which, I discovered in one of William Woys Weaver’s books—was a tiny Pennsylvania Dutch dumpling called Rivels or Riwweles which is probably much the same as my grandmother’s Rivellies. We also grew up on Spatzle and homemade noodles, dumplings, sauerkraut, scrapple, and hasenpfeffer. Scrapple is traditionally a mush of pork scraps and trimmings combined with cornmeal and wheat flour, which is baked in a loaf pan and then kept refrigerated. You sliced some of it and fried it in a skillet for a breakfast side dish. (I could live without the hasenpfeffer but loved everything else).

Or grandma might make a huge chicken sandwich for you (if you were the only child who happened to be around) with leaves of lettuce fresh from her garden, and mayonnaise spread thick on homemade bread. We often had Palascinta for lunch, with jelly spread over it and then rolled up; we called the crepes “German pancakes” not knowing their true origin was Hungarian. If nothing else, we might have a snack of a slice of rye bread spread with sour cream.

My grandmother taught her cooking skills to her daughter and daughters-in-law. Many years would pass before I realized that my two aunts, Aunt Annie and Aunt Dolly, knew how to make many of Grandma’s desserts and savory dishes. My mother learned how to make bread; my mother made two huge loaves of bread twice a week most of my adolescent years. Aside from the recipes my aunts remembered, most of grandma’s recipes—all learned from watching, none written down—are now lost. A few were written down but most are gone, along with my mother and aunts and grandmother.

For one thing, my grandmother never wrote much in English except for her name; some times she would instruct me to write something down for her. But German was her native language and she and my grandfather had many Immigrant friends in Cincinnati who spoke their language. My grandfather was a tailor of men’s suits and spoke seven languages fluently. The shopkeepers with whom grandma did business all spoke German, too.

My grandparents belonged to a lodge that was downtown near Findlay Market; it was a place where the men played cards and smoked pipes in one room while the women cooked or talked in another room. (Only recently I discovered there were many such lodges).  Sometimes there was a wedding in a nearby Catholic church and the reception might be held at this lodge; I remember the dancing and the music. We went to and from the lodge on the streetcars—later buses took over. When we transferred buses at Colerain and Hopple Street, my grandfather would hurry into Camp Washington Chili Parlor to get Coney Islands for us to eat when we got home. (I remember there being a coupon in the Sunday Paper – five or six Coney islands for 25 cents).

Findlay Market was an open market with stalls of fruit-and-vegetables—around the perimeter of the open stalls there were grocery stores—I particularly remember a meat market where grandma sometimes bought a chicken.  Grandma was ahead of her time carrying tote bags made out of oil cloth and often taking a grandchild along to help carry the bags. In recent years I visited Findlay Market with one of my nephews; it is over a hundred years old and has been vastly renovated—almost all the stores and shops are now indoors and the meat market always had us drooling over the many kinds of sausages.

I grew up in Cincinnati, learning my way around the city at a very tender age—by the time I was ten years old I was making trips downtown by myself—first to make payments on a coat my mother had in layaway at Lerner’s for which she paid $1.00 a week and I’d have two nickels for bus fare each way. Later, I took my two younger brothers with me downtown to do our Christmas shopping. There were no malls at this time—all the shops and stores were located downtown, near Fountain Square and ladies would go downtown to shop wearing dresses and high heels. Can you imagine?

At an early age—maybe ten or eleven—I began to discover the used book stores (as well as small out-of-the-way dusty antique stores that often had a tray of books outside the door; The kind of books I bought then, for 25 cents each, were often light romance, I think—cookbooks were far from my radar!

We shopped primarily at the five and ten cent stores – there were three or four of these—one was a Newberry’s and another was a Kresge’s, but the chief attraction was    the Woolworth store that had a lunch counter where we—my two younger brothers and I—could buy a grilled cheese and coke to share—and sometimes have enough for a bag of caramel corn which I have been addicted to all my life. We somehow managed to buy Christmas presents for our parents, grandparents and siblings—which amazes to me this very day. It must have been like the loaves and fishes—because somehow, doling out pennies for purchases, we always managed to get something for everybody.  I was equally addicted to “downtown” – to me, downtown has been and always will be “downtown Cincinnati” During the holidays my brothers and I visited all the major department stores to stand in line to see Santa Claus but primarily to get a free candy cane. The store window displays alone were worth a trip downtown.

One of my favorite stores – not a 5&10 cent store – was Shillito’s—Cincinnati’s first department store which opened in 1832. One of the exits, close to my bus stop,was in the book section, where Nancy Drew books were on display.  One year my brother Jim gave me five new Nancy Drew books for Christmas. I was hooked on Nancy Drew. I think the books were about a dollar each—and just GETTING a dollar and hanging onto it long enough to go downtown to buy the next book was a task unto itself. Eventually I discovered that the Nancy Drew books at used book stores were generally a lot cheaper—and I fell in love with the old illustrations in these books.

Another beloved place when I was a child – not only to me but to my siblings as well – was the Windmill Restaurant. It was a cafeteria style restaurant, unfamiliar to all of us—where you could pick and choose whatever you wanted to eat. It was a special treat to do downtown to the Windmill Restaurant with Grandma and be able to eat anything you wanted.  (a foreign concept to children of the 1940s, I assure you.)

Restaurant food with my parents sometimes had strings attached. I remember once being in a restaurant with my parents; we all ordered hamburgers – but I stipulated no mustard on mine. The hamburger arrived with – guess what? Mustard. I refused to eat it and my parents refused to send it back. That hamburger traveled home with us in the glove compartment and I don’t remember eating anything else on the way home.(many, many years later I began eating mustard—it’s almost a “must” on a corned beef sandwich but I remember, nevertheless, a battle of wits between me and my parents.

The Windmill Restaurant and Grandma are irrevocably tied together. I never went there without her.

There were other downtown attractions; during the holidays, Lytle Park had a “live” nativity scene that was a “must” if you were downtown. Lytle Park, as I remember it, no longer exists*. When the Freeway, Interstate I-71, was built in the mid 1960s. significant changes were made to the area. A tunnel was built under the park; the original Lytle Park had to be dismantled/demolished. After I-71 construction, the park was reconstructed, and “One Lytle Place” (a luxury nigh-rise apartment building) was constructed.

Another favorite event during my childhood was the circus. The only circus I know anything about was one that came to town, to the downtown area. This was the Shrine  Circus and our Uncle George gave us free tickets to go. I went there with my two younger brothers. We didn’t have any money for caramel corn or soft drinks, but it was enough just being there.

We went to the Policemen’s Picnic once a year and it was not uncommon for families to pack up a supper and go to one of the parks located in Cincinnati’s many forest areas—there was Winton Woods and Mt. Airy Forest, just to name two.

Cincinnati has a fine zoo and sometimes you might go with Grandma to the zoo, just to walk around. There are many other fine places to visit in Cincinnati, such as the museums.  What I have described to you, however, are the places I was familiar with as a child

Cincinnati  has, for many decades, been a city of great activity and prosperity. By 1830 it was the 6^th largest city in the United States. In a book titled “CINCINNATI, A PICTORIAL HISTORY” by Marilyn Green and Michael Bennett, the authors tell us that “increasing numbers of steamboats were built here, and the huge pork-packing industry gave the city the name of “Porkupolis”, one result of this highly successful business being the common sight of herds of pigs being driven through the streets a long time ago. Many of today’s great businesses were founded, such as Procter & Gamble; showboats docked at public landings and theatres opened their doors to increasingly elegant crowds who were entertained by everything from Shakespeare to grand opera…”

It was during this period (1820-1865) that many illustrious visitors and residents arrived  at the Queen City. Harriet Beecher Stowe came with her amazing father, the head of Lane Seminary; Lafayette came and was nearly killed with hospitality; Charles Dickens praised Cincinnati warmly, and Horace Greeley compared it favorably with California. Jenny Lind produced the hysterical enthusiasm that marked her American tour and Stephen Foster worked and composed in the city. A runaway boy who would become famous as Mark Twain boarded a steamboat for New Orleans from the Cincinnati public landing. Thomas Edison was here, and it was he who received the telegraphed news of Lincoln’s assassination. I was bemused to think that Mark Twain boarding a steamboat at the public landing. I remember the public landing and boarding a steamboat to ride up the river to Coney Island (Cincinnati’s version of the famed amusement park).

But mostly, when I think about Cincinnati, I think about good food and recipes and cookbooks.  I think good cooking must be pretty much taken for granted in my hometown and I was nonplussed when I began removing Cincinnati and greater Cincinnati cookbooks from my shelves, to discover just how many cookbooks I have that are devoted to just this one city.

You may recall (I’ve mentioned it a time or two) that the very first community cookbook in my collection was purchased by my father from a co-worker at Formica, in 1961. Its full title is “50^th Anniversary Cookbook Women’s Guild Matthew’s United Church of Christ”  I think my father paid a dollar each for several copies – one for me, one for my sister Becky and one for my mother. It’s always been one of my favorite cookbooks—if nothing else it amuses me to think that daddy had NO IDEA what he was starting when he bought that book for me. Until then, I had never seen any community (or church or club) cookbooks; I had no idea they even existed. A few years later I began to make a serious effort to find other Cincinnati cookbooks. When I began making trips back home with my children in the summertime, my young brother and I began making trips to Acre of Books, in downtown Cincinnati. I rarely made it beyond the cookbook section.  One of the oldest  cookbooks in my collection is a ring-bound book, sans covers, titled “TESTED RECIPES – CALVARY CHURCH, CLIFTON, OHIO.” (Clifton is a suburb of Cincinnati) It’s missing a publishing date, also, and clippings fal out of it whenever I pick the book up—oh, but I love this old cookbook with or without the covers. The former owner inserted pages of her own handwritten recipes or recipes clipped from newspapers and pasted inside.

Perhaps preceding this is a book in my collection titled “KEY TO THE CUPBOARD”  compiled by the Daughters of Veterans (as in the Civil War, 1861-1865) Like so many other old cookbooks, this one is undated; judging by the ads, I would guess it to be published in the early teens—sometime before World War I There is a full page ad titled Mrs. Abraham Lincoln Tent No. 14, and below that DAUGHTERS OF VETERANS 1861-1865, followed underneath by MEETINGS HELD AT MEMORIAL HALL. At the bottom of the page is written “Our Object To Aid and Assist the needy Veterans; to care  for their Widows, and their Orphans, and to perpetuate the memory of the heroic dead, and at the bottom CINCINNATI, OHIO. Amongst the ads is one for Rookwood Pottery. I found a recipe inside for Amber Soup, which was an interesting surprise—only recently I found a reference to Amber Soup while working on What’s Cooking in the White House Kitchen. I also found some recipes for “peach mangoes” and “Sweet Cucumber Mangoes”.  You may recall that I have written about “mangoes” before—it was a Cincinnati term for green bell peppers for many years—the transition from a pickled fruit to being called “mangoes” seems to have stayed strictly in the greater Cincinnati region.  (See “Stuff Mangoes or a Rose by Any Other Name”)

I began collecting cookbooks in 1965; it wasn’t until the early 1970s that I was able to travel home to Cincinnati with my children, to spend from a few weeks to a few months of the summer with my parents, during which time I began to seriously search for Cincinnati cookbooks. One summer we had so much “stuff” to take home that I packed it all in boxes and we took the Greyhound Bus back to California – there was no weight restriction on our boxes, mostly filled with books; it gave a Redcap pause at the downtown Los Angeles Bus Depot when my husband met us there and we enlisted the Redcap to haul all the boxes to our station wagon.

“What you got in here?” he queried. “Feels like FORT KNOX!”
“Not quite, “ I replied, “Just BOOKS!”

Over the years (and many trips to Cincinnati) other old Cincinnati community cookbooks gradually found their way onto my bookshelves. There is DEACCONESS HOSPITAL COOKBOOK published sometime in the 1930s,

THE GARDEN CLUB OF CINCINNATI COOK BOOK published a revised edition in 1937 (I never found an earlier edition),

While in 1950 THE WIEDEMANN BOOK OF UNUSUAL RECIPES was compiled by famous chefs of the day,

THE CINCINNATI COOK BOOK RECIPES COLLECTED BY THE CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETY OF THE CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL was published in 1967 and features drawings of famous Cincinnati landmarks, penned by artist Caroline Williams,

In 1970 the Altrusa Club of Cincinnati published ALTRUSA’S CINCINNATI CELEBRITY COOKBOOKI featuring cartoons of “The Girls” for which cartoon artist Franklin Folger became known,

CINCINNATI CELEBRATES presented by the Junior League of Cincinnati was published 1974,

Also in 1974, Cheviot PTA compiled HAPPINESS IS…CHEVIOT PTA COOKBOOK (one of my favorites—my sister Becky did the illustrations and submitted many of her favorite recipes to this cookbook

ONE POTATO TWO TOMATO, A Cookbook, was published in 1979 by the Catholic Women of Cincinnati,

CINCINNATI RECIPE TREASURY/The Queen City’s Culinary Heritage, by Mary Anna DuSablon, published in 1983 is, without question, my favorite all-time Cincinnati cookbook—it was, and still is, my favorite reference book when it comes to a Cincinnati Recipe.

There is a hardcover book called TREASURED RECIPES FROM CAMARGO TO INDIAN HILL which was compiled in 1987 by the members of the Indian Hill Historical Society,

RIVERFEAST/Still Celebrating Cincinnati by the Junior League of Cincinnati was published in 1990,

While in 1998 the Junior League of Cincinnati returned with “I’ll COOK WHEN PIGS FLY AND THEY DO IN CINCINNATI, another one of my favorite cookbooks.

When asked what my favorite cookbook is, I have to confess, it’s whatever I am reading at the moment. But one of the most outstanding collections of recipes were compiled by Fern Storer, who—for decades—was a food editor for the Cincinnati Post. Whenever my mother was putting together a box of things to send to me, she’d ask if there was anything in particular that I wanted; “Yes,” I always replied, “send me some of Fern Storer’s columns—and maybe a loaf of Rubel’s Rye Bread!” Later on the family would send me packets of Skyline Chili powder mix.

I wish I could have met Fern Storer. Well, during one of my visits to Cincinnati, my nephew took me to the Ohio Book store downtown in Cincinnati (Acres of Books went out of business some years ago). I bought about $100 worth of books including a copy of RECIPES REMEMBERED by Fern Storer.  We packed the box of books up and my nephew mailed them to my home—to save me the trouble of packing them in a suitcase.  Well, the box never made it to California. A single book I had read on the flight TO Cincinnati and had a return address label inside surfaced and was sent to me by the Post Office in Bell, California. I agonized over losing that box for months afterwards.

A year or two later I was back in Cincinnati and returned to the  Ohio Book Store; I told my tale of woe to the owner of the book store who remarked “You know, we ship orders all the time—we can mail your books to you for the cost of postage. So, when I had found a couple of armloads of cookbooks that day, I gave them to the owner to send to me. They weighed my books to determine the cost of shipping at book rate. My books were waiting for me when I got back home.

I didn’t find another copy of RECIPES REMEMBERED—but one day began searching for it online – and not only did I find a copy – I found one that is autographed!

Thank you, Fern Storer, wherever you are.

I like junior league cookbooks from different states –they are almost always better than most cookbooks—but when it comes to finding a recipe that is “local” the two books I turn to first are Fern Storer’s RECIPES REMEMBERED and Mary Anna DuSablon’s Cincinnati Recipe Treasury. Granted, my home town has a great deal more to offer than cookbooks—but the ones listed are those in my own collection.

Special Thanks to Howard Brinkdoepke for clarifying the names and locations of some of my Cincinnati memories. Howard became a penpal when I wrote Dinner in the Diner including the Twin Trolley Restaurant that used to be in South Fairmount.

–Sandra Lee Smith

By the way you should know this about cookbooks – they don’t have to be brand new for you to discover (or in this case re-discover) any of them and yes, cookbook collectors read cookbooks like other people read novels)

The recipe that captured my attention–chicken, tomato and tortilla soup—is one of those you can put together on fairly short notice—the ingredients are items often found on our pantry shelves or in the freezer. It calls for 6 chicken thighs—I buy massive amounts of chicken parts to keep in the freezer for various recipes. The soup is delicious (although I do admit, I am inordinately fond of anything that smacks of Mexican cuisine) –and reminds me a bit of the tortilla soup served at a local Mexican restaurant. You will say mas, mas, mas!

Greatly encouraged with the results of chicken, tomato, and tortilla soup, I began experimenting with some of the other recipes.

Mr. Rodger’s book will have you digging into the back of your kitchen cupboard and dusting off your slow cooker, if that’s where yours has been relegated. By the way, I learned from Mr. Rodgers that “crockpot” (my generic name for the slow cooker) is really not a common label—it belongs exclusively to Rival Manufacturing Company.

There are 160 recipes for your slow cooker in READY AND WAITING – including (imagine this) a pineapple and macadamia chutney! I think the recipe for cranberry per-walnut sauce would be a hit at a holiday dinner…there is a gingered apple butter recipe that I am going to try as soon as I buy some apples…there is a Herbed Thanksgiving Stuffing recipe that the author recommends you make in a slow cooker instead of stuffing into a bird and I think I will attempt that recipe the next time I roast a turkey.

State the publishers, “Hearty stews, rib-sticking chilies, tender pot roasts. The real secret is a long slow simmer at a constant temperature, and no appliance does this better than a slow cooker…cooking teacher Rick Rodgers has adapted an eclectic array of international favorites for the slow cooker, including Farmer’s Market Lobster and Corn Chowder, Ground Beef Chili with Cornmeal Dumplings, Lamb shanks in Garlic Sauce, Chinese Country Ribs, and Sweet and Sout Brisket

Rick Rodgers is an award-winning cookbook author, cooking teacher, food writer, and radio and television guest chef. He is the author and co-author of over forty cookbooks on a wide range of subjects. His recipes have appeared in Food & Wine, Cooking Light and Fine Cooking, and he is a frequent contributor to Bon APETITE magazine. (the first time I wrote about Rick Rodgers for the Cookbook Collectors Exchange, he had only written a few cookbooks at the time. When I began wondering what he has been writing about lately, I found enough to compile a list for you. Most of these books can be found on Amazon.com.

RICK RODGERS TITLES

365 WAYS TO COOK HAMBURGER AND OTHER GROUND MEAT 1991

READY AND WAITING BY RICK RODGERS, 1992

MISTER PASTA’S HEALTHY PASTA COOKBOOK: MORE THAN 150 DELICIOUS, LOW-FAT PASTAS, 1994

Slow Cooker Ready & Waiting: 160 Sumptuous Meals That Cook Themselves (paperback edition) 1998

PRESSURE COOKING FOR EVERYONE with Arlene Ward and Kathryn Russell 2000

CHICKEN/WILLIAM-SONOMA SERIES WITH CHUCK WILLIAMS 2001

DIP IT! GREAT PARTY FOOD TO SPREAD, SPOON AND SCOOP, 2002

KAFFEEHAUS: EXQUISITE DESSERTS FROM THE CLASSIC CAFES OF VIENNA, BUDAPEST AND PRAGUE,  2002

THE TURKEY COOKBOOK 2003

WILLIAM-SONOMA COLLECTION AMERICAN 2004

THANKSGIVING 101: CELEBRATE AMERICA’S FAVORITE HOLIDAY WITH AMERICA’S THANKSGIVING EXPERT, 2007

CHRISTMAS 101: CELEBRATE THE HOLIDAY SEASON FROM CHRISTMAS TO NEW YEAR’S, 2007

KINGSFORD COMPLETE GRILLING COOKBOOK BY KINGFORD CHARCOAL AND BEN FINK, 2007

SUMMER GATHERINGS: CASUAL FOOD TO ENJOY WITH FAMILY AND FRIENDS, HARDCOVER 2008

AUTUMN GATHERINGS; CASUAL FOOD TO ENJOY WITH FAMILY AND FRIENDS  2008

WINTER GATHERINGS; CASUAL FOOD TO ENJOY WITH FAMILY AND FRIENDS, 2009

COOKING ESSENTIALS: GETTING THE MOST OUT OF YOUR STOVE TOP & GRILL (WILLIAMS-SONOMA, 2010

BREAKFAST COMFORTS (WILLIAMS SONOMA) WITH ENTICING RECIPES FOR THE MORNING, INCLUDING FAVORITE DISHES FROM RESTAURANTS, WITH MAREN CARUSO 2011

I LOVE MEATBALLS!, 20011

COFFEE AND CAKE: ENJOY THE PERFECT CUP OF COFFEE WITH DOZENS OF DELECTABLE Recipes for Café Treats 2010

SARABETH’S BAKERY WITH Sarabeth Levine and Quentin Bacon, 2010

CARRRABBA’S ITALIAN GRILL: RECIPES FROM AROUND OUR FAMILY TABLE, 2011

THE ESSENTIAL JAMES BEARD COOKBOOK: 450 RECIPES THAT SHAPED THE TRADITION OF AMERICAN COOKING, JAMES BEARD AUTHOR, RICK RODGERS, EDITOR & JOHN FERRONE CONSULTANT

THE MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD SIXTIES RETRO RECIPES with Heather MacLean 2012

THE EVERYDAY DASH DIET COOKBOOK, WITH Marla Heller, 2013

THE CHELSEA MARKET COOKBOOK: 100 RECIPES FROM NEW YORK’S PREMIER INDOOR FOOD MARKET BY Michael Phillips and Rick Rodgers to be released, OCTOBER 2013

Americanizations of British cookery books

Making British cookbooks understandable and accessible to American readers is a skill that goes well beyond switching zucchini for courgette. Some of Mr. Rodgers recent Americanizations are Anjum’s New Indian (Wiley), The Kitchen Bible (DK), Bake and Decorate (Rodale), and At Elizabeth David’s Table (Ecco.)

Review By Sandra Lee Smith

While putting some books away—notably foreign cookbooks—I came across one I have had so long, I no longer remember how I acquired it. I do know that a few years ago when my sister & I, along with her son Cody and my grandson Ethan, met our niece, Leslie, in San Diego with her son Blake—we found a wonderful used cookbook store and bought literally stacks of cookbooks. Leslie was buying all the French cookbooks she could find and I remarked, offhandedly, that I had a lot of French cookbooks that she was welcome to, as it isn’t one of my favorite foreign cuisines. Later on I mailed two boxes of cookbooks to her.  So, how did I end up with a copy of Alexander Watt’s PARIS BISTRO COOKERY? The copyright on this cookbook is 1957 and although the dust jacket is worn and torn in places, at least it’s there.  This small cookbook was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1958 and appears to be the first edition.

My first thought was “What is bistro cookery and how does it differ from other French cooking?  Good question!  From visiting Bing and finding some definitions, I learned that French bistro food caught on in the U.S. in the ’80s, when we realized that we loved the simple, homey cooking found in those small, casual eateries the French call bistros. An alternative to haute cuisine, this is hearty, rustic, everyday stuff, often characterized by regional roots: crisp roast chickens, savory tarts, hearty stews and robust salads.

A bistro (/ˈbiːstrəʊ/), sometimes spelled bistrot, is, in its original Parisian incarnation, a small restaurant serving moderately priced simple meals in a modest setting. Bistros are defined mostly by the foods they serve. French home-style cooking with robust earthy dishes, and slow-cooked foods like cassoulet, a bean stew, are typical. According to Wikipedia, bistros likely developed out of the basement kitchens of Parisian apartments where tenants paid for both room and board. Landlords could supplement their income by opening their kitchen to the paying public. Menus were built around foods that were simple, could be prepared in quantity and would keep over time. Wine and coffee were also served.

The origins of the word bistro are uncertain. Some say that it may derive from the Russian bystro (быстро), “quickly”. According to an urban legend, it entered the French language during the Russian occupation of Paris in 1815. Russian officers or cossacks who wanted to be served quickly would shout “bystro.” However, this etymology is not accepted by several French linguists as there is, notably, no occurrence of this word until the end of the 19th century. Others say the name comes from a type of aperitif, called a bistrouille in (or liqueur coffee), served in some reasonably priced restaurants.

Then I discovered on the cover in much smaller print “50 of Paris’s best small bistros—a cook’s tour with 100 recipes of their specialities de la maison”  (so much for such a small book!) On the inside of the dust jacket, I read “Here is a title to look at twice—for it has a double meaning. This is at once a guidebook and a cookbook  It is a collection of moments savored in those wonderful but often hard-to-find Paris islands where magnificent food is served—and eaten. It is, as well, a collection of the secrets of the chefs who make those islands as singular as they are…”

Cookbook author Alexander Watt was the food and wine expert of the London daily telegraph and knew Paris inside the kitchen and out. In Paris Bistro he cut through to the root of the French cuisine.  Covering a wide cross-section of Paris, Mr. Watt took his readers on a tour of fifty small inexpensive bistros that he personally had discovered, tested, and approved. Granted, this cookbook was published over fifty years ago and I have no way of knowing whether any of the 50 still exist more than sixty years later. Reading the dust jacket, something nudged my memory banks – what other book had I read along similar lines?  I’ll think about that as I continue on.

Author Alexander Watt took us on a tour of fifty small, inexpensive bistros that he personally had visited, bringing to life the ambiance of each bistro, recapturing the atmosphere, the particular nature of the cooking, the regional dishes for which the restaurant may be famous. He not only described the specialties of the bistro, but also offered a  representative menu, suggesting the right  accompanying wine, cheese and liqueur (or digestif, as the French would say—to settle a superlative meal. Then Mr. Watt went on to outline the making of several of the dishes for which each bistro is famous.

Mr. Watt is a Scotsman who—at the time Paris Bistro Cookery was published—had spent 25 years of his life in Paris. Watt was a food and wine expert for the London Daily telegraph and a contributor to Vogue and other international magazines. He was an exacting gourmet and an acknowledged connoisseur of food and wine. In 1954, Watt published with James Beard his first book titled PARIS CUISINES. In 1962 Watt published the Art of Simple French Cooking.  I have been unable to find any additional cookbook titles for Mr. Watt. There are, curiously, a number of non-food titles that may or may not belong to this same Mr. Watt.  While exploring his name, I found a number of Alexander Watts going back in history; most of the dates are too old to be our French expert Alexander Watt.

In the foreword to Paris Bistro Cookery, Mr. Watt writes “By ‘a small bistro type of restaurant’ I mean a small restaurant where the activities of Le Patron, or La Patronne, replace those of the chef, the head waiter and the wine waiter.  This, at once,  implies a friendly ‘enfamille’ atmosphere or ambiance as they say in French, which characterizes the bistro type of restaurant with its sawdust and simplicity, as opposed to the carpets and comfort of the one, two-, and three-starred establishments…”

“What exactly is bistro?” Mr. Watt asks. “Few foreigners, or even Parisians can define the word. The origin is an interesting one and dates back to the time of the fall of Napoleon, when, in 1815, the Allies occupied Paris. Hungry and tired, the Russians, who were then encamped on the Place de la Concorde, felt need to be restored, (hence the origin of the word ‘restaurant’) so they used to wander around the adjoining streets in search of food and drink. ‘Bistro, bistro!’ they would shout as they entered the cafés, meaning in Russian ‘quick, quick’ …give us something to eat and drink.  And so the word stuck and now signifies a small café where meals are served simply and rapidly…”

“The clientele,” Watt continues, “consists of the local tradesmen and shopkeepers who have to eat their midday meal ‘’bistro, bistro’.  As often as not, there will also be a gathering of discerning French and foreign gourmets who have come out of their way to enjoy a good quality meal ‘lento-lento’. The bistro proprietors generally do a very good business and remain on friendly terms with their regular clientele who form a sort of family circle of faithful attendants….”

Watt says this should not discourage the gastronome from getting to know these fascinating out-of-the-way bistros—especially  those owned and run by the friendly couple, the one serving at le zinc the bar), the other working in the kitchen—who will welcome a new client if he adapts himself to the unaffected atmosphere and exhibits a ready interest and appreciation of the wines and specialites de la Maison. (This reminded me of a well known Maison Gerard in North Hollwood, where some of us frequently went to eat at lunchtime – they were famous for the French Onion Soup).

Before beginning your adventure in Bistro restaurants, Watt offers a chapter of Hints on Culinary Procedure in which the author places emphasis on the cook (you) having the proper kind of cooking utensils—namely, in France, copper bottomed saucepans and pots and seem  to think most American kitchens would not contain expensive copper bottom pots and pans for “thin aluminum  pots” will cook too rapidly he wrote. I was bemused by this chapter as for myself I use mostly stainless steel cookware (and cast iron skillets)  and don’t know anyone who cooks with aluminum nowadays. That is a singular example of how far we’ve come and advanced with our cooking tools, some sixty years later.

There is a chapter on French Recipe Terms as well.

Follows are the50 bistros with a little introduction to each. I can’t pretend to know very much about French cooking but I was pleased several basic recipes for making puff pastry, Crepes, and a veal reduction. There is an extensive chapter on “choosing a cheese” and a Glossary of the dishes found in this cookbook which may be the most useful to a novice cook or anyone wanting to learn how to make some French recipes.  (and of course, there is always Julia Child’s famous cookbook).

Amazon.com has come pre owned and collectible copies of PARIS BISTRO COOKERY—the cover shown is not the same as mine. It took endless entries onto Google to learn anything at al—the website continuously brings up ads for all sorts of unrelated information. I went to Bing.com and found the books listed on Amazon. Powell’s bookstore in Portland, Oregon, has a red-covered copy of Paris Bistro Cookery with a backorder of $205.50.  Powell’s also answers the questions uppermost in my mind: they note that many visitors who arrive in Paris expecting to eat well in the bistros the city was once famous for, find many have closed or turned into sushi bars. But although these small restaurants with zinc counters serving delicious traditional “spcialitis de la maison and plats du jour” under the watchful direction of the Patron have all but disappeared from Paris, they live on in the pages of this delightful book. It offers a hundred recipes from fifty of the best authentic Paris bistros, collected in the 1950′s when these establishments were at their height. Part guidebook and part cookbook, this volume gives the address and description of each bistro as it was, and its colorful denizens, followed by its signature recipes. A work to savor.

Before I close leaving you to wonder –should you or shouldn’t you attempt to find a copy of Paris Bistro Cookery, I’ll give you an article more accessible to find – Endless Feasts –60 years of Gourmet Magazine—edited by Ruth Reichl—has an article titled Paris Report, by Don Dresden, which offers a more realistic view of Paris restaurants following World War II when the author had gone back there to live. Paris, it seems, was and is equally famous for its food, not just the wines. Anyone who has been there and wants to talk about it – I am ready to listen. Paris Bistro Cookery—with or without the recipes—is a fascinating little book to read.

Sandra Lee Smith

“Beautiful soup so rich and green,

Waiting in a hot tureen

Who for dainties would not stoop

Soup of the evening, beautiful soup!”

–the Mock Turtle  in Alice in Wonderland

Is there anything quite like a bowl of hot soup? It nourishes and sustains us on a cold and wintry day. Nothing restores us quite like a bowl of hot soup. On a hot summer day, it’s a marvelously light meal that cools us off, and what could be tastier, then, than a chilled bowl of gazpacho!

French peasant for many centuries recognized the value of having a soup pot simmering on the back of the stove every day. Any leftover bits of meat or vegetables were tossed into the soup kettle. Nothing was ever wasted. A bowl of nourishing soup was available, then, at any time.

Decades ago, housewives knew the value of feeding a nourishing beef bouillon (sometimes called beef tea) or chicken broth to an invalid. A pot or kettle of soup can be very simple—beef broth, for instance or consommé,  or it can be hearty, like a clam chowder or beef stew.  Today’s thrifty cook knows that he or she can toss bits and pieces of leftover meat or vegetables into a container and FREEZE them; when she is ready to make a pot of soup she can just toss the saved beef and vegetables into the soup pot. My sister Becky called it “CLEANING OUT THE FRIG SOUP” – when the plastic container was full, she started out with whatever she found in the frig and added the frozen container of meat & vegetables. I was non-plussed when she decided to add leftover spaghetti to the soup pot – but she cut the spaghetti into bite size pieces and it was wonderful. And I learned a new lesson about spaghetti.

If you think of soup as just something that comes out of a can, are you in for a surprise! Homemade soup is one of the easiest, most nourishing foods you can possibly serve to your family and it can be very, very inexpensive, made from leftovers in your refrigerator–the remains of a pot roast or a ham bone can get you started. If I have leftover roast, carrots and potatoes and some beef gravy or au jus—it  can all go into the pot for stew.  If all you have is some roast beef, into the pot it can go, with fresh vegetables – carrots, onion, potatoes – or to make it easier on yourself – skip the fresh vegetables and add canned mix vegetables or  a package of frozen mixed vegetables. In the office where I worked for many years, some of my coworkers lost a lot of excess weight and maintained their weight loss by mixing up batches of a simple “diet soup” over the weekend and then having it for lunches through the week. The recipe couldn’t be any simpler (it was mostly made up of all kinds of green vegetables) and the soup could be eaten anytime, in any amount.

When I was a little girl, vegetable soup was served at dinner first as a broth  sometimes with homemade noodles added to it, then as an entrée we had the potatoes, carrots and meat from the soup pot—while my father and brothers spread the cooked marrow from the soup bones onto crackers. (NOW marrow bones are roasted and served as a fancy dish on the Food Network).

It may surprise you to know that many American presidents were very partial to soups—enough so that history has left us a legacy of their soup preferences!

Our first president, George Washington, loved seafood and was especially partial to wife Martha’s crab soup. According to Poppy Cannon in her book “The PRESIDENTS COOKBOOK” it also became a favorite recipe of FDR’s as well as that of President Eisenhower and Mrs. Eisenhower. Many decades later, Martha Washington’s Crab Soup was served at the Senate Wives Red Cross luncheon.  First Lady Mrs. Ford liked it so much that the recipe was sent to the White House chefs to reproduce the crab soup to Mrs. Ford’s satisfaction, whereupon it became a Ford family favorite. (I would imagine that President Washington, with his ill-fitting dentures, found soups easier to eat and digest, too!)  George Washington also had a favorite vegetable soup.

To make Martha Washington’s Crab Bisque, you will need the following:

Enough crab to make ½ pound crabmeat

1 TBSP butter

1½ TBSP flour

3 hard-cooked eggs, mashed

Rind of 1 lemon, grated

Salt & pepper to taste

2 ½ cups milk

½ cup sherry

½ cup heavy cream

Dash of Worcestershire sauce

Boil enough crabs in salted water* to make ½ pound crab meat (or use canned crab or frozen). Combine the butter, flour, eggs, lemon rind, salt and pepper. Put the milk into a saucepan and bring to a boil. Pour it slowly into the egg mixture. Now combine the crab meat with the milk mixture and boil gently 5 minutes. Add the cream and take it off the stove before it comes to a full boil. Now add the sherry and a dash of Worcestershire sauce. Serves 4-5.

Sandy’s Cooknote* whenever I cook shrimp or crab—any kind of seafood – I store the liquid from the seafood in a jar in the refrigerator—for a future batch of clam chowder.

Martha Washington also favored a Mexican Black Bean soup; these recipes found their way into Martha’s manuscript cookbook.  Quite possibly her recipe was given to her by President Jefferson, as he, too, had a favorite Mexican Black Bean Soup. Martha did obtain recipes from other notables of her time. Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, many decades later, were also partial to the black bean soup.

To make President Jefferson’s Mexican Black Bean Soup you will need:

2 cups dried black beans

2 ½ quarts water

2 lbs short ribs of beef

Salt & pepper

1 cup wine

3 slices toast made into croutons

Wash a quart of black beans; add them to a pot with a gallon of cold water. Add 2 or 3 pounds of stewing veal or beef or soup bones and cook the mixture 2 or 3 hours or until the beans have become soft.   (letting the dry beans soak overnight is recommended). Pour off the liquid from the cooked beans and save; mash the beans through a sieve season with salt and pepper. Add them to the soup liquid and simmer 15 minutes. Serve the soup with small squares of bread that has been browned and toasted in melted butter. Makes about 2 quarts. (or use some croutons))

There is a more elegant black bean soup recipe in the Mount Vernon cookbook but the above recipe is simple and nourishing. We have all become familiar with black bean—they are now readily available in dry or canned. I had never eaten black beans until I became friends with a woman from Puerto Rico, when we lived in Florida. It was traditional in her family to have a meal of ham and black beans for good luck on New Year’s Day. That was my introduction to black beans which were also called turtle beans but only in connection with dried, not canned, black beans.

President Jefferson signed the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, and fittingly one of his favorite soup recipes was Gumbo. Another favorite soup of President Jefferson was potato soup, as prepared by his cook at Monticello.

Yet another well-liked soup recipe of President Jefferson was pea soup—made, of course, with peas from his own garden. Every Monday at Monticello, tomato soup was served. Thomas Jefferson’s daughter, Martha, who shared his interest in recipes (called “receipts” back then) gave the recipe to Martha Washington. Yet another favorite recipe written by President Jefferson’s daughter, Martha Jefferson Randolph, was a recipe for okra soup. Per Poppy Cannon, okra soup was more or less a simple forerunner of Brunswick Stew which was later to become a favorite in Brunswick, Virginia, as well as other places in the south. This recipe is listed in Martha Jefferson Randolph’s name at Monticello;

Okra

Water lima beans

Fresh meat or chicken

Tomatoes

Butter

flour

Add 1 quart chopped okra, young and crisp, to 2 cups of cold water. Bring to a boil and cook 1 hour. Add 1 cup of lima beans (fresh or dried), a pound of fresh meat or chicken cut in serving size pieces. Simmer gently for 1 hour.  Add 5 tomatoes, cut into small pieces. Add more water if needed. Let simmer slowly. When almost done, add 2 tbsp butter rolled in 1 tablespoon flour. The soup should not be too thick. (Fresh corn, cut from the cob, may be added at the same time as the lima beans, if desired). And a thicker version may be made by simmering longer, until the meat and vegetables are a porridge-like mass. Makes about 2 quarts. – From The Presidents’ Cookbook by Poppy Cannon

John Adams, like all early pioneering Americans, learned to use corn in many different ways. It was a legacy give to us by the American Indians. A favorite soup of President Adams was corn soup. Another favorite dish was succotash soup. Perhaps the Adams’ who spent some years living in Philadelphia, developed a taste for the Pennsylvania-Dutch corn soup. The following corn and tomato soup with dumplings is credited with Ohio origins but it might have originated in Pennsylvania.

To make Corn and tomato Soup with Dumplings you will need

A meaty soup bone

½ onion, sliced,

Salt & pepper to taste

1 dozen ears of corn

1 dozen tomatoes

Dumplings

Cover bone with cold water; add seasonings and onion. Shave off the grains of corn and also scrap out the pulp and add to the soup pot. Peel, then cut up the tomatoes and let it come to a boil. Then reduce  the heat and cook slowly 3 hours.

To make dumplings:

1 egg

1 cup sour milk*

½ tsp salt

Flour

½ tsp baking soda

Beat egg slightly; stir soda into milk and add. Mix in enough salted flour to make a very stiff batter.  Drop into boiling soup from a tablespoon. Cover and cook 20 minutes.  Serve at once.

*I take it for granted that everybody knows these things but in case you don’t know how to make sour milk just add a tablespoon of white vinegar to regular milk. Wait a little bit…and it will become “sour milk”.

**

Many presidents have enjoyed turtle or terrapin. According to history, one of the first presidents to receive a gift of turtle was President John Adams. A friend bestowed a 114 pound turtle upon the president.

In his diary, his son – John Quincy Adams – mentions that at a July 4^th dinner served at the White House during the Tyler’s Administration, turtle soup was served, made from a turtle weighing “three hundred pounds” – a present from Key West. It is said that John Quincy Adams never failed to mention with whom he dined, or how often, but seldom made mention of the food itself—so that when he mentioned in his diary having eaten turtle soup at a dinner it must have been an impressive occasion.

I can’t resist mentioning that many species of turtles are on the brink of extinction if not already extinct. Like buffalo, early Americans could not imagine that reckless killing of animals would eventually make many of them extinct. In 2003, National Geographic said that leatherneck turtles were on the brink of extinction.

More about turtles later!

Dolley Madison, considered for many decades to be the quintessential Washington hostess served as hostess for Thomas Jefferson, who was widowed.

Dolley Madison was First Lady in her own right when James Madison was president. Dolly, who left neatly handwritten notes containing her favorite recipes and home remedies, treated visitors—even drop-ins—with a bouillon laced with sherry at her afternoon  receptions. “When the weather was  cold and  dreary,” wrote one observer, “it was a comforting practice”. Perhaps it was such small but thoughtful gestures as this that gave                                                                                                 such luster to Dolley Madison’s reputation for hospitality.

To make Dolley Madison’s Hospitable Bouillon you will need:

4 lbs beef

1 veal knuckle

3 small carrots

2 turnits

1 good hot pepper

3 small white onions

1 bunch parsley

8 quarts water

Sherry

Put 4 pounds of juicy beef, a knuckle of veal and a bouquet garni of herbs tied in cheesecloth into a large kettle along with 6 quarts of water. Add remaining ingredients, except sherry, and simmer together for 6 hours. When finished strain the bouillon through a fine sieve. Allow the soup to stand overnight to congeal. Skim off all the grease. Put the soup back into the kettle to heat. Just before serving, add sherry to taste (made with stock instead of water it is even better although Dolley’s recipe says simply water.

It’s just a guess on my part, but I imagine that Dolley had a kettle of beef bouillon cooking every day in order to serve all the guests in cold weather. She would have to have one kettle of soup cooking while another was being reheated to serve to guests.

Chef Rysavy in A TREASURY OF WHITE HOUSE COOKING also mentions Dolley liked to let her bouillon stand overnight before skimming off the fat. She would store the bouillon in a cool place and heat a portion of it as needed. Just before the bouillon was server, a little sherry was added.

As someone who makes large batches of different soups as well as my own beef and chicken stocks, I have been chilling these soups in gallon jars for years. I have a second refrigerator in the garage in which to keep these things (as well as soft drinks and juices for the grandchildren) – so that I am able to remove the fats from any stock before continuing on with a soup recipe. I’ve been doing this so long that I no longer remember where I learned it – quite possibly from reading my White House cookbooks!

President Fillmore may not be well remembered by American historians, or school children, but he did install the first real bathtub with centrally heated running water and his wife installed the first library in the White House. In  addition, President  Fillmore installed the first  real STOVE in the White House kitchen. Prior to that time, all the Fillmore cooking was done over open fireplaces. There is a story that the Fillmore cook was horrified at the idea of cooking on such a “thing” [as a stove] and the President had to go visit the patent office to get detailed directions for operating it. But, like all new contraptions, once the White House staff got used to it, they couldn’t imagine how they had gotten along without it.

President Fillmore was a thrifty man—it seems only natural that one of HIS favorite soup recipes was an old fashioned vegetable beef soup, which was more like a stew. Again, according to Ms. Cannon’s book THE PRESIDENTIAL COOKBOOK, WHEN President Fillmore’s soup was ready to serve, the solids were removed from the soup kettle to a platter.  The soup was served, consumed, then the soup bowls filled with the meat and vegetables from the platter. (I wonder if my mother could have known that an American President enjoyed vegetable soup served just like hers—I was curious about Fillmore’s birthplace and wondered if it was Ohio, where my parents were born—but no, President Fillmore was born in New York).

A favorite soup of Andrew Jackson’s was “Old Hickory Nut Soup”, also a favorite with natives of Jackson’s North Carolina home state. The recipe begins with “Crack one gallon hickory nuts…” (I found directions for making hickory nut soup but it is far too convoluted to type, much less re-create). However, in Poppy Cannon’s THE PRESIDENT’S COOKBOOK, she provides a simpler recipe for making Hickory Nut Soup.  You need

Hickory nuts

Sugar

Hot water

Crack a gallon of hickory nuts;  remove the hulls and crush together [the   nuts]  into a mass. Pour a quart of hot water over the nuts ; allow to stand for 10  minutes. Strain, add 4 tablespoons of sugar and serve hot.

Julia Tyler seems to have been partial to a “torup” stew, torups being a variation of huge turtles that were native to the Eastern Shore of Long Island, where Julie grew up. (Julia was President Tyler’s second wife and many years younger than he. The marriage created something of a stir in Washington). The torup stew was said to taste a lot like chicken.

Oyster stew and Terrapin Stew were amongst the many dishes listed on President Lincoln’s second inaugural ball menu. This was a bit of a far cry from President Lincoln’s first inaugural ball menu at which mock turtle soup was served. While most food historians claim that the President was not interested in food or eating, it seems that President Lincoln actually  planned the menu for his second inaugural luncheon and it seems that President Lincoln loved fruit pies.  Some of the ladies in Springfield shipped fruit pies to him—no small feat in the mid 1800s.  (I sometimes wonder if the President just didn’t like the way most foods were prepared for him.  I grew up thinking I hated rice and cabbage, I hated rabbit—what I really didn’t like was the way these foods were prepared. My mother’s rice was a lump of sticky glue and cabbage was cooked from 9 am until 6 pm until it bore no resemblance to a vegetable…and rabbit? The only rabbit I was ever acquainted with as a child was a wild rabbit killed by my father during hunting season and cleaned in the kitchen sink in front of impressionable eyes. It was then soaked in a vinegar and spice concoction for 3 days to create “hasenpfeffer” – a dish that was the bane of my childhood).

The Benjamin Harrisons were a soup-loving family with corn soup and fish chowder amongst their favorites.

Another favorite served by Mrs. Harrison was “Amber Soup” which was a hot, clear soup that she served at White House teas and receptions. It was  made from both chicken and ham, along with assorted vegetables. Poppy Cannon writes that we may serve it under different occasions today but it is still a splendid soup.

To make Amber soup you will need

Chicken

Water

Ham

Soup Bone

Bouquet Garni

Celery

Carrot

Onion

Parsnip

Parsley

Cloves

Egg Whites

Ground salt & pepper

Put cleaned and washed stewing chicken in 4 quarts of water, along with a small slice of ham and a soup bone. Boil together over a low fire for about 3½ hours. Then add a bouquet garni,* 2 stalks celery, 1 carrot, 1 onion, 1 small parsnip, 2 or 3 sprigs of parsley, and 3 cloves.  Cook another half hour, then strain the liquid and chill in a glass jar in the refrigerator overnight. Shortly before serving time, remove the wedge of grease that has formed at the top of the jar and pour the jellied broth in a saucepan (omit the sediment on the bottom). Beat 2 egg whites and add to the jellied mixture. Boil quickly for one minute and then pour the soup through a jelly bag. (or a cheesecloth sieve if you don’t have a jelly bag) add one teaspoon caramel made by mixing brown sugar with a little water over a low fire until browned but not burned. Add salt & pepper to taste.  Makes 2 quarts.

(Sandy’s cooknote: if I were making this soup I would add a jalapeno pepper or another mild green pepper to the original mixture of vegetables –but only briefly; I would remove the jalapeno   after 1 or 20 minutes, just to get a bit of heat in the amber soup).

TO MAKE A BOUQUET GARNI (which is a French term for a bundle of herbs): There are numerous versions of bouquet garni, which is an assortment of fresh herbs. A simple traditional bouquet garni is 3 sprigs (long stems) parsley 2 sprigs thyme, and 1 bay leaf. Put it all together in a small bag – 2 or 3 thicknesses of cheesecloth, then tie it all together to go into the soup pot but can easily be removed.

Moving forward to the administration of Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt—one of the first things the president did  after looking around his new home was to pitch potted palms out of the reception rooms. Notes Poppy Cannon in The Presidents’ Cookbook, that small action was symbolic of Teddy Roosevelt’s desire to change and simplify what had become what had become a most unwieldy structure, both socially and decoratively. The Roosevelts were an attractive, ebullient family. In addition to the President and his wife Edith, there were six children, ranging from the baby Quentin to seventeen year old Alice. Theodore Jr was away at school most of the time but Archie, Kermit and Ethel were natural, noisy youngsters. These      youngsters, roller skating in the upstairs corridors and playing leapfrog over the satin upholstery, had to be daunting for White House employees. There were many ways in which the Roosevelts brought fresh air into the White House.

One guest at the White  House table recalled a delicious luncheon of bouillon, salt fish, chicken in rice and fresh rolls (Dolley Madison’s recipe for bouillon, perhaps?)

The president’s daughter Alice dominated the newspapers  during the years of the Roosevelt administration,  probably more so than any other single member of the family except for the president himself. She was dubbed “Princess Alice” by the press. She made her debut not long after the Roosevelts moved into the White  House, and four years later, her wedding was considered to be the biggest White House social news since Nellie Grant’s wedding, decades before.

As for soups, there was a corn chowder with “bear’s paw” popcorn that the president tasted at an old country inn in Vermont and obviously obtained the recipe, how else would we know what it was? To make the Windham County Hotel’s recipe for corn chowder with Bear’s Paw Popcorn:

You will need

Salt pork

Onion

Potatoes

Water

Soda crackers

Milk

Corn (fresh, frozen or canned)

Salt & paprika

Popcorn

Cube 3 sliced of salt pork and sauté them in a skillet until crisp but not too brown. Add  one large sliced onion and sauté until golden. Add 3 sliced potatoes  and 2 cups water and continue cooking until potatoes become tender. Place 8 soda crackers in a large bowl. Pour 1 cup milk over them to soak. When the crackers have absorbed the milk, add to the skillet. Also add 2 ½  cups fresh corn or thawed frozen corn or whole kernel canned corn   along with 1 tsp salt and 1½ tsp paprika. Simmer the mixture over the same low heat for at least 10 minutes. Serve hot, garnished with popped corn. Serves   4

The Roosevelt family, addicted as its various members were to foreign travel, had a special interest in India and the Far East. Though normally partial to relatively simple foods, they were fond of certain dishes from the East, such as this delicious curried soup;

To make Chilled Senegalese Soup you will need:

Chicken stock

Curry powder

Chicken (cooked)

Egg yolks

Cream

Salt & pepper

Put 3 ½ cups chicken stock into a saucepan and bring it to a boil. Then add half teaspoon curry powder and 1 ½ cups finely chopped cooked chicken and  simmer gently. (More curry powder can be added if you like a stronger flavor) Blend 4 slightly beaten egg yolks with a tablespoon of the hot chicken stock and slowly add 2 cups warm cream to the yolks. Slowly add  into the simmering chicken and stock. Keep stirring while the soup thickens over a very low heat. Do not let the soup come to a boil. Add ½ tsp each salt and pepper to taste. Remove the soup from the fire, cool, and then put it into the refrigerator until chilled. Serve cold. Serves 6.

Not too many years went by following the administration of Teddy Roosevelt before another member of the Roosevelt family descended upon Washington and the White House. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected to the presidency in 1932 and has the distinction of being elected to 4 terms. (later, a law was passed prohibiting anyone from serving more than 2 terms as president—but at the time, FDR, his wife, and children brought a ray of hope to America at a time when the country had been for some time in the throes of the great depression. FDR was Teddy Roosevelt’s cousin.  The Roosevelts enjoyed many plain dishes, such as ceamed chipped beef, bread pudding and fried cornmeal when they were alone (which wasn’t often). Mrs. Roosevelt did not cook, aside from making scrambled eggs in a chafing dish on Sunday nights—she was a busy person in her own right and traveled throughout the country, returning to report to the president what she had seen and heard. She was his eyes and ears. However, Mrs. Roosevelt – although not interested in redecorating the White House, did redesign the kitchens, equipping them with electric stoves and dishwashers to lighten the work of the staff. Her attitude towards servants was deeply considerate. Mrs. Roosevelt disliked making too much work for the cooks with highly elaborate menus. Another reason for this, of course, was that the Roosevelt regime spanned some of the hardest years the country has known—the depression, war, and rationing. She undertook to have served at the White House the series of low priced menus prepared by the Department of Agriculture during the depression.

The Roosevelt family loved soups (a good thing—what is more economical than soup?) All during their White House years, big steel soup kettles were steaming away in the kitchen and soup was served twice a day. The soups were of many varieties, good planning at a time when food was scarce. A presidential favorite was Pepper Pot, a White House tradition since the days of George Washington.  To make Philadelphia Pepper Pot you will need:

Tripe

Water

Veal joint

Bay leaves

Onions

Potatoes

Parsley

Mixed herbs (Bouquet Garni)

Red pepper

Salt

Cayenne pepper

Flour

Beef suet

This recipe takes 2 days to prepare. Scrap 4 pounds of tripe and wash in 3 waters. Put into cold water to cover and boil gently for 7 or 8 hours. Cool in its own liquid, then cut into ½” squares. The next day, simmer a veal joint with its meat on it, for 3 hours in 3 quarts of cold water. Skim off the scum as it cooks. When it is cooked, cool and then separate the meat from the bones and simmer another hour.  Strain the soup and add 2 bay leaves and 2 onions, chopped coarsely, and simmer another hour. Strain the soup and add 4 diced potatoes, 2 teaspoons minced parsley, a bunch of mixed herbs (a bouquet garni) and 1 red pepper cut into dice. Also add the meats, 2 tsp salt, ½ tsp cayenne and dumplings which you have made out of   2 cups flour, ½ lb beef suet and salt. Make these dumplings small , about ½” in diameter. Drop them into the simmering soup, cover tightly and cook about 5 minutes longer.  Serve at once. Serves 6.

(I don’t know anyone who would go to all the work of making Philadelphia Pepper Pot nowadays.

President Roosevelt was extremely partial to fish sops. His mother supplied the Roosevelt cook with recipes for her son’s favorites. One was this excellent fish chowder.

To make Sara Delano Roosevelt’s Fish Chowder you will need:

Salt pork

Onions

Flour

Milk

Salt & pepper

Whitefish

Cut 3 slices of salt pork into cubes and brown in frying pan. Skim off excess fat and add 4 sliced onions. Fry until onions are clear. Skim out the  pork and onions and set aside. Make 1 cup of white sauce using the fat in the  pan and enough flour to make a  thin paste. When white sauce is smooth, add 1 quart milk. Return pork and onions to pot  along with a pound or more of raw white fish, boned, ½ tsp salt and ¼ tsp pepper. Simmer 15 minutes or until fish has turned white and flakes easily. This serves 4 hearty or 6 as a first course.

For some reason, Poppy Cannon reports, Mongole soup was an inaugural day favorite during the Roosevelt Administration. A number of these occasions were rainy as well as cold, and the hoards who showed up for lunch found this to be a satisfying and warming addition to the standard cold cuts, salads and rolls. It also made a hearty midnight snack for the Roosevelt guests who were often a little peckish (hungry) in the late hours.

To make Mongole Soup you will need:

Yellow split peas

Tomato juice

Onion

Salt & pepper

Soak overnight ½ cup yellow split peas. In the morning, drain the peas and    set over low heat with 2 cans tomato juice. Simmer several hours or until peas disintegrate. Season with 1 tsp grated onion and salt and pepper to taste.

Another midnight favorite was oxtail soup while green gumbo was a luncheon favorite for  FDR—but what I want to share with you is FDR’s GREEN TURTLE SOUP  recipe.

Like many American presidents, FDR loved turtle and terrapin soup. Soon after his inauguration, some terrapin was sent to the White House. Mrs. Henrietta Nesbitt, the  housekeeper the Roosevelts had brought with them from Hyde Park, was entirely unaccustomed to turtle life “and the huge brute” as she told it “would crawl around in the cellar”. When Mrs. Nesbitt spoiled the first terrapin, FDR was furious. The next time a terrapin arrived, he arranged to have someone from the Metropolitan Club to prepare it.

Despite the fact that terrapin appeared not infrequently at the White House, Mrs. Roosevelt never liked it.  This turtle soup recipe always created a great fuss in the kitchen of the White House when special cooks came in to prepare it. Nevertheless it was trotted out for a number of appreciative visitors, among them Will Rogers. (When you read the directions for obtaining turtle meat, you may never want to make it yourself,

To make FDR’s Green Turtle Soup  you will need

Turtles

Pickling spices

Celery

Onions

Carrots

Green peppers

Mace

Cream (light)

Butter

Flour

Salt & pepper

Sherry

Plunge 2 turtles into boiling water to kill. (if you are using snapping turtles, scrub and then scald them).  (ew, ew) Boil turtles whole, with ½ pound of pickling spices tied into a bag, 2 stick celery, 2 onions, 3 carrots, 2 green peppers and a blade of mace (or powdered mace) for 40 minutes until skin turns white on legs and head and it separates and can be slipped off. Another ew, ew. Cool and remove turtles. Separate the meat from the bones and can be slipped off.  Cool and remove turtles. Strain the broth.    Mix 2 quarts  light cream with ½ cup butter and ½ cup flour to make a white sauce. Add the bits of meat and 2 quarts of liquid reduced by boiling for an hour. Season with salt and pepper and add 1 cup sherry. Serves 16.

Sandy’s cooknote: I know there is no chance at all that I would ever kill and cook a turtle—and reading the directions for making turtle soup only confirms my aversion for cooking them. It’s amazing that so many species of turtles are on the brink of being extinct!   However, I have had mock turtle soup many times growing up – made with ground beef (although the original recipes for mock turtle soup called for cooking one calf’s head. Ew, ew.  I think I have a family recipe for mock turtle soup that is made with ground beef.

The Truman family followed FDR and were adamant about guarding their privacy. This was a whole new ballgame in the White House. The Trumans treasured their privacy  and resisted attempts to change it. Surely no family before or since zealously  protected their privacy, which extended to family recipes, to the extent of the Trumans. I did find a recipe of Mrs. Truman’s for Ozark Pudding in a Key West cookbook (their summer White House was located there) there and Poppy Cannon managed to include some recipes that may or may not have been authentic recipes of Mrs. Truman).

That being said, when the Trumans took over as the First Family Mrs. Truman very quickly made herself loved by the entire White House Staff. She knew what she wanted; she knew how things should be done, and she knew how to give orders in a pleasant way. President Truman referred to her as “The Boss”. She hid, whenever possible, from the press. The Truman ways were not the Roosevelt ways. Mrs. Truman took the household bookkeeping in hand and ran it herself. She ruled out breakfast  for the daily sleep-out employees*, to cut the huge food bills. Every day she sat at her desk and tried to run the White House like a business. (*I am unable to find a definition for “daily sleep-out employees” This appears to be an expression used in the 1940s).

Mrs. Truman’s attention to detail was typical towards food. She gained the reputation of serving the best of home cooked food even for guests who came to the White House teas. But no one was ever able to penetrate the Trumans’ insistence on protecting their privacy and that included Mrs. Truman’s collection of recipes.

Despite Mrs. Truman’s intense dislike of having to be in the spotlight, she went about the duties of being First Lady with a dignity which soon commanded the public’s respect.  If Mrs. Truman had a favorite soup recipe, it remained private.  Not even the First Ladies Cook Book published by Parents Magazine Press offers a soup recipe. The Ozark Pudding recipe is included, however.  After serving as President 3 years following the death of FDR (Truman was vice president when FDR died), Truman was elected to another 4 years which was a huge surprise victory as everyone expected Dewey to be elected—Truman served those four years and then (certainly to Mrs. Truman’s relief) they went back home to Missouri.

General Eisenhower was elected President and moved into the White House with wife, Mamie, in 1953. The Eisenhower Administration was notable for entertaining more royalty and heads of state than any other president and soups were a favorite dish of the Eisenhowers—the president himself sometimes cooked them if he was in the mood.  Other times he and the First Lady enjoyed the excellent soups that the White House chefs prepared for them.

Here is a Cold Curry Soup recipe that was served to Nikita Khrushchev and his wife enjoyed when they visited the White House—Mr. Khrushchev even brought along his own taster.  To make Cold Curry Soup you will need

Butter

Onion

Celery

Salt & pepper

Flour

Curry powder

Milk
Chicken Bouillon Cubes

Coconut

Melt 1/3 cup butter in a saucepan over low heat. In it sauté ¼ cup of minced onion and ¼ cup diced celery. Continue cooking over low heat until transparent. Blend in a teaspoon of salt, 1/8 tsp pepper, ¼ cup flour and 1½  to 4 tablespoons curry power (depending on the strength of the curry powder and the durability of your palate). Add 1 quart of milk stirring constantly. Cook until smooth and thickened. Add a chicken bouillon cube and stir until blended. Chill thoroughly. Serve in chilled bowls sprinkled with freshly grated coconut. Serves 6.

Chicken Noodle Soup was a favorite of the Eisenhowers. This is what you need to make the Eisenhower’s Chicken Noodle soup:

Stewing chicken

Water

Carrots

Celery

Onions

Salt & white pepper

Noodles

Parsley

Stew a chicken in cold water to cover, until tender, with 3 sliced carrots, 3 stalks of celery, sliced, 1 sliced onion, 1 tsp salt and 1/8 tsp white pepper. Remove chicken and strain the stock. Take the chicken liver and slice it fine and add it to the soup. Garnish with a sprinkle of freshly chopped parsley. Serves 6. This chicken recipe was also used for sandwiches or creamed chicken.

It’s just a guess but I am inclined to surmise that the Eisenhowers may have enjoyed soups more than any other president—if Poppy Cannon’s book THE PRESIDENTS’ COOK BOOK is any kind of indicator. Included in her book are five more recipes for different kinds of soups. Along with Oxtail Soup and Stone Crab Bisque, there are recipes for Cream of Almond Soup and a Cream of Celery Soup that was renamed by Mrs. Eisenhower (Cream of Celery-Clam Soup Rysavy) in honor of Chef Rysavy in his second month at the White House.  Chef Rysavy said the recipe was one he invented in France, which he thought would please the Eisenhowers.

To make Cream of Celery-Clam Soup Rysavy, you will need

Canned cream of celery soup

Bottled clam juice

Chicken Consomme

Chives

To one can undiluted celery soup, add twice as much clam juice and half a can of chicken consommé. Whir in blender until creamy. Heat thoroughly and serve in small cups. Sprinkle with chopped chives. Serves 6.

(forgive me if I am rolling on the floor laughing – the thought of a White House French chef making a soup for the President and  First lady using canned cream of celery—cracks me up).

But  before I finish writing about the Eisenhowers, I would like to include the President’s recipe for old fashioned beef stew. Poppy Cannon writes (and I believe I read this somewhere else a long time ago) – while President Eisenhower left the running of the house to his wife, there was one exception. He was fond of cooking an occasional dish of a homely variety. Beef soup was one of his specialties and he would leave the soup simmering on the stove in the kitchen for hours, causing much mouth-watering among the kitchen staff.  As the president and First Lady differed on the subject of onions (he loved them; she hated them) this was an opportunity for him to indulge in one of his favorite tastes. Quantity didn’t faze the president. His beef stew recipe serves sixty and although he had help from the staff preparing the vegetables, he was there in the kitchen, in his favorite apron, stirring, tasting and seasoning.  To make President Eisenhower’s Beef Stew for Sixty, you will need:

Beef cut for stew

Beef stock

Small Irish potatoes

Small carrots

White onions

Fresh tomatoes

Bouquet Garni

Flour

Salt & pepper

Stew 20 pounds of beef in  3 gallons beef stock until partially tender, about 2 ½ hours. Season and add 8 pounds peeled potatoes, 6 bunches scraped carrots, 5 pounds peeled onions, 15 quartered tomatoes, and a bouquet garni (bay leaf, parsley, garlic, thyme tied in a cheesecloth bag). When vegetables are tender, strain off 2 gallons of stock and thicken with enough flour to make a medium thick sauce. Remove cheesecloth bag; add thickened gravy to the meat and vegetables. Season to taste with salt and pepper and cook for another half hour.

I’ve included President Eisenhower’s recipe for beef stew to serve 60 just for fun although I can think of occasions when I would be inclined to make this recipe,  if I wasn’t making Cincinnati Chili for a large crowd.  Poppy Cannon does provide Eisenhower’s Beef Stew for SIX that you might want to try instead!

Poppy Cannon’s book goes on to include recipes of achievements of the Kennedy’s and the Johnsons—and I have numerous other books by or about White House chefs and presidential favorites—if my readers enjoyed reading this blog post, then I hope you will let me know and I will do a second part.  – Sandy

“LOVED MUSIC, LOVED TO DANCE”

On September 29, 2000, Viola Beckman Schmidt quietly died in a nursing home in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She was 83, and thus ended a long battle with Alzheimer and Parkinson’s disease.  My mother spent the last four years of her life at Luther Home, old and frail, a mere shadow of the person she used to be. I visited her twice at Luther Home; I don’t think she ever knew who I was.  I prefer to remember my mother as she once was.

Viola Schmidt is survived by seven children, twenty-five grandchildren, twenty-four great-grandchildren and two great great grandchildren. Her husband and sisters and brothers have all gone before her.

Viola was eighth in a family of nine children in the Beckman family. As a young girl she was called Ola, a name she never liked. She began calling herself Vi.

My mother loved school, loved to learn. She chafed at being held back a grade by her mother, so that Viola and her younger sister Lorraine could share the same books. After 8^th grade graduation, my mother had to leave school to go to work in a Jergens factory. She had to give her pay packet to her mother. I think mom resented her own mother’s preferential treatment to her sons, my mother’s brothers—but in the end, it was my mother who took care of her mother.  She also helped nurse two of her sisters as they died of cancer.

My mother was seventeen years old when she married my father. Not until recently did I learn, through my cousin, Irene, how my father had met her father when they were young boys, and became best friends. They went on to take dancing lessons so they could “impress those pretty Beckman girls”. The two best friends married the two sisters.

As a little girl, I thought my parents were the strongest, most forceful people on earth. My mother was always a whirlwind of activity, washing clothes, cooking, baking (two huge loaves of bread, weekly, baked in a large roasting pan). Mom was constantly sewing or darning socks She made twin dresses for my sister Barbara and I – she made most of our clothing. My mother made the dress I wore to make my first Holy Communion, the dress I wore to my 8^th grade graduation and the dress I wore on my high school graduation day. She made graduation dresses for Barbara and later on, for our younger sister, Susanne.  (I think we took those homemade dresses for granted).

My mother was a beautiful woman, with dark curly hair and high cheekbones, who—despite WW2, rationing and hardships, always dressed stylishly. She wore starched housedresses that she made herself.

I have a picture in my mind, of my parents descending the stairs to the dining room on Sutter Street, dressed in their Sunday best as they went out to a party. Both my parents loved parties and they loved to bowl.

For years they bowled as many as three leagues a week. (When I was little, I thought my father bowled for someone named Mica, because he was always going to bowl “Formica”).

My mother loved music and played piano “by ear”.  She couldn’t read a note of music but could sit down – and play. My favorite memory is my mother playing “Silver Bells” and “Glow Worm” on the piano, an upright that stood in our dining room on Sutter Street. She had a great collection of 78-rpm records, which I played whenever I was dusting furniture. Somehow Mom saw to it that we had music lessons. Barbara and Susie and I took piano; Jim played clarinet.  (Did it ever occur to any of us that we were being given what she had been denied?)

 When I was about eight years old, we children took it into our heads to put on a “show”. We charged a penny admission; my mother made popcorn and Kool Aid for us to sell. I remember her sitting on a hassock in the living room, teaching us the words to “Red River Valley”. Whenever I hear that song, I remember my mother, patiently teaching us the words.

My parents gave us a wonderful amount of freedom. They encouraged us to think for ourselves, to take care of ourselves and each other. Times were hard, during World War 2 and for some years after. You want something? Go out and earn the money for it!  And so we did. I think I started selling greeting cards to the neighbors on Sutter Street when I was about seven years old. I wasn’t much older than that when my mother sent me by bus to the Cardinal Craftsman Greeting Card Company to pick up her card order. This required changing buses under the Western Hills Viaduct!

Around the same time, my mother began sending me downtown to pay a dollar a week on a coat she had in layaway at Lerner’s. I’d have a dollar to pay at Lerner’s, two nickels for bus fare, and—sometimes if I were very lucky—a few pennies to spend at one of the Dime Stores in downtown Cincinnati. I fell in love with “downtown” and began taking my younger brothers with me on annual pilgrimages, to do our Christmas shopping and visit the Nativity at Garfield Park. What enormous freedom we had!

I was a mere four year old, my brother Jim seven, Barbara eight, and Biff a 1-year old baby when my parents bought their first home on Sutter Street. They had spent the first 9 years of married life living with my father’s parents.  Jim had the assignment of walking me (and our baby brother!) to the new home from my grandmother’s house on Baltimore Avenue!   Jim pulled a red wagon with the baby sitting inside.  (at this time, Biff was the baby of the family)

My eight-year-old sister was responsible for her younger siblings. Later, I would become responsible for my two younger brothers. I don’t remember ever resenting this responsibility. It was just something we all did. My brother Jim was responsible for me when we began dating.  (Little did I know! or I might have complained. But as far as I was concerned, we were just double-dating).

When I got married, my mother baked my wedding cake and threw together a reception on very short notice.  A couple of years later, when I told her we were thinking of moving to California, she said, “If there’s something you want to do, do it now, while you can. Later on, you may not be able to do what you want”.  It wasn’t until many years later that it occurred to me that, perhaps, she was talking about herself when she said those words to me.

My mother loved music and loved to dance. After my father died in 1984, my brother Jim asked mom what she wanted to do. She replied, “I always wanted to dance”. And so, when she was in her 60s, my mother “took up dancing”. I think, despite my father’s death, this was a happy and satisfying period in my mother’s life. She loved to perform, to get up on a stage and “strut her stuff”.  In another place and time, she might have been an actress or a dancer.

My parents made several trips to California, the first in 1965 when Scott and Susie were very young. What I remember most about this visit was our trip to Disneyland. My parents were tireless; they were determined to go on every single ride at Disneyland. While my husband and I rested on benches, they darted from attraction to attraction. It was also during this visit that my parents went to a television game show called “Truth or Consequences”, where my mother became a contestant and won $100.00. She was never shy about jumping up and down and making herself noticed! She wanted to be a star!

Another thing I particularly remember about my mother was our family Christmases. I think it is from my mother that I inherited a great love for Christmas. My mother always endeavored to make it perfect for all of us, surely not an easy task during hard times. I remember how, one year, all of my dolls disappeared before Christmas, and re-appeared Christmas Eve with brand new dresses.  I remember my longing for a desk of my own, and receiving it on Christmas. I remember how, one year my mother was so sick and had been in the hospital – but she somehow came home to spend Christmas with us. The Christmas tree never went up until Christmas Eve, and none of us ever participated in decorating it. Not until many years later would I learn that the reason our tree didn’t go up until Christmas eve, was because my mother waited until the last minute to get one as cheap as possible. My mother was a child of the depression and was, if nothing else, very frugal!  (Once, when they were here in California for Christmas and we were taking down our tree, my mother said “Sandy, aren’t you going to save your tinsel?” and I replied, “Oh, gosh no, Mom!  It’s so cheap – we’ll just get new tinsel next year”. To which my mother replied, loftily, “Well, that’s why I get to go to Hawaii and you don’t!”  AHA!

My mother gave us wonderful birthday parties. She took us—and sometimes our friends—to Cincinnati’s Coney Island, an amusement park, once a year on Findlay Market Day, where all of us, my mother included, participated in games and contests to win prizes.  Surely it was from my mother that we all inherited such a fierce sense of competitiveness!  It was never enough to simply participate -–we had to win – and we did.

 And thanks to her love of photography, we all have wonderful huge collections of photographs, images of the birthday parties and Christmases and special events in our lives. It was surely from my mother that we all inherited such a love of photography. At any Schmidt gathering, dozens of cameras will be flashing pictures.

My parents moved to Florida in the late 70s, after dad retired from Formica. There, at the Four Seasons Estates, my mother was the Sunshine Lady, who rode her bike around the park delivering get well cards to those who were sick or not feeling up to par. In 1979, when we moved to North Miami, I was able to spend a lot more time with my parents—either they drove across the State to see us, or the boys and I would take Greyhound Buses to Tampa to see them. One of my favorite pictures of my mother is one I took at the beach at Biscayne Bay during this period of time.  I keep a copy of this photograph on my desk at work.

 So much of who we are and what we are comes from our parents –not only their genes and their flesh and blood, but their ambitions and values, their hopes and dreams and desires, their love of challenges and the fearlessness to meet those challenges head-on are passed along to us as well. Maybe some of their favorite past times, too, like reading, bowling, and crossword puzzles.

I like to think that maybe, my mother and father are dancing somewhere in heaven. He may be saying to her, “It sure took you long enough to get here!” and maybe my mother is responding, sassily, “Well, I took dancing lessons along the way”.  My mother always wanted to be a star.  Now she is, in heaven.  –  Sandra Lee Schmidt Smith

George Washington wrote, ““My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw.  All that I am, I owe to my mother. I attribute all my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her”.  Those words could have been applied to my mother.

As a family, we were probably not very different from many other families of our generation.  We were the children of parents who lived through the depression and a World War, people who perhaps had a hard time letting us know that they loved us. I don’t recall either my mother or my father ever telling me that they loved me until after I was an adult, married, with children of my own. I think now, that maybe they didn’t know how.  It started to come about after dad had his first heart attack in 1968; we started to tell him and mom that we loved them, and they responded.

But talk can be cheap. Words don’t mean very much if nothing is behind them.  My mother showed her love in many different ways, even if she found it difficult to say those words to us when we were children. She made a big deal of our birthdays and all holidays.  She really put a lot into making our Christmases special, despite financial hardships.

I think my mother truly was a child of the depression.  She was born in 1917 and would have been eleven years old when the stock market crashed and America fell into the throes of the Great Depression.  Like so many other people who were children of that great Depression she never quite got over it. She would always be frugal and thrifty; she would never throw anything out or waste anything. If you ever talk to other people who grew up during the Depression, you would hear similar stories from them, and discover that they had similar attitudes. There was always the fear that it could happen again.

The Depression was still going on in 1935 when my parents married and in 1935 when my sister Barbara was born. What ended the Depression was the onset of World War 2.

Life wasn’t a bowl of cherries, being born during the depression and war years, growing up in the 40s and 50s.  However, none of us, I think, thought of ourselves as poor. We had no more or any less than anyone else we knew.

But we had each other and we forged a bond that nothing in this life could ever break. Yes, we sometimes walked to school in shoes that had holes mended with cardboard. But you know, we always went to school with a hot breakfast in our stomachs and our sandwiches made with homemade bread wrapped in wax paper, or we went to Grandma Schmidt’s for lunch. In retrospect, I realize now that many people in Europe were still suffering from the ravages of war, and didn’t have enough to eat. Rationing continued in England until the 1950s.   We always had enough to eat.  My mother once told me she had $10.00 a week to spend on groceries.  No one ever stretched ten dollars further than my mother. How she accomplished this has been recalled by my sister Barbara (who, although she was loathe to admit it, was older than I and remembered more).

It could not have been easy for my mother, raising seven children and providing them with many of the things she, herself, had been denied, like music lessons, and nice dresses, birthday parties and trips to Coney Island. But she did it.

The writer Marcelene Cox wrote, “To raise good human beings it is not only necessary to be a good mother and a good father, but to have had a good mother and father”.

My mother was a good woman who did the best she could with what she had.  But she gave special gifts to us, whether we realized it or not.   When I was in the fourth grade, I began taking piano lessons. I could barely read music, much less play, when Paul Whiteman’s Amateur Hour advertised that they would have auditions for children somewhere in downtown Cincinnati – the winning person would appear on his television show.  I submitted an application and my mother took me to the audition. She never pointed out to me that I could barely read music much less play.  I somehow stumbled through my piece of something very somber by Franz Listz. The point of this story is simply this, my mother never discouraged me, never told me I didn’t have a prayer in this competition. Thinking back on this incident, I find this kind of support absolutely remarkable. Our parents gave us confidence in ourselves, and taught us to be self-sufficient. They taught us to believe in ourselves.

All of us have memories of going to Coney Island on Findlay Market Day and competing in the games. Schmidt kids were bound to win – and we did. None of us was ever afraid of competition. Barb has recalled that even mom would enter these contests – determined to win. Once, she won a silver tray.

When I was 17 years old, my brother Scott was born. And when I was 21, my baby sister, Susie, was born. My mother told me. “your father and I can’t imagine a house without children in it”. What may have been most remarkable about my baby sister’s birth is that my sister Barbara and my mother and I were all pregnant at the same time. David was born in June, 1960; Michael in September, 1960 and Susie in February 1961.  I can’t imagine a life without my youngest sister and brother in it. My parents gave us many gifts. Perhaps the most wonderful gift they gave to us was – each other.

I spent weeks searching through reference books and the Internet for the perfect quote to describe my mother. I found the following in an Ann Landers column:

“My mother taught me there’s a time and place for everything. ‘If you are going to kill each other, do it outside; I just finished cleaning the house’.

My mother taught me religion: ‘You had better pray that the stuff you spilled will come out of the carpet’.

My mother taught me logic: ‘Because I said so, that’s why’.

My mother taught me foresight: “Make sure you wear clean underwear. You never know when you might be in an accident and be taken to the hospital’.

My mother taught me control: ‘Keep laughing and I’ll give you something to cry about’.

My mother taught me the science of osmosis: “Shut your mouth and eat your supper’.

My mother taught me about being a contortionist: “Look at the back of your neck. It’s filthy!’

My mother taught me about stamina: ‘you will sit there until all that hasenpheffer is eaten’.

My mother taught me about weather: ‘Your room looks like it was hit by a tornado’.

My mother taught me about straight talk: ‘If I told you once, I told you a million times, don’t exaggerate’.

My mother taught me it is more impressive when others discover your good qualities without your help.  My mother taught me the quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it back in your pocket.

My mother taught me a closed mouth gathers no foot.  My mother taught me that some days you are the bug and other days you are the windshield.  My mother taught me never to test the depth of the water with both feet.  My mother taught me if you always tell the truth, you wont have to remember what you said and to whom.”

A writer by the name of May Sarton wrote, “I would like to believe when I die that I have given myself away like a tree that sows seed every spring and never counts the loss, because it is not loss, it is adding to future life.  It is the tree’s way of being. Strongly rooted, perhaps, but spilling out its treasure on the wind..”  We are all here, today, because Viola Beckman Schmidt lived.

*Bunny was my sister in law who lived in Florida

**Sister referred to the Catholic nun who helped with the Memorial Service which was held 6 months after my mother died, because my sister Becky was undergoing surgery for cancer. – sls

–Sandra Lee Smih

At the kitchen table

We did our homework

While my mother stood at the ironing board

Ironing our dresses, shirts, pants, blouses, and skirts.

At the kitchen table

We listened to the Crosley radio

On top of the refrigerator

While the Lone Ranger, Amos & Andy,

Our Miss Brooks and many others

Filled our minds with images.

At the kitchen table

I learned all my times tables,

And how to type on a standard Underwood typewriter

Using two fingers,

Until I got in high school

And learned to type

Using all ten fingers.

At the kitchen table

We created homemade Christmas ornaments

Out of walnut shells and the caps to milk bottles.

At the kitchen table

We had dinner every night

At 6 O clock sharp

My mother on the left end of the table and my father

On the right.

I sat at my mother’s right,

On the end of the left side of the table

Because I was left handed.

My brothers sat across from me

And Billy spilled his milk

Until we were all forbidden to have any milk

Until after dinner.

At the kitchen table

 We said grace

And prayed for the soldiers in Korea

And my brother at St Francis Seminary

Where he only lasted a year -

But the prayers continued nonetheless

Because once started,

My father couldn’t stop.

We said Our Fathers

And Hail Marys

And Glory Be’s

Until our dinner was almost cold.

At the kitchen table

We were first and foremost

A family

Even though

Sometimes I didn’t like the entrée

And sat

At the kitchen table

For hours

Staring at cold unappetizing hasenpheffer

Or mom’s slimy boiled cabbage

Or whatever it was

That I didn’t like.

It was also

At the kitchen table

That my brothers Biff & Bill

Started a fire which burned a hole

In the oilcloth tablecloth

Until someone put out the fire.

It was at the kitchen table

That my parents

And their friends

Played cards

And ate bowls of chili

And drank cups of coffee.

It was at the kitchen table

Where there was a meeting

Of the minds.

And sometimes

Not.

Sandra Lee Smith

Originally posted MAY 16 2009

MY MOTHER’S KITCHEN

In my mother’s kitchen at 1618 Sutter Street in North Fairmount, we all sat around an old white wooden table which was covered with oilcloth (that I believe my two younger brothers at one time started a fire on or under, I’m not sure which) and it was at this table that my sister, and brothers and I did our homework while my mother ironed our clothing and a small Crosley radio on top of the refrigerator was tuned to the radio “shows” we listened to every day and night–Programs  like The Lone Ranger and Mr. & Mrs. North, The Shadow and Lights Out, and some of my favorites, Baby Snooks, My Friend Irma, and Our Miss Brooks;  These programs were on every day and every night, along with shows like Jack Benny, and Amos and Andy. There were dozens of these programs which we listened to while working on essays, or spelling and arithmetic lessons.

My mother’s kitchen was not, actually, a very large room, but along one wall, on the left side, there was a stove, and a tall narrow cabinet where my mother stored spices, and bottles of things like vinegar and Kitchen Bouquet.

Next to that was a large ceiling-to-floor built-in cupboard with Curious smoky stained glass in the upper cupboard doors, and then an open work space for canisters, and underneath that was a drawer where all sorts of things were tossed, from rubber bands to Wilson Evaporated milk labels (which could be redeemed for free things like dish towels or pot holders), as well as paper clips and crayons and bobby pins, pencils and erasers and old used envelopes, my mother’s one and only cookbook, Ida Bailey Allen’s Service Cookbook, that she bought at Woolworth’s, a pair of kitchen scissors and World War II ration books for each one of us that she kept long after the war was over. Whenever you needed something like string or a rubber band, you looked inside the kitchen drawer.

Next to this big built-in kitchen cupboard there was a narrow built in cupboard where canned goods and staples were stored and where my father had ingeniously cut a square hole into the floor so that my mother could drop  in soiled laundry collected from the second floor bedrooms and bathroom.

In the basement, my father built large cupboards, one of which contained the laundry that had been dropped in the hole from above. Once, my brother Biff got stuck in the hole when we were playing hide & seek and our parents were not at home.

There was a back door, outside of which there was a box where the milkman could leave bottles of milk, (although I don’t think we often had milk delivered—I remember a lot of powdered milk, Starlac, being mixed with water for us to drink.) Next to the back door, was my blackboard, nailed to the wall, on which my two younger brothers and I played a game called “war”—a not very creative game of drawing ships and airplanes with chalk and taking turns sinking one another’s battleships and fighter planes—a game I am surprised to remember as it indicates we were actually aware that a war was going on. (I have always maintained that I didn’t remember anything about the War years).

Next to the blackboard was a kitchen window that looked out onto the back yard.  In the corner along that wall was the refrigerator, on top of which was the little radio; Looking out on the side yard was  a window opposite the great kitchen cupboard–there may have been two windows on that wall but I can’t quite envision it. Along that wall my mother had a mangle ironer that she seldom ever used and it was a catchall for things piled on top of it.

On the 4^th wall, opposite the back door, was the kitchen sink where my sister Becky, brother Jim and I washed, dried and put away dishes and memorized the lyrics to popular songs from a songbook Becky bought each week for ten cents from Carl’s Drug Store.

This was my mother’s kitchen, where we ate supper every night at six o’ clock sharp and you did not eat If you were not at the table. I never missed supper and sat to my mother’s right at the kitchen table because I was the leftie in the family.

It was in my mother’s kitchen that I learned to cook, studying recipes in the Ida Bailey Allen cookbook and making sure we had all of the ingredients in the pantry.  It was in my mother’s kitchen that I began making muffins and brownies, peanut butter cookies and a cookie called Hermits and another called Rocks. If you could read directions, I discovered, you could cook.

Sometimes when my mother was at work, my two best friends, Patti & Carol, and I baked cakes or cookies while my two younger brothers sat on the back steps outside the kitchen door, waiting to eat our mistakes, such as burnt cookies. I had an enormous amount of freedom in the kitchen, with the only requirement  to clean up after myself.

In the summertime, when my mother was at work, I made menus out of the leftovers in the refrigerator, and played “restaurant” with my two younger brothers who could then “order lunch” from the menu.

We also did some crafts sitting at the kitchen table; I remember coloring uncooked macaroni with food coloring to make a necklace.

It was also in my mother’s kitchen that I began to write stories on an old Under wood typewriter  that my father bought for my older brother and me to use; it was too heavy to carry upstairs, and so I typed, using two-fingers, while sitting at the kitchen table.

These are some of the things I remember about my mother’s kitchen.  It was, I think, the hub of the house. –Sandra Lee Smith

My new friend Jean, who lives near Boston, wrote the following:

“My Mother’s Kitchen

We moved when I was five years old, so I don’t have much to say about the kitchen of my youngest years.  Here’s what I remember.  I believe there was a little entry on one wall, which led out to the driveway.  As you entered, to the left, there was a passage into the dining room.  The kitchen was not, if I recall correctly, big enough for a table.  All I can remember is that the sink and some cabinets were on the wall that stretched in front of you to the right, as you entered.  The sink overlooked the back yard.  The floor was white linoleum with a red leafy vine snaking its way through the room.  I still remember lying on my back on that floor, drinking a bottle.

I still drool, mentally anyway, over the kitchen in the house that we then moved to.  It was an antique house and the kitchen was shaped like an ell with a chubby base.  Coming from the outside via a covered porch, one would enter the door and turn right to enter the kitchen.  On the facing wall was a large fireplace with brick ovens.  (I STILL want those in a kitchen!)  To the right of the fireplace on the same wall, was a microscopic but handy half bathroom.  Rounding the corner, on the wall to the right, there was a window, then the freezer.  Then a bit of counter space and the sink, which overlooked the circular driveway, which featured an apple tree growing within easy view.  There was then a bit of counter space rounding the corner to the aforementioned entry.  Skipping past that, there was the stove.  That was A GOOD STOVE!  This was in the days when stoves regularly had two ovens, and this one did.  This stove with its ovens played a role in my most-memorable punishment….  Now, moving past the stove, you are in the upper part of the ell.  Fairly narrow, with cupboards and counter space on both sides.  This led to one of the doors into the dining room.  Back down the ell, I am not sure what was at the end, perhaps the refrigerator.  After that was a doorway that led to a hall and also to another entrance to the dining area.

In the center of the bottom part of the ell, there was a round maple table with four maple chairs.  At least for some of this time, there was a lazy susan in the center.  My sister and I did not do homework there.  We did it in our respective rooms, because we were not to be seen or heard.  We did, of course, eat there, sometimes with the fire lit.  On rare occasions, we roasted marshmallows in the fireplace. My sister and I did the dishes.  When I was young, she washed and I dried.  We would joke around.  Not too loudly, or dad would be furious. Ah yes, another memory of that kitchen.  If we didn’t eat something, it just kept appearing until it disappeared.  Cold lumpy Cream of Wheat?  Yuck!  I forget who started it, but we eventually would shove some things under the freezer, or, if we could get away with it, we would dash out and shove the unwanted food into the stone wall….Better memories, this is where I started cooking….”

Thanks, Jean! You and your sister were a little more ingenious than I was. I do remember feeding some vile canned tamales to the dog because I hated them so much; then I had a fit of remorse and kept giving the dog fresh pans of water, afraid the tamales would be too hot for him too. Does anyone want to weigh in on their mother’s kitchens?

–Sandy@sandychatter

The topic itself piqued my curiosity.  Back in the 1990s, a food writer for the Los Angeles Times called me on the phone one day and asked if we could do a telephone interview. I said sure, and she proceeded to ask me a few questions about my collection. One of those questions was “What is your favorite cookbook? If you had to choose just one or two, which would it be?”

I was caught off-guard by the question (and whatever my response was, it didn’t appear in the newspaper article which appeared in the December 15, 1994, issue of the Los Angeles Times). Actually, the article was really about a cookbook dealer who, at that time, had a used cookbook store in Burbank. I’ve never been quite sure how I got into the act.  And, I couldn’t tell you what my response was in 1994—my “favorite” cookbook changes frequently. (I have a theory that the only people who could limit their selection to only one or two books are people who don’t actually collect cookbooks).  At that moment, one of my favorites was  Jean Anderson’s “AMERICAN CENTURY COOKBOOK” which was published in 1997, so it wasn’t even a consideration in 1994. Anderson’s “American Century cookbook” is such a wonderful potpourri of recipes covering a hundred years—and I’ve discovered that I am greatly partial to any cookbook that manages to combine recipes with history and food lore. This thought occurred to me some time ago while I was writing a review of Mary Gunderson’s “FOOD JOURNAL OF LEWIS & CLARK, RECIPES FOR AN EXPEDITION”. The history fascinates me as much as the recipes do.

I might have said, in 1994, my choice was “AMERICA COOKS” by the Browns, – Cora, Rose, and Bob, – who compiled a book of favorite recipes when there were only 48 States, so you won’t find Alaska or Hawaii included in the roster. “AMERICA COOKS” is still one of my favorites, though. Actually, all of the cookbooks written by the Browns are really worth having in your collection.

I am very partial to another cookbook that skillfully combines recipes with history, called “CINCINNATI RECIPE TREASURY” by Mary Anna DuSablon (originally published by the Donning Company in 1983, reprinted by the Ohio University Press in 1992 with a number of reprint editions following).   I found a soft-cover edition of this cookbook back in the 90s when I was in northern California with my brother, Jim—and bought copies for all of my sisters and brothers. For transplanted Cincinnatians, this really is a treasury of recipes for dishes not found anywhere else in the United States (such as Cincinnati chili!)  I got a big kick out of the fact that my brother (a great cook, certainly, but not a cookbook collector) read the entire cookbook as we flew from Oakland to Portland.

On a similar note, I was delighted and charmed to discover Jeanne Voltz’s “THE CALIFORNIA COOKBOOK” some time ago – and this cookbook was published thirty-something years ago!  However, it’s a bonanza of California recipes and I have to admit, after living fifty years of living in California, I am more Californian, now, than Buckeye.

One other favorite Ohio cookbook is a little spiral bound book you’ve probably never heard of, titled “HAPPINESS IS…CHEVIOT PTA COOKBOOK”.  My sister Barbara was greatly involved with the compilation of this little cookbook, published in 1974 and she drew the graphic illustrations that appear throughout the book. It also contains many of our family favorite recipes.

I have to admit to also being very partial to all of my Quail Ridge “Best of….” cookbooks as well as a growing collection of cookbooks from Gooseberry Patch.  Both sets of books are filled with contemporary recipes that are generally quick-and-easy, important factors for today’s busy cook. (Thirty-something years ago, however, I would have said that the Farm Journal series of cookbooks were my favorites for everyday cooking. The Best of the Best as well as the Gooseberry Patch cookbooks remind me of the potato chip commercial that says “bet you can’t eat just one”. Bet you won’t be satisfied with just one of these cookbooks!

And, as I have spent more and more time over the years, researching and learning about books such as The Joy of Cooking, The Meta Given cookbooks, Myra Waldo’s collection of cookbooks and Jean Anderson’s  equally wonderful collection of cookbooks—I don’t think I could ever choose just one or two.  It’s sort of like that old saying, “When I’m not with the one I love, I love the one I’m with” – my favorite cookbook is probably the one I am reading right now. But if I absolutely had to choose just a few?  I think my first choice would have to be “Grandma’s Favorite”, a family collection of recipes that took us over 20 years to finally get published. My sister and I were finally able to get it to a publisher in 2004. Most of our family favorites are in this cookbook. I am also very partial to The Office Cookbook—another endeavor by coworkers and myself that also took over twenty years to get to a publisher. “The Office” referred to here is the one where I worked for 27 years before retiring in 2002.

But I have a confession to make: A few years ago a brush fire was burning dangerously close to homes in Quartz Hill, Palmdale and Lancaster. People were being evacuated close to my sister’s home, a few miles away.  At night, looking up the street, the line of fire coming over the mountain range was frighteningly close. For the first time I really DID think long and hard about what could be saved if evacuation became necessary. I then realized there would be no way to save my collections of cookbooks, cookie jars and other things. There would only be enough room for us and our pets and that would be assuming that I could get the cats into carriers. I did take out a valise and filled it with our most important documents. I could also save all the photographs that are on CDs but not the albums themselves. It was a moment of truth. Things can be replaced (maybe) but lives can’t.

But assuming we live in a perfect world in which our favorite things could be saved– what’s YOUR favorite cookbook? The one dearest to your heart?

Happy Cooking!

Sandy

I didn’t create the following list; I read it somewhere in 2008, and thought it might be nice to share for mother’s day, which is creeping up on us with alarming speed (assuming it’s possible to creep speedily!

I don’t have a mother to buy flowers or candy for anymore—but there are always some friends to send a card to, or – if I have a little money to spend, to buy flowers or candy for. It grieves me how many women (I was one of them) who don’t received flowers—or anything for that matter--from their husbands on mother’s day (because you aren’t their mother—despite you being the person who ordered the flowers or candy for their mothers over the years. And admittedly, I didn’t like going to a restaurant on mother’s day – it’s the one day of the year when guilt-ridden women and men take their elderly mothers out for breakfast or brunch on mother’s day, even when said mother doesn’t know who they are.  Bob and I witnessed a lot of this when we’d be at a favorite little restaurant on Sherman Way for breakfast (often forgetting it was mother’s day) and a nursing home was right across the street. At any rate, here is a list someone compiled:

A.  a  mother is not a person to lean on but a person to make leaning unnecessary— Dorothy Fisher.

B.  An ounce of mother is worth a ton of priest--Spanish proverb 

C. For a short while, our mothers bodies are the boundaries and personal geography which are all that we know of the world. Once we no longer live beneath our mother’s heart, it’s the earth with which we form the same dependent relationship—Louise Erdrich (author)

D. most of all the other beautiful things in life come by twos and threes by dozens and hundreds. Plenty of roses, stars, sunsets, rainbows, brothers and sisters, aunts and cousins, but only one mother in the whole world.—Kate Douglas Wiggin

E. God could not be everywhere and so He made mothers.-Jewish Proverb

F. Heaven is at the feet of mothers—Persian Proverb

G. I think, at a child’s birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift would be curiosity – Eleanor Roosevelt.

H. In the creative process, there is the father, the author of the play; the mother, the actor pregnant with the part; and the child, the role to be born. – konstantin Stanislavsky

I. No delusion is greater than the notion that method and industry can make up for lack of motherwit, either in science or in practical life – Thomas Huxley

J. It’s easy to pick children whose mothers are good housekeepers; they are usually found in other yard. – Unknown

K. My mother said to me, “if you become a soldier, you’ll be a general; if you become a monk you’ll end up as the pope.” Instead I became a painter and wound up as Picasso.- Pablo Picasso.

L. Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own. – Aristotle

M. Necessity is the mother of invention -  Jonathan Swift

N. Necessity may be the mother of invention but play is certainly the father – Roger von Oech

O.Poverty is the step-mother of genius. – Josh Billings

P. Necessity is the mother of taking chances – Mark Twain.

Q. The mother eagle teachers her little ones to fly by making their nest so uncomfortable that they are forced to leave it and commit themselves to the unknown world of air outside. And just so does out God to us. – Hannah Whitall Smith

R. The mother’s heart is the child’s schoolroom.- Henry Ward Beecher

S. There is no influence so powerful as that of the mother, but next in rank in efficacy is that of schoolmaster. – Sarah Josepha Hale.

T. To a mother, a son is never a fully grown man; and a son is never a fully grown man until he understands and accepts this about his mother – unknown.

U. The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother – Henry Ward Beecher

V. Diligence is the mother of good luck.-Benjamin Franklin

W. You’re not famous until my mother has heard of you – Jay Leno

X.  Who ran to help me when I fell, and would some pretty story tell, or kiss the place to make it well? My mother – Ann Taylor

Y. In search of my mother’s garden, I found my own – Alice Walker.

Z. My mother and I could always look out the same window without ever seeing the same thing. 

Compiled by Sandra Lee Smith, in memory of my mother, and my sister Becky who was like a mother to me.