Post 1-The Family Cook
Ask anyone from my generation on back, and I think most everyone will say that their grandmother was the family cook and memories of their grandmothers from that era center around her cooking and her kitchen.

The cooks in my family were both of my grandmothers. While I can name off any number of things that Grandma Powell was “famous” for, my memories are almost always of Grandma Young. Grandma and Grandpa Young were third generation descendants of German immigrant farmers who settled in southern Indiana. I lived directly across the road from them growing up, so I was fortunate enough to spend hours and hours at their house. And obviously I spent a lot of time eating there!

Remember, this was in a time before microwaves and frozen ‘convenience’ foods which are so much a part of today’s daily life. Grandma Young cooked most everything from scratch. I don’t recall her cooking anything that I would necessarily consider “her dish”. But there was always something in the oven; a pot cooking on the stove. A lot of time was spent canning vegetables from the garden. Grandpa would stop by an orchard and bring home boxes of peaches for her to can for winter eating. Having lived through the Depression, she knew how to use basic ingredients efficiently and sparingly. Sauerkraut and ribs and kuchen were frequently on the menu, keeping true to our family’s German roots. Going to town on Fridays and bringing home a watermelon in the summer was a treat like no other!

The men in the family have always been hunters. If there was enough game during the season, she nearly always fixed a big meal of fried squirrel or fried rabbit for anyone who cared to partake.

I only wish now that I would have appreciated now how hard she worked and had been able to ask her to pass down to me some of her recipes and tricks in the kitchen.

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School lunch...
I just don’t recall lunch time during my early grade school years! Maybe that is a blessing, huh? I do know that by my later grade school years (6th through 8th grades), my mom was packing my lunch pretty much every day because it was considered not cool or kind of gross to eat the school lunch.

As part of the back to school shopping experience, getting a new lunch box was part of the school supply list of must have’s, just like a box of 64 Crayolas and the Elmer’s Glue. I had all these dumb lunch boxes like Holly Hobby or a metal yellow box that was supposed to be shaped and painted to look like a school bus. The thermos was laid on its side in the school bus lunch box, and one morning my mom didn’t get the lid screwed on tight enough. Next thing I know it is leaking all over the bus (the one we were riding to school AND the lunch box shaped like one!) My whole lunch box was flooded, my lunch was gone and I think I even started crying as my best friend at the time walked the whole mess up front and dumped it out the door.

It’s hilarious that the people in class today brought up the Grade School Pizza. That is the only day that I bought my lunch! It must have been good at the time or maybe it was cool enough to buy pizza. But rectangular pizza is pretty weird now that I think about it. Also, I must have nearly dehydrated on those days because seriously, who the heck drinks milk with their pizza anyway?? Yuck!!