I'm not going to even attempt to give a week by week travel log of my 6 week vacation to Michigan. I'm sure that most of you are HEAVING a sigh of relief and taking your cursor off the close icon. But I have to record some things...SO I will just do some highlights and not necessarily in order. And I'll start today or it will never happen...
In many ways this trip was a memory trip. Reliving memories surely but my intention was to CREATE lasting memories and memories that will be impossible to duplicate. The one that jumps to the forefront is "Making Grandma's cookies"
I asked my mom awhile ago to describe her great Grandmother Francis Pearl Perry Atwood, who was the woman who brought our family into the gospel. One thing she mentioned about her was her soft molasses cookies that she made all of the time. My mother loved those cookies and always wished that she could find the recipe somewhere but had never been able to find it. That fascinated me and I wanted to find it too. I wanted to have a real live culinary connection to this revered grandmother. I looked online but not ever having had the cookies I was at a loss. I was in charge of making all of the Christmas treats this year and suggested to my mom that we try to find the recipe and we set to looking online together. The one my mom thought was the closest was a recipe that had been handed down the submitters family for 175 years. So we made up the batter and set it to cool in the refrigerator until we could get to making the cookies. In the meantime a big storm was headed our way and we picked up my grandmother ( my mom's mother) on Saturday night and brought her to our house so she wouldn't be alone during the storm. Sunday morning we were informed that church had been canceled due to the weather and we had a cozy day in the house. We decided to make the cookies. We started to roll them out and my mom periodically walked into the other room to ask my grandma if she remembered this or that about the cookies. Soon my grandma came into the kitchen to help.
As we three generations of women stood in the kitchen rolling, cutting, talking and tasting the cookies I realized that these cookies were "grandma's cookies" to every one of us.
We ate them at the Christmas eve party with my mother's side of the family and my Great aunt Byrdie ( my grandmother's aunt) said ( when she tasted the cookies ) "These taste like my mother's cookies" SUCCESS!! She also commented later how horribly dry they were but hey it is a work in progress.
They are just cookies surely but they are "grandma's cookies" and five generations of her living posterity enjoyed them on Christmas eve...for perhaps the last time all together in life.
In many ways this trip was a memory trip. Reliving memories surely but my intention was to CREATE lasting memories and memories that will be impossible to duplicate. The one that jumps to the forefront is "Making Grandma's cookies"
I asked my mom awhile ago to describe her great Grandmother Francis Pearl Perry Atwood, who was the woman who brought our family into the gospel. One thing she mentioned about her was her soft molasses cookies that she made all of the time. My mother loved those cookies and always wished that she could find the recipe somewhere but had never been able to find it. That fascinated me and I wanted to find it too. I wanted to have a real live culinary connection to this revered grandmother. I looked online but not ever having had the cookies I was at a loss. I was in charge of making all of the Christmas treats this year and suggested to my mom that we try to find the recipe and we set to looking online together. The one my mom thought was the closest was a recipe that had been handed down the submitters family for 175 years. So we made up the batter and set it to cool in the refrigerator until we could get to making the cookies. In the meantime a big storm was headed our way and we picked up my grandmother ( my mom's mother) on Saturday night and brought her to our house so she wouldn't be alone during the storm. Sunday morning we were informed that church had been canceled due to the weather and we had a cozy day in the house. We decided to make the cookies. We started to roll them out and my mom periodically walked into the other room to ask my grandma if she remembered this or that about the cookies. Soon my grandma came into the kitchen to help.
As we three generations of women stood in the kitchen rolling, cutting, talking and tasting the cookies I realized that these cookies were "grandma's cookies" to every one of us.
We ate them at the Christmas eve party with my mother's side of the family and my Great aunt Byrdie ( my grandmother's aunt) said ( when she tasted the cookies ) "These taste like my mother's cookies" SUCCESS!! She also commented later how horribly dry they were but hey it is a work in progress.
They are just cookies surely but they are "grandma's cookies" and five generations of her living posterity enjoyed them on Christmas eve...for perhaps the last time all together in life.
2 comments:
Nikki said...
Great post Sun- and I REALLY like all of the pictures. Just perfect.
Nikki said...
oh and by the way, I really liked those cookies. I'm glad you had enough to bring to my house too!