I made homemade vegetable soup yesterday and that made me think of Mom. The summer/fall days spent cutting corn off the cob, chopping cabbage, shredding carrots, and the lists goes on. Mom also cooked ground beef and included in the last soup fixings she made. The time devoted to this chore was enormous, but the result can never be duplicated, yet my soup made me think of Mom.
Another “chop job” Mom and I did together was sauerkraut. Lord, my first memory was taking evaporated milk cans, heating one end over a gas burner and prying off the lid. This became the kraut chopper. It took so much time and energy to chop enough cabbage to fill a dozen jars, but it was worth it. Pushing cabbage into (preferaby wide mouth jars), adding 1 T salt, filling w/boiling water, and inserting a case knife, wriggling it around to make the water get to the bottom, wiping jar clean and sealing. Now my biggest fan is my brother-in-law, Pat Sorge. It’s easier to make now, but still takes time, but I always try to keep kraut supplied for Pat.
I make some pretty good fried chicken in the skillet, oven, or on the grill, but I have never been able to make it like Mom. (Marnee named my chicken “killer chicken”, what a compliment!) One thing Mom always wanted me to make for her was fried chicken livers. (Now that was the ultimate compliment!)
Speaking of chicken…when I bought my little farm in 1990, I was gifted by a local farmer, 245 chicks and 5 turkeys. Oh my goodness, that’s a lot of birds! Initially they were free range birds. I’d come hom from work and this brood came running down from the barnyard because they “knew” it was feeding time. (I wish I had a movie camera but I don’t think I’ll ever that sight!) The point of this story is that there were lots of chickens/roosters that had to go by that fall. Mom was the teacher of killing chickens. After we caught the chickens, she’d take the bird by the neck, swing it around, put the head under her foot, and pull the head off. All of us got into the act and I must say it was so funny to watch those birds flop around with no heads. We killed, boiled, plucked, and froze about 100 that day. Isn’t it amazing the memories that are burned into your mind!
That’s just a few of my wonderful memories of my Mom!