Showing posts with label grandma. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grandma. Show all posts

Monday, November 24, 2008

Making Grandma Jennie's Fruitcake-Christmas Begins






It is getting close to Christmas and it is funny how one begins to be nostalgic and think back to their childhood. I remember my mother making fruitcake from her mom's recipe. When I was young, I probably was like most of my kids and did not like fruitcake too much, but in later years I began to acquire a taste for it. I liked her fruitcake because it was a dark and spicy one with just the right amount of fruit. Not too much and not too little. "Claxton Fruitcake" is good but too much fruit. My Uncle Leonard started making it in his later years and sending it to family members. He did a good job too. Soooo.... I got the idea that it would be nice to pass this tradition on to Lindsay. I bought and gathered up the ingredients and on Saturday, we took on the task. I just had to document it for postserity as you can see in these pictures. I do not know how it turned out yet because it is better to wrap it up tightly and store it for a few weeks so the flavors mingle before you eat it. I have them stored away now and closer to Christmas will let everyone know how they turned out. Today, I even bought more ingredients for another batch I hope to bake in a few days. In these pictures you can see that I had Grandma Jennie sitting nearby as her grandaughter and great-great-grandaughter baked her special recipe.

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Sunday Dinner


I guess that "Sunday Dinner" has been a traditional activity for a lot of families throughout the years. Our family has not been the exception. Although we serve our meal in a casual way and the kids are starving when the get home from church, we do have the tradition of having a pretty nice meal on Sunday afternoon. This week I was reminded of this as I set the meal out on the counter Sunday after church. I was thinking how lucky my kids were to be having a full course meal instead of sandwiches. I usually get up on Sunday morning and put something good into the crock pot so it is done by the time we get home. I almost always make a cake or brownies for desert. I think that is a pretty lucky thing that my kids have to look forward to when they are so hungry after church. It reminded me of Grandma Gilliam.
She loved to cook of course, and when she was with us we always had a big meal right after church. She and I shared in the responsibility of preparing it. Her special thing was that she wanted the missionaries to eat with us on Sunday. Very, very often they did. I hope that each of my older kids and the younger ones now will recall those good meals and the family sharing that went on every Sunday afternoon because of the tradition of "Sunday Dinner."