kitchen Angst!

Growing up in Texas , and coming from “Hearty Stock”, I was always having to help tend the garden, prune the fruit trees, and pick the grapes (or whatever was ripe at the time). I hated it, I was after all, as my dad would say, “just knee high to a grasshopper”. I wanted to be out playing Cowboys and Indians with my cousins. Or in Grandpa’s work shed putting odd things in the vice and seeing how small I could crush them! Not pulling weeds, or picking green beans.

I always hated canning season. Grandma would be hold up in the kitchen all day! We weren’t allowed to go in and bother her, because it was to dangerous, She was just standing over the stove stirring a pot, whats so dangerous about that ? I want a cookie! She would be in the kitchen all day, for a week at a time, cooking, Boiling jars, melting wax, She seemed more like a mad scientist ,in that kitchen, than my Grandma. I only wish I were older then or lived closer once I grew up a bit, because now I realize what she was doing, and I would have loved to learn from the master.

Now I miss those days. We used to get four jars of Grape or Cherry jam from my Great grandma every year for Christmas. As the years progressed we would get fewer and fewer jars each year. We always got fresh Honey as well, but that stopped relatively early on. It turns out they just didn’t have time to tend to the hives anymore. I’m telling you these were Hearty folks! I remember the first year we only got one jar of jam. I almost cried, I knew this one jar would never last a whole year and I would be forced to eat store bought jelly. It was truly a sad day.

I have now started teaching myself how to do, what she made look so easy. If I can pull this off I know It would make her proud !

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