In mid September on the way home from saying a final good-bye to my grandmother, my husband and I stopped in Bonnyville for a break and a coffee. We didn’t have time to get much off the main street so when we passed an old house with a sign saying ‘cafe & antiques‘ we parked and headed in.
The coffee was fine. Hubby got an americano, I got a hot chocolate. The fun part was what I found wandering through the rooms of collectibles.
This is a 1929 version of the White House Cookbook. It’s obviously well used, but the binding and pages are intact. There are some annotations next to a couple recipes.
With recipes like lettuce sandwich, creamed tuna 
fish, pickled chicken, prune and peanut butter sandwiches, chicken pudding, spiced beef relish, eggs in jelly, and brain cutlets I think it will spend most of its time on the shelf as a interesting conversation starter. I may try some of the bread recipes and I already follow some of the health suggestions.
This is a fabulous find. How it ended up in an antique store in northern Alberta I don’t know, but I like to think that it came up in a hope chest with a young bride. A young woman maybe like my Granny Ada Young who came up from Pennsylvania to
homestead near Dunstable, Alberta with her new husband John.
Maybe this was an sentimental buy. The grandmother whose funeral I was coming home from was born to Ada and John on that homestead. I’m less prone to sentimentality than I am to an obsession with history, but this may be the exception.
It is going to be a joy to find this a place of honour in my new kitchen. Somewhere near my other food related kitchen decorations, my mother’s kitschy early 70’s cookbooks, and near the little book that holds my Grandmother’s pastry recipe.
Two years ago I planted four jalapeño pepper plants on a whim. The plants thrived and I got a small bounty of peppers. Obviously when the frost came I had to do something with them, so I pickled my first three jars of jalapeños.
I ladle the peppers into jars, and cover them with the remaining liquid.
These were a particular favourite of my middle son. He likes that they are crispier that store bought. I like them because they are more garlicky. The boys all put them on pizzas/calzones, sandwiches, paninis, and my husband puts them on his meat, cheese and pickle snack plates.
I’m in the midst of a kitchen renovation. My dishes and pantry items are squirreled away in another room, and the fridge is in the garage. It’s a temporary but annoying situation.
I have a BBQ, two crock pots, and a coleman stove. There’s a fairly good range of meals I can put together with these. I have, however, one more tool in my kitchenless cook arsenal.
wine vinegar and bit of oil. I removed about 3/4 of that mix, and started adding diced veggies. I added potato and carrot (the recipe asked for parsnip which I love but did not have), then layered some of the onion mixture over it. Then I added squash and celery (celery was not in the recipe but I added it I like how celery fills in flavour gaps), and again topped that with the onion. I then layered ripe tomatoes, also from my garden, topped again with the remainder of the onion. Next was zuchini – this time from a 
friend’s garden. Here the recipe called for corn on the cob, but I had been too lazy to go to the grocery store so instead I just poured in some frozen corn. On top of that, until the potji was full, I placed fresh spinach – also not from my garden thanks to some thieving deer.
improvement – so I started some briquettes in a tin roaster and placed the potji over the coals on the patio. It cooked 2 hours. I could see steam escaping and I could hear bubbling, but I resisted the urge to lift the lid and stir.
I quickly grilled some flatbread and voila – we had a wonderful 
meal. A wonderful meatless meal full of flavour. Meatless is the challenge without an oven so this was a perfect fill in for my slightly meat heavy kitchenless meal plan.
One of the reasons I started this blog is because I have been really struggling to cook for a blended family for the past four years.
but food has been an ongoing problem.
I raised my son with the same relationship to food that I was raised with (thanks mom!). He was encouraged to try new foods, but never required to. There was no punishment for not trying, and certainly no punishment for not liking a new food. He was also encouraged to revisit foods he had already tried and disliked. We both have certain foods we simply would never choose first and a few we just avoid, but we’re overall good eaters.
My step sons have a completely different relationship to food. They were brought up old school and dinner was mandated eating. As a result, new foods cause them quite a bit of anxiety and they are very hesitant to try anything new. When they do try new food it’s usually a fake attempt because they’ve already decided they don’t want to like it.
The second consistent issue is meat. I’m not a fan, neither is my son. I started turning away beef as a tween. I now rarely touch pork (but bacon, am I right?). I eat chicken in small portions. My son eats all of those meats, but also prefers small portions in relation to the vegetables and grains offered.
beef centric cultures, with some potatoes and veggies haphazardly placed on the side.
(thanks again, mom!). I cook from scratch with very few prepared ingredients. This results in far healthier meals. I think they are tastier too because I can’t stand too much salt and sugar.
The real rub is that it also means I put a significant amount of thought into planning and
like prepared foods either because we were raised on them and are accustomed to the taste of real food, without all the salt and sugar.
palates, and set them up for better lifelong health.
not had similar experiences with food.
Make me eat my words. 