Happy Halloween

Costumes are best if they can be handed down, such as the clown costume on Josh--everyone wore it at least once. For 15 years after the St. George Area Dance Festival, these outfits showed up on our doorstep on Halloween.



























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Cobblestone

Our neighborhood is named Cobblestone with good reason. We've been landscaping our backyard (which accounts for my Blog absense this week) and we can't so much as dig in with a shovel without encountering rocks, large and small. The good news: all the rocks supply us with material for little retaining walls (which account for my sore back and arms).

Great Gram

My great -grandmother, Mary McGuire Chambers, sits in the oak rocker I now have. My children refinished it for me. She's on the porch of her SLC home, 955 E. 900 S., just east of Trolley Square, currently a shop.

On the back of the picture her daughter, Aunt Anne, wrote "June 1947 'Old Seabisquit.'"

More Makeover

Here's a link to a slide show of the house makeover. The neighborhood is just off of 1000 N., a couple of blocks straight east from a house Jordan lived in near the Mall. A banker friend said they put in 26 appliances ! I think that's in part because the mom has a catering business and they build a second kitchen out back. No, I don't know yet when it will air. And no, watching the house go up is not all we do these days. : )
Love, Mom

Extreme

I guess I'm out of touch in yet another arena, but it looks like everyone but me is into Extreme Makeover TV. A Logan family has been sent off on a cruise this week while ABC TV builds them a new house. Their old house was torn down on Monday. Last night at midnight, Roger and Jake helped Brett and about 50 other men pour the foundation walls.

My views on reality TV aside, this is fun to watch. A 5000 sq. ft. house going up before our eyes. Decorating. Landscaping. Everything. The entire neighborhood buzzes with activity around the clock. Semis wait in line on the next street, ready to pull up with their loads of completely framed and numbered walls (built nearby at a church parking lot), or roofing material or sewer pipes. Under the bright lights at night, giant cranes hoist a wall into place and instantly a crew grabs it, sets it, and a couple of men nailgun it down.

Spectators all day and night, too. Young moms with cameras, ignoring their children in strollers, jump with glee when a TV personality comes on the scene in the VIP van. College kids. Families. Old people like us. Plenty of volunteering, too. The Polynisian family of eight children lost their father a couple of years ago.

The logo pictured came from Jake's t-shirt.

Museum

When I have free time in SLC, I like to run in to the Church History and Art Museum. Today they had just taken down the Our Heritage of Faith exhibit (which included a Paul Ferney painting) and hung an exhibit about handcarts. I don't have pictures of the paintings I Like best.

Pictures: "Theophany" by an Italian member

Pumpkin Story

When Dad and Francis Rogers taught 6th Grade at Church Rock School in the early 70's, all but one of their students were Navajos.
Dad found a deal on small pumpkins and bought one for each of their students to carve for Halloween, slightly extravagant because people didn't have so many pumpkins then, one per household. One per kid was cool.
Once the activity got underway, two boys came up to his desk. "Mr. Stanley, we don't want to do this. If you make fun of food, you'll starve." Of course, they were excused.

A few years later when we had Sherman Indian School kids at the house for Halloween, I asked if it was OK to carve pumpkins. They said it was OK, but they made a point of baking the little triangles and pieces that we cut out for the eyes, etc., so they could be eaten.

D.I.

Last night we went to the dedication of the new Logan, UT, Deseret Industries. What a sweet and tender spirit there. We sang Dear to the Heart of the Sheperd and heard talks about the history of provident living. After WWII, everyone in Europe was hungry. The Saints in the Netherlands grew potatoes, but when their leaders asked them to send some to Germany they did.

I saw some things I want, so I'm going back when they open at 9:00AM today.

UEA

Here it is! UEA this week, my favorite holiday. There are no expectations: no presents to buy, food to cook, decorations to put out. Nothing but beautiful October and free time while all the vacationing crowds are back at work. Sara has pointed out that I don't actually have UEA since we're not on a school schedule, but that doesn't stop me from welcoming it.
Love, Mom

Martha to the Rescue

I respect Martha. She came on the scene to fill a void for young homemakers. She has taught the skills forbidden in schools--and in society, because in the 70's-90's girls were trained to think about careers. It wasn't always so.

In 1957 at Madison Junior High in North Hollywood CA, we girls all took 7th Grade Homemaking, in two parts. Sewing first. We made a bib-apron and a gym bag. In the process we learned how to sew a section inside out, how to secure a pocket, gathering, how to iron, etc. Every girl needed a gym bag to bring her clean gym clothes to school each Monday.

In the second semester cooking class, Mrs. Burton taught us to make white sauce, biscuits, how to cook frozen vegetables, how pie crust gets flaky, how to cook bacon, nutritional reasons for drinking juice, different kinds of leavening, etc. The class included a unit on table setting and manners. When entertaining, don't serve food with too much arranged detail; you don't want it to look over-handled and fingered.

Previously, my Girl Scouts troop took cooking classes at the Gas Co. with our mothers. The attractive hostess taught us about breakfast, lunch and dinner. "People don't like hot cereal because it's prepared wrong--either too thick or too thin." When packing a lunch, don't put the minimum ingredients on a sandwich, but crowd on lots of good things. She taught us cute things, too. Put a frost-like edge on a lemonade glass by dipping it in corn syrup and then in sugar. Freeze lemon slices in ice cubes to go in the lemonade; cap it off with a cherry and colorful cellophane straws. We were dazzled.

Meanwhile mothers didn't fail to teach their daughters everything from how to make little tea sandwiches (cut off the crusts) to laundry stain-removal (lemon juice/salt on grass stains) to ironing men's handkerchiefs for daily use. At Education Days and Mutual we got more--flower arranging, etc.

But times changed. Along came the liberating 70's and the shame of "programming" girls to be Stepford Wives, "enslaved" at home. Homemaking classes were no longer mandatory. By the 1980's even the electives were dwindling--except for co-ed cooking--and by the 1990's Homemaking was out.

This turned out to be a problem. When all the girls who were trained for the work force became wives and mothers, they quite naturally wanted to raise their own children. Furthermore, they wanted to raise them in a well-run, attractive home. But how should they go about it?

They were ripe for Martha. She had answers--answers with style.

There's more, but I've written enough.

Love, Mom

Top photo - VNHS yearbook; golf was offered after school. These girls from my class model the gym clothes we wore 7th-12th grades. We embroidered our initial and last name in black thread on the white stripe. Bottom photo - Brownie Scout, D. Pack.

SLC Major Makeover

Those who miss SLC may be interested in a Major Renovation project announced yesterday for downtown, to be called the City Creek Center. The LDS Church bought the blocks south of Temple Square/J. Smith Building and are taking down all the high-rises, malls, etc., to make open space, demolition to begin next month. They're also building several large buildings, housing projects, to be completed by 2011. Download the newspaper insert here.

The Merry Month of May

With all the pumpkins and fall leaves it's difficult to think of spring, but if you plant any of these flowers now you'll be glad.

In most cases, I like the look of several flowers of one color near each other. Pansy plants go in now They die when it gets too hot, so consider spring/summer shade. Plant bulbs between now and Thanksgiving. I've planted them between TG and Christmas and still had luck.

For pots on porches, I think it's better to wait till winter is ending and get plants from a nursery.








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General Conference - October 2006

I loved General Conference.We went to the Saturday AM session.





















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Food Storage #3 - How to Store

This is my last commentary on food storage, I think.

Containers: For long term, the standard containers these days are 5-gallon plastic buckets (sometimes called "ocean buckets") and the #10 can. Buckets are big and hold up pretty well; in time (10 yrs.+) the lids may crack. Newer plastics appear sturdier. You may want a gadget to remove the lids.

Any dry product can be stored in the #10 cans. The cans are good because they should withstand earthquake or flood, and they're a manageable size. They say it's good to write contents and date directly onto each can with a Sharpee. Most LDS Relief Societies have access to a manual canner that anyone can use. A small fee for the cans; you supply the contents. The cans usually come with a little moisture-absorbing packet to seal in.Flour and pastas and dry milk are the most likely to get weevils so I suggest the cans for them.

If grains or sugars or beans are left in big 25# bags, it's best to put then on some sort of wood pallet instead of directly on cement. (We have seven bags of stuff downstairs on the cement floor, even as I write.)

Rotation: For foods that I rotate my method is simple: I write the date of purchase on the cardboard box or flat that items come in when putting groceries away. Oils, I write on the bottle or can.

For long term, I don't like to think about it a lot. I mean, once I go to the trouble of getting the stuff into the cans I think, "Good. Now it can sit there." But every eight years or so, I try to replace some of what I've got. I opened a 1993 can of sugar this year and found it a little lumped together and just barely getting color (caramelizing), but it was otherwise usable.

Where to store: When there's no food room in the house there are other options--garages and closets. Under the bed is good if containers are big and compact; no one wants to look for lost shoes among cans of soup. Hard to reach cupboards and corners are also good for long term items. In cramped quarters, women get creative. It's not a bad idea to use a tall cardboard barrel for dry foods; cover the barrel with floor-length fabric and it's a lamp table--if it fits your décor. Storage-style foot stools can work, too. Cute bins on high, open shelves can hold canned goods.

Notes: It's best not to store soaps near edibles because the perfume permeates the food.

In a garage or shed, it's good to cover long-term items in light plastic to keep off dust and grime; disgusting containers of food don't look trustworthy.

Water containers are best on the floor, in case of slow leaks.

I like to keep a manual can opener.

For wheat, we have a hand wheat grinder which produces a tolerable flour.

Honey can store indefinitely in the containers from the store. (Over the years it will turn darker, but is still good.)

Respect the climate you're in; store whatever and however it works there.

Love, Mom