The clothes dried by the fire and a cooking marathon began. The delicious smells from the kitchen changed throughout the day from stewed apple for an apple crumble, to onion sauteing for the potato soup, to italian meatballs being browned in the pan, and then to a New York cheese cake baking in the oven. In between were all the discussions, taste testing and bowl licking to do.
I hemmed the new curtains to go over the window and glass front door. So the sound of the sewing machine and me groaning as I climbed up and down from chairs was added to the sound of the powerful wind howling around the house and punishing the trees outside. As I write this I can hear the sound of a chain saw as some workers remove a downed gum tree off the main road nearby.
In the background this afternoon we had the AFL on the radio. The excited sound of the commentators in what proved to be an close game between Fremantle and the Sydney Swans combined with the cooking, took me immediately back to Mum's kitchen when I was little. Mum and my sisters, and me when I was old enough, would have a cooking frenzy most Saturdays...I can smell a big pot of soup on the stove and a cake baking, hear the mixmaster whizzing, the chatter of my sisters and the footy on the radio. It is such a powerful memory I can almost feel the sun shining through the window onto the kitchen table while I wait in anticipation to lick the beaters.
These postings will be your memories Hazel - make sure you save them along with your photos. Although you have powerful memories of your family kitchen it is a pity there aren't photos of your mum's kitchen and the busy sisters.
ReplyDeleteWell, my mother and her kitchen are still there. Thank you for the prompt. I am going to take some photos of them both...it won't have the sisters cooking, but will be special anyway. Keep and eye on the blog for the photos.
ReplyDeleteRemember the favorites? Amy Johnson cake, creamed butterfly cakes, huge sponges, lamingtons, yo-yos, fruit cakes - the list goes on. A memory of spitting on your finger and placing it on the oven of the one fire stove to
ReplyDeletetest the temperature. If the spit dried up quickly, the oven was ready.
VL
That's right, the boiled fruit cake always went in the oven last because it took so long. It was a regular because it kept longer and could be used later in the week. Sometimes I was allowed to dip the cake in the chocolate to make the lamingtons. But usually I only got to do the coconut because I was too messy with the icing!
ReplyDeleteAnother favourite was a lemon meringue pie. And one of the sisters had a nasty attraction to lambs brains and would often have them on toast at the end of the cooking session. The smell used to make me sick!
Later when I had children, I was told brains were good for babies so I dutifully bought some from the butchers and cooked them but could barely spoon them into his mouth. Even the canned baby food brains made me retch. Luckily the kids turned out alright without the supposed benefit of eating brains.
I have grown out of almost all of my childhood food hates except for brains and brussel sprouts!