Someone else was writing about their Mom's peach pie this morning and it started me to thinking of the Memories I have of my Mama. She didn't live at home when I was little most of the time but when she would come to visit, she would always cook and she was some kind of amazing cook.
I would taggle along when she would go into the woods to hunt for poke salad and gather it into her apron. She would bring it back and wash it and throw it in a big ole pot like turnips but she would start boiling it and when the water turned green, she would pour it out and start again.
Sometimes it took as much as 4 boilings to get all the poison out so that we could eat the plant. When that was done, she would scramble up some eggs and poke salad was born. It was some good eating with a taste that can't be replicated in any other plant and it sure was good with eggs and biscuits.
As much as I loved that, it was her Sugar Cookies that made my mouth water. She would mix it by hand in our old dough bowl trough, adding the ingredients one at a time and using her fingers as the spoon. When she would get the mix just right, she would put it in the refrigerator for a bit. Did I tell you this part was hard? lol
When that time was up, she would take the dough from the fridge and grease up a long rectangular cookie sheet. The one that she used to make bread pudding in. It had sides on it which kept anything from rolling into the stove as it baked. She would take a spoonful of the dough and put it on the sheet about an inch apart. It didn't matter if they were an inch apart because they were all going to be connected when they got through baking.
Into the oven they went and then the smell started wafting through the house. Kids came in from outside where a game of marbles or jacks was being played. This smell took precedence over anything else we were doing. We didn't get homemade cookies much except those snickerdoodles Aunt Lizzie made but we had to brush her yard to get one of those and mama always gave us one for nothing.
When it was almost time for the cookies to come out of the oven, Mama would open the door and sprinkle sugar on them. Some of the sugar would melt into the cookie and some of the sugar would just sit on top like it was some sort of Scheherazade. lol.
Anyway, you get my drift. Those were some fine cookies. When they were done, Mama would take them out of the oven and cut them into squares with the old tin egg turner. It wouldn't be long before those big ole cookies would all be a memory and a full tummy of little kids sitting in trees with big smiles on our faces.
I am so thankful I have this memory of Mama and I tried so many times to replicate those great cookies. It took my oldest daughter trial and error-ring to find the recipe as Mama never wrote anything and loosely used the recipes on the back of the Carnation milk sometimes. After a few taste testings, my daughter brought me over a big cookie. It had the right size and although they were round, they smelled the same as Mama's did. I took my first bite of warm Sugar cookie and drank a little cold milk right in the same bite and the cookies melted just a little in my mouth. The sugar mixed with the milk and what ever it was that she put in them made me a 5 year old tow headed kid again. She had done it.
I asked her what on Earth did she put in those famous sugar cookies and she told me the secret was vanilla AND lemon flavoring. So mama has taken creative license with what ever recipe she was using and they were the best sugar cookies I have ever had to date.
When Jenny's nieces and nephews ask for something for Christmas, you guessed it, they want a tin of those sugar cookies which Wendi will make for them. I always sneak one before they go and am so glad that another generation will love Mama's sugar cookies. I am so thankful for Moments like this because there weren't a whole lot of them. Thank you Mama and thank you Wendi for channeling her long enough to make me cookies.. I love you all. Always, Kimmee
( In this 1958 photo of my brother Clif to the left, mama, Ernest and me, you can see the swing that I jumped off of many times with a towel around my neck. I could fly for a few moments in time)
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