Debra LaValley's Blog

Easter Memories

Today is Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday is only a week away. Easter brings so many memories for me. My mother always baked a ham pierced with cloves and pineapple. The house was full of relatives – almost like Thanksgiving. Growing up, we would leave a raw carrot and sometimes some grass from outside (if the snow was gone) for the Easter Bunny. We had no doubt that there was an Easter Bunny. My mother showed us the large rabbit claw marks on the wooden floors (turned out to be hammer marks left in the wood when the floors were put in . . . or were they?) and then there were the large bunny bites out of the carrots and the grass was eaten too! Of course, there was an Easter Bunny!

Our Easter baskets were filled with a chocolate or white chocolate rabbit (depending on our preferences – the Easter Bunny always knew our favorites), jelly beans (my favorite are black jelly beans), marshmallow Peeps, and always a toy. We would get a jump rope, or ball, marbles, stuffed animal, or jacks along with the candy. The Easter Bunny also hid jelly beans all over the house. My siblings and I would scramble about the house looking for the sneaky places the Easter Bunny hid jelly beans. Sometimes, we would find a jelly bean we missed, weeks later!

One Easter, my mother had made me, my sisters, and herself a very groovy Easter dress with a matching 70s hat. I know there is a photo somewhere … but I wouldn’t want anyone to squirt any liquids they may be drinking out his/her nose while viewing it. Simpler times – for sure – but thinking about them still makes me smile.

Have a wonderful Easter everyone! Also, join me in taking some time to reflect on what Jesus did for us over 2,000 years ago and the beauty of spring!

Peace to all!
Debbie 🙂

Ahhh, April is here! Spring is in the air and Easter is a few weeks away. April is both my sister Jackie’s and my Aunt MaryJane’s birthday month. My Aunt MaryJane is quite the character and always gets us laughing. Year’s ago, she “stole” our Aunt Cookie’s chocolate cake recipe. Aunt Cookie was famous for her “famous” chocolate cake that was so moist that you really didn’t need to put frosting on it. Of course, it is better with frosting 🙂 She would not give out the recipe because she said if she did – she wouldn’t be able to make it as well any more. Well, the story goes that my Aunt MaryJane was visiting Aunt Cookie one day and copied the recipe without Aunt Cookie knowing. Aunt MaryJane then spread the famous “Aunt Cookie’s Secret Chocolate Cake” recipe to everyone and even sent it to the Concord Monitor to print. It is a delicious cake.

Aunt Cookie’s Secret Chocolate Cake

2 c sugar
1 tsp salt
2 c flour
1 c cocoa
2 tsp soda
2 eggs
1 c Wesson oil
2 tsp vanilla
1 c milk
2 Tbsp vinegar to sour milk
1 c hot water

Mix all ingredients and pour into a greased 13×9 pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Enjoy and have a Happy Spring!

Bluebird - Boscawen 03/26/11

Spring is officially here – even though the temperature lately has been more like December. I saw this bluebird yesterday on River Road in Boscawen. It caught me totally by surprise.

I can’t think of anything to write today – so I will share a old family recipe. Below is from my Grammy La Valley. It was her mother’s (Mary Lambert Merchant) recipe. If you love corn bread – you will love this!

Mamma’s Johnny Cake

1 cup flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp soda
2 tsp cream of tartar
2 cups corn meal
Add 1 T lard – melted
3 T molasses
3/4 cup water or milk

Bake in 2 layer cake pans.

She didn’t note any temperature or time, but noted on another corn bread recipe bake at 425 for 20 minutes. Most folks don’t use lard any more – you can substitute shortening.

Today would have been my Nana’s (Alba Ross) 101st birthday. It seems strange that today we won’t be standing around the kitchen table singing Happy Birthday as she stood by the cake mouthing the words as we sang. She had one hundred birthdays and a long and full life. Last year, to the day – about 100 family members and friends gathered at the local Masonic Hall to celebrate her 100th Birthday. She was like a queen that day. She was always in her glory surrounded by friends and family. I hope today, she is surrounded by her friends and family who went before her celebrating her life, as we do today. Happy Birthday, Nana!

Click Here to see birthday video.

Spring Thaw

Spring Thaw
Bare arms
wave in time
to a wind symphony.
Ice crackles its applause
while the sun conducts above.
Wires weep over
the snow’s soft staccato song.
A stream of consciousness
—appears—
A chorus of crocus
paints the earth.

(dlv 02/98)

We are in a spring thaw this week! Just a few days ago we were below zero – that is New Hampshire for you. The past couple days have been well above freezing and there is a “whole lot of melting goin’ on!” The snowbanks that was level with my window is now considerably shorter and the rooftops are shedding their ice and snow. Yesterday – I came across MUD! Yes, spring is coming – even if we can barely see over the snowbanks! Enjoy your day!

The Simple Things in Life

The Simple Things in Life

New Hampshire is having one heck of a winter. The ground cover of snow is about 3 feet. The snowbanks tower even higher. This winter reminds me of the winters we had when I was young. My dad would pile the snow up in the back and make us a little “hill” to slide our silver saucers on. One winter, he made us a giant snow fort made with huge snowballs. Out the back of the snow fort was an incline of snow that we could slide down. It was great fun, and we would play for hours out in the snow. Our mittens and hats were knitted by our mother (she still makes me mittens). She made us neat “Tuke” hats one year with tassels on the end. I wish I had one of them now! Maybe, I should ask for one 🙂 One is never to old to wear a “Tuke!”

I loved to go sliding with friends. Rolfe Park had the old ski trail that was quite the rush on a toboggan! It is now all grown over with trees.

Sometimes the back yard at my folks would be a sheet of ice. We would use the back yard as our own private skating rink. After we would come in from the cold – one of our favorite treats was buttered toast with cocoa. We would make little “soldiers” (strips) out of toast and dip them in the cocoa. It is delicious! If you haven’t tried it – you should. It is delicious!

We didn’t spend our winter vacation in the mountains skiing or escaping to some tropical paradise. We stayed at home and enjoyed the simple things in life.

O'Reilly Homestead

I snapped a shot of this old brick house yesterday. I remembered my mom mentioning something about it and asked her today. She said this old house that is on Horsehill Road near Riverhill in Concord belonged to a George O’Reilly (his daughter lives there now). She said that her dad used to deliver oil there. My grandfather owned Ken Ross Oil Company. My mom told me that George O’Reilly used to walk to work every day and that he worked at the tannery in Penacook. This was quite a walk! I would guess at least 3 miles.

One day, my grandfather Ross dropped my Aunt MaryJane there to play with the O’Reilly kids. My aunt became sick. It seems that she was distraught thinking that her father would forget her there because there were so many kids at home.

It is strange what weird thoughts go through our minds – especially when we are young. My parents let me go cross country with my best friend and her family one summer. I was 13 years old. We drove and slept in a tent trailer. The morning we were leaving, I came down with hives. The doctor gave had me take Benedryl. It was nerves. I had thought that I must be dying or something for my folks to let me go on such a long trip all summer! 🙂 I had a great time that summer. It was a trip of a lifetime that I will always remember.

Grammy La Valley 02/05/1995

I spent many hours sitting at the kitchen table with my Grammy La Valley. We discussed family history, Penacook history, birds, various other topics and food. I would jot down many of her stories, and the Christmas after she died (2/20/1999) I put together a cookbook and collection of her stories entitled “Stories from the Kitchen.” I do not have an electronic copy any more because I can’t seem to get the information off the old floppy disks. Who knows what version of Microsoft Word it was typed in. So, I will soon – retype the document in my new computer. Other family members would like copies – so it will be good to go in and fix some of the typos I have found and add some of the things that I had omitted.

One of these omitted short stories was about a “Custard Butterscotch Bread Pudding” that my grandmother made. It was simple and also simply one of the most delicious desserts I have ever tasted. In fact, I bought a double boiler years ago to make it myself and even shared some with her. During her last few years, her eyesight had failed making it impossible for her to bake anymore, so from time to time, I would make some of her favorite recipes and share them with her. This bread pudding recipe she got while working at Beede Electric. She had overheard Leona Holt telling someone of the recipe. Once Grammy got home from work – she jotted down the recipe.

Custard Butterscotch Bread Pudding

1 cup brown sugar
3 pieces of buttered bread
3 eggs
1 pint milk with vanilla
(dash of salt – optional)

In a double boiler (grease the pan a little), place 1 cup brown sugar on the bottom. Then place the three stacked pieces of buttered bread face down on top of the brown sugar. Beat 3 eggs with 1 pint of milk and some vanilla (and the dash of salt – optional – not in my original notes, but I scribbled it in the margins with a question mark). Pour over the top of the bread and brown sugar. Do not stir. Cover and steam for about 1 hour or until custard is set. (Boil and then turn down a little). I found that it takes closer to 2 hours to cook.
When it is done, pour upside down into another dish. This is a great bread pudding with caramel sauce.

The Stool
It is funny how you get attached to inanimate objects. Many years ago at our church’s white elephant table – I saw the small horseshoe-shaped ashtray with the white plastic horse on top of it. I bought it because I knew it was the one that adorned a small table in my grandparents’ dining room. My grandmother asked me why I bought it. I said because it was hers. (She said she would have given it to me – if she knew I wanted it.) It wasn’t that I really wanted it – but I didn’t want a stranger to have it. To me, it was part of my grandparents’ house. An object that I had seen since I was an infant. That object reminded me of my grandparents and all the good times I had with them and the love that I always felt in that house. I still have that ashtray sitting on one of my bookcases in my bedroom.

So, what about the old metal stool pictured above? Well, this stool, complete with the knitted cover (surely knitted by Nana who always was knitting or crocheting), stood in my Nana’s kitchen for as long as I can remember. This stool was always against the radiator near the kitchen table. My family had spent hundreds upon hundreds of hours around the kitchen table at my Nana’s house. It is where we laughed, played games, talked, and ate – especially when family visited from far away. Often the kitchen was so filled with family members and friends that there were not enough chairs to go around, and someone (often me) would sit upon this stool.

Since my Nana’s passing in August at the ripe old age of 100 and 5 months – most of the house has been empty and it was put up for sale. My mother and I would check the house about once a week and make sure the pipes and everything were alright. We would go down into the dirt cellar. I noticed the stool standing in the cellar – still with the knitted cover. I asked my mother who was taking the stool. She said it would probably just be thrown away. I said if no one wanted it – I would like it. This old stool was very much like the ashtray to me. It was like part of my Nana and contained many memories and love that we all shared in that house and around that kitchen table.

This plain old stool with the knitted cove now stands in my kitchen. When I look at it, I feel the warmth of all the hugs and laughter that filled my Nana’s house. The house will soon belong to another family, and I hope that they also will have many years in that house and feel the love that we all felt within those walls.

Daytime Lunacy

There is no doubt that winter is here. We have been hit with three major storms in a week and a half. There is about 2 feet of snow groundcover in the flat areas! An arctic blast is heading our way and tonight we will be well below zero degrees. Brrrrr! But – I would rather it be below zero and the ground covered with snow than it be 90 degrees and humid! If you think me strange for wishing this over 90 degrees, you would really think me strange if you saw what I made for supper last night.

What did I have? I had hot instant garlic roasted mashed potatoes covered with cold baked beans (right out of a can) and some ketchup squirted on top. It was yummy! (It is not unusual for me to have cold baked beans and cottage cheese for breakfast from time-to-time.) Now, don’t knock it unless you try it. I guess you can say that I am not exactly a gourmet. I do enjoy good food and to me good food can be some fancy vegetarian strudel, squash filled ravioli, cheese lasagna, or a slice of cold pizza or peppers and egg. What kind of wine goes with garlic roast mashed potatoes and baked beans? Shiraz, of course! That was yummy too. What did I have for supper tonight? The rest of the garlic roasted potatoes, baked beans, and a veggie burger . . . and the rest of the Shiraz.

Stay warm!