Well it's D-Day. Mom and Dad will be here this afternoon and I didn't do anything yesterday except bake cookies. I just didn't feel all that great..... and my knee hurt. Yeah, that's it... my knee hurt. So, anyway, thanks to the debate last night, I got very sleepy, very early and was able to get a good night of sleep and am refreshed and ready to get some stuff accomplished today.
First things first, I'll get the guest room cleaned this morning and then start pulling stuff out of that closet so that when Mom and Dad get here, they won't have to deal with me dragging stuff out of that bedroom too much except the big things that I need help with. Then I'll clean my room and start organizing the garage.
I never did decide on a soup to make for supper. Maybe we'll just order some Chinese food or pizza..... And the good news is we have cookies for dessert. I made M&M Cookies last night instead of eating supper. They are my favorite cookies. I'm also a big fan of the Peanut Butter Cookie. But you really just can't go wrong with M&M Cookies.
When we were kids Mom baked cookies just about every week. I was looking at one of my old cookbooks a few weeks ago and there next to a recipe was Mom's writing. She had written numbers next to each of the ingredients to indicate the order in which I should add them to the recipe. I remember the day she wrote that down for me. I was probably 11 and had decided to bake some cookies and Mom was outside. I took the cookbook to her along with a pencil and she wrote that down for me since the recipe didn't direct you to mix the sugars and shortening first and then add the dry ingredients afterward.
A lot of baking has taken place over the years in our family. We like nothing more than a home baked dessert. If I am baking a pie, I generally will bake my own crust rather than buying one from the store. Although, I do keep store bought crusts in the freezer for emergencies, there is really nothing better than homemade pie crust. And while you can't beat Oreo's for a late night snack with a big glass of milk, there is just something about the smell of the house just after you have taken a batch of cookies out of the oven. It only gets better when the weather is bad. I'll never understand the people who buy a roll of cookie dough and cut cookies off to bake. Don't they understand the joy of mixing up your own cookies and getting dough on your fingers when you are trying to get it off of the spoon onto the baking sheet? Would we have ever discovered how great raw cookie dough was if not for that?
My Grandpa Meyers died when I was 5 so I don't have a lot of memories of him. He had lung cancer and was very sick before he died. Dad says that Grandpa was a gadget guy. He always had to have all the latest electrical appliances and gadgets and that is what he generally bought for Grandma on birthdays and so on. I remember one day when I was very small probably no more than 4 being in Grandma's kitchen at the old house on Hwy 6 in Hitchcock while it was kind of rainy and "helping" Grandma bake something. She had one of those big KitchenAid electric stand mixers like everyone has now, except that it was about 1967 or so. These people were poor, but she had that top of the line mixer and she and I were putting it to use.
I really couldn't tell you what we were baking, but I got to stand on the old yellow metal stool/step ladder that she kept in the kitchen and help. I think I mostly "helped" myself to batter out of the bowl everytime she stopped the mixer to check her batter. I remember being mesmerized by the pattern that the mixer blades made in the batter. If you ask my parents or brothers they will tell you that Grandma Hamilton, my mom's mother, is the grandmother known for cooking. But I think that Grandma Hamilton was very driven and in her mind each task was always just something to get completed, you know the way I should be about my garage sale duties today. But Grandma Meyers was more of a "stop and smell the roses" type of woman later in life. Helping her in the kitchen was fun. I never saw Grandma Meyers get in a big hurry to complete anything. Maybe that's where I get this from. It certainly isn't from either of my parents. Nothing eventful happened while helping Grandma bake that day. There is no funny story to tell. It's just a memory I have of baking with Grandma.
Okay, I'm going to get dressed and start working now. I'll probably be busy for the rest of the week and won't have time for posting. So you guys have a great weekend in case you don't hear back from me.
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