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Posts Tagged ‘childhood’

Unscheduled summers provide the best memories

Posted in CSA, Family, Photographs, tagged , , , , , , , , on June 24, 2012| 4 Comments »

My brother and I take a dip, circa 1975.

Nearly everyone I know who has kids spends tons of money and time striving to plan the perfect summer. A host of activities, from vacations to camp to traveling sports leagues, quickly pile up on this short stretch of calendar, seeming more like duties than recreation.

My childhood summers were pretty unstructured. Maybe we’d take a dip in a tiny plastic pool, or maybe just run through sprinklers. Maybe I’d get to go with my grandfather early in the morning to pick tomatoes or beans, or — if I was REALLY lucky — I’d get to dig up potatoes.

As I was shelling a small bagful of English peas from my CSA box yesterday, it occurred to me that some of my best summer afternoons weren’t spent waiting in line at Disney World, running to the next slide at a water park or shaking the sand off my towel at the beach. My most enjoyable summer moments were spent in my grandparents’ den, shelling peas or snapping beans, enjoying an episode of Woody Woodpecker or Tom and Jerry or, better yet, the carefree, Not Very Serious conversations that adults indulge in when they’re pleasantly engaged in a repetitive task with no real deadline.

If I could choose one childhood moment to relive now, it would be one of these afternoons.

I don’t think you can make memories like this on purpose; really, I think my grandparents probably thought I’d rather be off doing something else. But I do wish that more families would slow down a little this summer and spend a few afternoons doing a little of nothing together.

It’s important, and it may be more memorable than anything you could possibly plan.

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Grownup task leads to childhood delicacy

Posted in Eats, Huntsville, Photographs, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on June 20, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Photo courtesy of Atkinson Candy Company

The best part about serving two days of jury duty in Madison County, Alabama? I found a source of Chick-O-Sticks.

Chick-O-Sticks, for the terribly undersnacked, are orange sticks mostly made of peanut butter, granulated sugar and corn syrup. Dusted with ground coconut, they taste like the orange insides of a Butterfinger, for lack of a better comparison.

They’re crunchy and delicious, and they used to be much more widely available. Lately, they seem to only pop up in small, locally owned grocery stories and Mississippi gas stations.

You’ll find the large, cigar-shaped variety of Chick-O-Sticks in downtown Huntsville across from the courthouse at Harrison Brothers Hardware, which is part museum, part store. They’re displayed with a bunch of other old-fashioned snacks, including MoonPies and Necco Wafers.

I’m excited to see that the Atkinson Candy Company is still making Chick-O-Sticks in a variety of sizes and packaging options; hopefully that means they’ll be around for a while. Because there’s nothing like a taste of childhood on a hot summer day.

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As Pictured Below: Little Treasures in My House

Posted in As Pictured Below, Cats, Family, Home, Photographs, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 23, 2012| Leave a Comment »

On Sunday, I posted this photo to Facebook, noting that I had owned this book since I was 2 1/2 years old.

It took a friend approximately three minutes to name two of the kittens (Paddy Paws and Toddly) featured in the tale. He also quickly found a link to the series, titled Books for Young Explorers, on LibraryThing.

Looking at the inscription date — December 1974 — and considering the fact that the book was from a branch of the family with whom we did not usually exchange Christmas gifts, I can only reason that this book was offered to me as a consolation prize after my little brother was born.

A kitten would have been more appreciated.

My real question is how I didn’t manage to obtain this entire series. Because a quick look at some of the titles (Amazing Otters, Animals of the High Mountains, Animals that Build their Homes) tells me that this series was written specifically for me and my kind.

It’s made it through a lot of moves and book purges, I think because I love the title so much: Little Tigers in Your Home. I also must admit, however, that flipping through page after page of kitten photos never gets old.

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Choose your own heirlooms

Posted in Family, Photographs, tagged , , , , on October 1, 2011| 3 Comments »

This is the last Wrangler jacket that my grandfather ever wore. (He bought a new one every year or two since, as you can see, he wore the threads off of them.) It was really the only thing I wanted after he died.

I have trouble picturing him in my head without a threadbare blue jacket.

Although he obviously took it off every once in a while.

It makes me happy to see it hanging in the closet. It makes me happier to slip it on, noting that it’s too big for me, but not THAT big, and sort of regretting that it’s so squeaky clean. (Historically, the blue denim jacket had any number of stains on it, mostly consisting of, but not necessarily limited to, mud and tractor grease.)

I think I love this jacket so much because it holds absolutely no value for most other people. It’s torn and faded, and offers little protection against the cold.

It offers nothing but memories.

Don’t let other people choose your heirlooms for you. You may be surprised how much the most ridiculous things will mean to you in the long run.

The lesson from my previous post was that you don’t necessarily have to hold on to things to hold on to memories. A refinement to that lesson: The fewer things from the past you hold on to, the more accessible memories will be.

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Simple salad uses up summer cucumbers

Posted in CSA, Eats, Photographs, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 20, 2011| 1 Comment »

True confession: Despite growing up with ready access to my grandparents’ South Mississippi farm, I never learned to like cucumbers. Plates of cucumber slices would appear on the table throughout the summer, and I carefully avoided them.

I eventually learned that cucumbers were delicious alongside other foods. First, a high school friend made me a cucumber sandwich, well-salted and slathered with mayonnaise, and eventually I discovered cucumber salads. Mixed with tomatoes and an olive oil-based dressing, cucumbers became perfectly acceptable, if not well loved.

These perfectly acceptable vegetables show up every two weeks in my CSA box, so I had to find a go-to recipe for a quick and easy salad. Christy Jordan over at Southern Plate posted a recipe last year that looked like every cucumber salad I had ever loved. As a bonus, it called for bottled Italian dressing, so all I had to do was chop vegetables.

I pretty much just chopped up a cucumber, a medium tomato, a small red onion and a banana pepper, then coated the mixture with a few tablespoons of Italian dressing (the Southern Plate recipe calls for an entire bottle of dressing — I just can’t justify making the veggies slosh around in that much dressing).

Marinated for two hours, the salad was the perfect accompaniment to eggplant pasta (also a CSA-inspired dish). Marinated for two days, it was an even better accompaniment for leftover eggplant pasta.

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I finally found a ‘duh’ place for my headphones

Posted in Home, Photographs, tagged , , , , , on July 8, 2011| 1 Comment »

Oh, Lion’s Head Garbage Can. You are as useful as you are treasured.

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Learning to love coleslaw

Posted in CSA, Eats, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 27, 2011| Leave a Comment »

True confession: I didn’t eat coleslaw for nearly 30 nears.

For someone who grew up in the South, that’s quite an accomplishment.

The coleslaw I remember from my childhood was a gloppy, mayonnaise-laden mixture that I could not imagine eating. For one thing, it was incredibly crunchy, although I can’t tell you precisely WHY that was so off-putting to me. I’ve never been anti-mayonnaise, either, but those tiny bits of cabbage coated in it were uniquely unappealing.

At some point, however, I discovered vinegar-based coleslaw.

This. Yes. This made sense.

Flavored with vinegar and a little salt and sugar, this brand of coleslaw was more akin to a fresh salad than the heavy blob of a side dish I remembered. I was old enough by that time to be over the fear of crunchiness, too.

I still didn’t venture to make my own coleslaw, however, for a while after that. For one thing, I knew it was a dish that my sometimes-picky husband wasn’t going to touch.

When I joined a CSA, however, I suddenly found myself facing a head of cabbage every couple of weeks. I was also armed with a brand new food processor, complete with a shredding blade.

Oh yeah.

I quickly found a Rachael Ray recipe for Oil and Vinegar Slaw on FoodNetwork.com and went to work. It calls for a 16-ounce bag of shredded cabbage mix, but I just substituted 16 ounces of the head of cabbage (I just chopped off a chunk at a time and weighed it) and ran it through the shredding blade. I never looked up what else might be in cabbage mix, but what I’m making is delicious as is.

Oil and Vinegar Slaw
(Recipe by Rachael Ray)

  • 1/4 cup red wine
  • 2 tablespoons sugar
  • 2 tablespoons peanut or vegetable oil
  • 1 sack, 16 ounces, shredded cabbage mix for slaw salads
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • Salt and pepper

Mix vinegar and sugar. Add oil. Add cabbage and season with salt and pepper. Toss with fingers to combine. Adjust seasoning. Let stand 20 minutes. Re-toss and serve.

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As Pictured Below: Pump up the jam

Posted in As Pictured Below, CSA, Eats, Photographs, tagged , , , , , , , , on June 17, 2011| 1 Comment »

The first CSA delivery of the season contained a ridiculously large basket of strawberries, so I needed a quick way to use a lot of them.

I remember jam-making and jelly-making as a hot, time-consuming process, but I also remember my grandmother switching to the easier “freezer jam” method at some point, so I don’t feel like that much of a cheater for using it.

I’ll find out whether it worked in approximately 17 hours.

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Dress your children in florals and plaid

Posted in Family, tagged , , , , on April 23, 2011| 2 Comments »

Ah, the Easters of yesteryear, when parents dressed and primped their children for church like prize hogs at the county fair.

I recall that this dress was not as itchy as other Easter dresses I was subjected to.

I still think that a plaid vest calls for a bow tie, whether you’re a toddler, a time lord or a literature professor.

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Cocoa, defender of the Crows

Posted in Family, tagged , , , , , , on April 22, 2011| Leave a Comment »

This is Cocoa. Just looking at her, you wouldn’t guess that she scared the Easter bunny away one year.

My brother and I woke up early that Sunday morning, expecting to find full Easter baskets on the dining room table and undoubtedly making plans to skirt the no-candy-before-breakfast rule. Alas, there were no full baskets. There were no baskets at all.

I don’t remember if we woke Mom up or if she stumbled out of the bedroom around the same time, but I do know that she thought pretty quickly for somebody who had just woken up. She immediately shuffled us back into a bedroom, explaining that Cocoa had barked at the Easter bunny and he was afraid to come in, but was waiting outside.

Five minutes later, we were released to find our baskets filled with candy.

I don’t remember if I bought the story — at one point I started having doubts about such things but didn’t let on because, hey, free candy. I do remember that we weren’t mad at Cocoa; instead, we were a little proud.

Hell YEAH the Easter bunny was scared of our dog.

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