http://upload.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=236x79436Oh my.
Christmas in July.
Monique1 (237 posts) Fri Jul-30-10 01:29 PM
Original message
Okay, I'm already thinking of Christmas and where I can save. Tell me if you think this is a good idea.
I am a grandmother of two and my adult children and their SO's love my cooking. Here is my plan - prepare a cookbook (not fancy, a binder book) that has their favorite recipes they like me to cook, copies of some of the recipes that I use from links, tips, links to where I shop and have delivered etc. I have a grandson who is allergic to eggs and nuts - recipes included with that problem. I prepared blueberry muffins made without eggs - my grandson devoured them and so did the rest of the family.
This will be called Grandma's .... book.
Since I worked for 30 years with preschool children a homemade book with activities with children, not just preschoolers but older children. Tips cooking with them. Things like making play dough together, popcorn not in the microwave,making butter, making bread, - asking the children questions what is happening during the process, giving them critical thinking skills. Asking them questions while they are touching some of the preparation expressing themselves how certain things feel like, teaching them to measure, teaching them the importance of being clean - there are so many things young ones can learn. Trying to stop the no's, learn cause and affect without harming them. Teaching the young one's to select healthy foods, not what we want them to eat but children learning nutrition. When I was young this didn't come until high school - this needs to be done at the preschool level. This could be a separate book or a supplement to the cooking book.
Is this a dumb idea?
Not a dumb idea, but a cheapskate skinflint idea.
The primitive just doesn't want to spend $12.95 or something for a high-quality well-put-together hard-cover professionally-made cookbook.
wildflower (1000+ posts) Fri Jul-30-10 02:15 PM
Response to Original message
1. I think it sounds wonderful
Adding the tips is a great idea. And it will be something they can treasure for years to come.
Warpy (1000+ posts) Fri Jul-30-10 02:38 PM
THE DEFROCKED WARPED PRIMITIVE, #09 TOP PRIMITIVE OF 2009
Response to Original message
2. I wish my grandmother who could cook would have done that because she died when I was young and I'd had very little opportunity to follow her around the kitchen. She was the poetess of the old stewing hen and what she did to one of the old gals was pure magic that I've never seen duplicated.
Unfortunately, she was also the "What's to know? You put the chicken into a pot and cook it," kind of cook, so following her around and learning all the steps would have been essential.
It's really too bad video tape came along too late.
Tesha (1000+ posts) Fri Jul-30-10 04:16 PM
Response to Original message
4. Oh not dumb...
Brilliant!
Absolutely brilliant.
You could include pictures of you or better yet - you and them at work making and or eating these wonderful things.
It will be a treasure for generations
elleng (1000+ posts) Fri Jul-30-10 07:13 PM
Response to Original message
5. WONDERFUL idea!
Sorry I don't have my mother's recipes, as daughters and I often think of them.
The empressof all (1000+ posts) Fri Jul-30-10 08:42 PM
THE IMPERIOUS PRIMITIVE
Response to Original message
6. A woman after my own heart...
I'm already thinking of making the fruitcake. It needs a few months to cure after all.
I think books like this are a lovely idea and will be a cherished heirloom for your family. Do it!
hippywife (1000+ posts) Fri Jul-30-10 08:52 PM
MRS. ALFRED PACKER
Response to Original message
7. Not a dumb idea at all.
My MIL did that a couple of Christmases. She called it Among the Pots and Pans.
Update on franksolich's upcoming
War and Peace-sized sex novel about Mrs. Alfred Packer.
The chapter on the bent-backed slipper-wearing pig-tailed Chinaman, I decided to place in the 1880s, because Mrs. Alfred Packer and hippyhubby Wild Bill like to fantasize they're living like it was in the old days in Oklahoma, Abe and Mary in the log cabin, Joe and Sadie in the sod house, and so on.
Of course, it's kind of hard to reconcile a microwave oven and a cat litter-box with the old days, but as we all know, the primitives have some really odd notions about what living was like, in the old days.
Anyway, so one fine spring morning finds the crippled little Chinaman clumsily making his way up a dirt path in the middle of the forests of northeastern Oklahoma. The sunlight filters through the trees, and the birds flit between the branches. The lame Chinaman is a peddler, carrying a casket-sized box on his back.
The lilliputian Chinaman sells American-made Revereware stainless-steel copper-bottomed pots and pans. He has been doing this for years and years, so as to return to China and buy a wife. This particular morning is his last journey, his last stop, as he needs only $100 more to achieve wedded bliss back home.
At the end of the path, he finds the home of Mrs. Alfred Packer and Wild Bill.
The peripatetic Chinaman is not aware that Mrs. Alfred Packer is a racist sinophobe; she doesn't like yellow people and their products.
The peddler and Mrs. Alfred Packer have a conversation, Mrs. Alfred Packer's elbows resting on the sill of an open window, her head and shoulders outside, as the hopeful Chinaman unleashes his spiel. He just wants to make that last $100, nothing more, and lays the coffin-sized box on the ground, displaying a set of 60 Revereware pots and pans. All of which she can have, for a hundred bucks.
Mrs. Alfred Packer, despite her dislike of slant-eyed people, ruminates on the offer.
Problem, however.
Mrs. Alfred Packer works, but hippyhubby Wild Bill takes her weekly paycheck, giving her in its place a $10 weekly allowance, paid with a counterfeit $10 bill. And at present, Mrs. Alfred Packer has just one of those bum bills, while the obdurate Chinaman insists he can't take less than ten times that much, for the cookery.
And here franksolich is presently stuck.
