Cherries in Winter: My Family's Recipe for Hope in Hard Times Read Online Free PDF

Truman. Matilda was so pretty that Truman would just laugh it off. But in the early mornings, when he was driving his butter-and-egg route totown and caught Charlie on his way home from the night shift, he’d give him an earful. “You’ve got to mend those fences of yours, Charlie!”
    On one of the days Matilda was trying to beat the cows back from Truman’s lawn, Blanche, Truman’s wife, came out and asked Matilda if she and Charlie would like to join the local branch of The Grange, the national farmers’ organization. “You’ll get to know some more people in the area,” Blanche said. “You should come.”
    So they did. Truman took Charlie to meet the men, while Blanche introduced Matilda to the other farmers’ wives. She didn’t exactly fit right in. The women were friendly enough, but they stared, and after the first few introductions, Matilda figured out why. Still new to farm life, she was wearing her city clothes and makeup. Some of the ladies commented on her pretty hairstyle. When she shook their hands, she noticed the contrast between their bare fingers and her painted nails. She looked at the women around her, who were dressed in neat but sturdy clothing and who probably wore lipstick once a year for a wedding or a funeral. “And they were looking at me,” she would later tell my mother, “like I’d just dropped in from outer space.”
    One of the activities of the Service and Hospitality Committee of The Grange was the sharing of recipes. One woman had a recipe for baked beans; another, for Virginia Batter Bread. “Do you have something you can contribute, Matilda?” asked the woman leading the meeting.
    Matilda couldn’t think of anything she knew that these women didn’t, as far as cooking went. Unsure of what to say, she looked down at her red fingernails for a second and suddenly had an idea. A risky one, she thought, but what did she have to lose?
More
nothing?
    “Tell you what,” Matilda said. “I’ll make a deal with you: You teach me how to cook, bake, and can, and I’ll do your hair and makeup. What do you say?”
    And this, Mom tells me, is the origin of all the neatly typed pages of recipes in the file: Apple Crunch. Quick Apple Cake. Swedish Meatballs. Rolled Shoulder of Lamb. Chicken Pie à la Mississippi, Old-Fashioned Method and Modern Recipe. Making Bread at Home—Rolls, Lesson II for Homemakers. The Grange ladies dictated their recipes, and Nana typed their words almost perfectly as she collected their instructions.
    And the farm women of Saratoga Springs began to look a little prettier that winter.

5

THE FIRST NATIONAL COFFEE CAN AND SAVINGS BANK

Mom’s Liver with Bacon and Onions
    4–6 slices of bacon
    1–2 onions, sliced
    1 lb. calves’ liver
    Cook bacon in a pan. Remove and drain on paper towels. Use bacon fat to sauté onions until golden. Put cooked onions with bacon. Use remaining fat to sauté calves’ liver, turning after a while, until cooked through. Put bacon and onions on top of liver and serve to petulant child
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    • • •
    NOVEMBER 2008
    HUDSON COUNTY, NEW JERSEY
    I haven’t wanted to look at my 401(k) statements for a while now, afraid of what I’ll see. But all the financial experts say that I should, so I gather my courage and rip open the envelopes.
    I remember how I went to the maximum allowable contribution last year, comfortably well off enough to be able to do that without even really feeling it. Now the account looks as though I hadn’t made any contribution at all. Anyone who followed the rules and did what they were supposed to do has gotten screwed in the collapse of the stock market, so reading my monthly statements is yet another piece of financial advice I can go back to ignoring.
    The state of my retirement plan brings to light something else I haven’t wanted to face. I’ve been telling myself that everything is fine because I exceeded the recommended six months’ worth of living expenses one is supposed to have set aside