Tom, the virtual man, posted about white-trash cooking, sending me on a trip down memory lane. ugh. creamed tuna on toast. hated it! and some gawdawful concoction my mother [who was not known for her cooking] invented, called "goup." i recall it as catsup and macaroni. yuck. last and least, tamale pie. yak.

tom wrote back to say he enjoyed his mom's chipped beef with peas on toast for breakfast, and "goop," with the variant spelling. maybe it tasted better without the "u." who knows? goup is goop - not good.

as i recall chipped beef on toast is popularly known as "shit on a shingle" and i like that as much as i like creamed tuna on toast...and goop? ok, goop, goup, either way, i imagine it came about during the depression. i know my mother was raised during the depression [born 1925]. my dad was born in 1919 and made a show of "wiping his plate"
with a slice of bread every night, a habit i believe was also fostered during the depression. my dad wanted for more growing up than my mom. no matter how bad the food was, we could not get up without reciting, "Thank you for the nice lovely dinner may I please be excused?" which eventually we could say in a split second without a breath.
we had to eat everything set before us before we could leave the table, and i have carried the memory of sitting alone with a pile of disgusting mashed potatoes and gravy long after they'd gone cold and congealed grease. this is why my kids were never made to finish their dinner if they did not want to. but if they wanted desert bad enough they would finish their dinner; that was my catch.
- posted by barbara @ 7:48 AM

 
happy birthday grandma blanche!

she would be 113 years old today, i believe. and is more present to me than in years and years.
- posted by barbara @ 9:07 AM

 
no memories of the girls...here's another one just from me.

i spent summers with grandma blanche, and aunt geri lived with her then. every day when aunt geri got home from work, grandma blanche would have a drink with her. that's all i remember, one drink. that was when she let me sit in her lap.

i feel so alone in this little blog here....:)
- posted by barbara @ 4:22 PM

 
ok, there are 3 members, all administrators. let's have some memories, eh?

i remember trips to grandma's house. dad would turn around in his seat, say, "the coast or the freeway?" and we would all yell, "the coast! the Coast!"

he stopped for us once so we could go up the big sand dune in [i think] malibu, then stopped again a few more feet down the road so john could yak up all the sand he'd eaten rolling down.

i read a sign; it said, "falling rock." "What does that mean?" i asked my dad. he patiently explained that it was the name of a local indian child [indians naming their kids after the first natural sight post-partum]. In this case, Falling Rock had gone missing so the tribe put up the signs in case anyone found him.

i believed that until i was about ten years old.
- posted by barbara @ 1:12 AM

 
cool, carolyn, love you no time for this...
- posted by barbara @ 3:22 PM

 
Okay, so far no response or entries from anyone but me, and i have been busy, too, out of town as well. This blog will fly only with wings supplied by more than only me.
- posted by barbara @ 2:58 AM

 
Hello, this is the first post. Welcome to the blog for the girls. I have three girls who are most precious to me and who have passed:

Grandma Blanche, one of the original "swedish amazons"
Marie Bales, my mother, Grandma Blanche's daughter
Bekah Zask, my daughter, who joined Grandma Blanche and Mom in eternity when she was murdered just over a year ago.

Later if this flies I will share a memory of grandma blanche. My love to Jean, Susan, Carolyn, etc. my family
- posted by barbara @ 6:00 AM

 
i have something to post, if it lets me...why when i paste in the text from earlier do i lose the option to post and publish? i'll try and find out.
- posted by barbara @ 5:47 AM