Summer Thoughts

It’s Sunday about 2 PM and I’m sitting on the deck at the Park house enjoying a lovely day. I’m “seasoning” the Masterbuilt Smoker that we bought last year but never used (we were at the Lake house most of the summer). After locating the directions - filed where I keep all our directions - I realized that before smoking it needed to be seasoned…. so the pork will be dinner tomorrow and I’ve defrosted a steak for tonight. Hope to eat outside and cook on the grill. Also will have pasta veggie salad and Copper Pennies. 

It was a busy morning as I worked around the house on a variety of things. Those chores you do daily - make bed, clean bathroom, empty dishwasher, plan the day’s meals if I wasn’t pro-active enough to do that the day before. Then today I continued to clean kitchen cabinets. The cabinets are a nice cherry wood and the ones by the stove are sticky from cooking. I did one side this past week first using soapy water and then Murphy’ Oil cleaner. Today I did the other side. I’m pleased with the results and did some other stuff in the kitchen so I’m feeling accomplished.

Some things I’ve been thinking about:

• I made Copper Pennies - a cold salad made from cooked carrots and a sauce that includes tomato soup. And I was reminded that my mom made this salad when I was a kid. And I had it again at a party we attended many years ago at the house of Sue P. And here I am…serving it to B and me. Strange how things go full circle.
• I often think of people when I pull a recipe to make. Cooking and friends go hand and hand. There is Nancy, a next door neighbor in S. Jersey, who gifted us with Magic Cookie Bars for Christmas - and I still make them and think good thoughts.
• Several good recipes came from Martha D. who was one of a group of friends we would get together with all over South Jersey. The group was comprised of faculty from B’s school. Martha made the most delicious sausage with peppers and mushrooms in a tomato sauce. I made that last week - yum! 
• Loretta S. made the BEST meat balls and gravy. While I follow the recipe the batch I made recently was not up to what I used to make. Don’t know if it’s our taste or the pork of today. A bit of both I think.
• My mother-in-law (Ma) was a great cook! She did a lot to encourage me to cook. I still make her pigs in a blanket and also her beet relish which is served with kalbasa.
• And then there is the serving plate that Dorothy, a neighbor several streets over when we were in Somerdale, gave me. It held some cookies and the plate that was one she had for a long time and wanted to give it to me. Now that was so sweet of her and I still use the plate and think of her though she passed a long time ago.
• I have my mom’s glasses and figurines and while I don’t use the glasses they are on display in my china cabinet. 
• When I retired, the kindergarten teacher, Phyllis, gave me a lovely bone china dish from her collection. Another teacher, Jerri, gave me some glass bottles that her husband found on their property.

Good memories….. and it reinforces the fact that what you give or share can touch someone’s life for a long time!