I've always loved gravy

Milk gravy, that is.  Oh, I like the kind of gravy that comes with a beef roast too, but not as much as milk gravy.  I'll bet that's one of the first things my mother fed me; that's just a guess, but she did love to feed people, and I do love to eat.

Mother often told me the story about how worried she was that I didn't eat enough vegetables when I was a baby, so she asked my doctor what to do.  He told her, "We don't care what she eats, just so she eats!"

She said that so many times, you'd have thought it came out of the mouth of Jesus.  From that time on, I was never forced to eat anything I didn't like.  It worked pretty well for me, though, because by the time I was in my teens, I liked almost any kind of food you could name.  

We had milk gravy often; all it needs is bacon grease, flour, and milk.  In those days every woman had a can of bacon grease sitting on her stove, and it was used for many things.  Mother made full meals, but if there was bread and gravy, that's all I wanted, and that was just fine with my parents.  

Another story Mother told me was that when I was a toddler, she went out to get clothes off the line after supper and took me out with her.  At some point she looked around to make sure I was still with her and saw me sitting on the ground with our dog, Cookie, helping her eat the leftover gravy my mom had put in her bowl.

Then there was the time my parents were the telephone operators in Villisca, Iowa.  I remember this very well.  I was probably four or five years old.  My parents and I got done eating our supper. I went outside when we were done eating, and the neighbor kids met me over at the door.  One of them said, "We had pork chops for supper!"

Thinking I'd go one better than that, I proudly said, "We had bread and gravy!"  My mom was listening and came running to the door to tell those kids every single thing that she had cooked for supper, afraid that the kids would tell their parents and they'd think ill of us for having such a pitiful supper.  She was a great cook, and proud of that fact, but I really doubt those little kids would have told their parents what I said.  

Cliff and I had gravy a couple days ago because we are still getting tomatoes from the garden.  My Arkansas friend Betty at Galla Creek mentioned putting gravy on tomatoes in her blog, and I just had to try it; turns out Cliff and I both liked it.  This morning there was still about half a cup of gravy in the refrigerator, so I sliced a smallish tomato, heated the gravy in the microwave, and poured it over that tomato.  I also had a small amount of sweet potatoes I'd cooked yesterday, and that was the rest of my breakfast.  

Sweet potatoes, gravy, and tomato.  Breakfast of champions! 

I often think how great it was that Mother told me stories, not only about myself when I was small, but also stories about how she lived when she was young.  I don't think most kids heard much about how people lived "in the olden days".

By the way, if you'd like to hear some of her stories, you'll find many of them HERE.