How I learned to cook

I've tried to remember the times Mother tried to get me to bake something as a kid, and I can only think of one time.  A friend had given her a recipe for a chocolate cake, and for whatever reason, she wanted me to make it.  I was in the fifth grade.  Why she wanted me to try something like that for my first baking challenge, I do not know.  It was in the mid-fifties:  there was no electric mixer in the kitchen, and I think I was supposed to stir the batter with a spoon for 300 times.  I did finally get it in the oven, and when it was done, it looked and smelled good.

Now back in that time, most women had pottery crocks to hold their salt, instead of leaving the salt in the box it came in; at least that's how it was in Harrison County, Missouri.  Unfortunately, I didn't realize that, and I put salt in  thinking it was sugar.  My bad.  The chickens wouldn't even eat it.  Maybe that's why my mom never asked me to cook again.  

When we moved to the Harlem area of Kansas City, Mother did have me fix Chef Boyardee spaghetti sometimes though, so when she got home from work she didn't have to make our meal.  Really, you could hardly call that "cooking". 

My brother-in-law offered to take me to my job in North Kansas City, and I think my mom took me home in the evening.  However, soon after I got that job, my parents moved to Blue Springs.  My folks wanted me to learn to drive, but I refused; I had taken driver's school at North Kansas City High School, and the teacher did nothing but make fun of me in front of the other kids after he saw I knew nothing about driving.  The thing is, I was scared to death.  I still have no desire to drive.

When my parents moved, I got an apartment on 11th street in Kansas City and used the KC busses to go to work and other places.  Anyway, once I was on my own if I wanted some good food, I was going to have to fix it.  All I really cooked at first was Campbell's Soup, pancakes, and toasted cheese sandwiches.  I certainly couldn't eat out, because my job started me at minimum wage.  Later on I moved to another apartment right down the road from my job in North Kansas City, and I began learning to cook.  My sister is one of the best cooks ever, and I knew she cooked out of a Better Home and Gardens cookbook, so I went somewhere and bought one.

The first things I tried out were sweets.  I made cookies of all kinds, and then worked on making pie crust.  That cookbook taught me everything I wanted to know about cooking and baking, although when I married Clifford in 1966, I knew very little about how to cook meats except for ground beef, sausage, and bacon.  Remember, I wasn't making much money, and the largest raise I ever got was five cents.

Why am I telling you all this?  Well, I absolutely ruined that book letting things splash on it after several years of marriage, and the pages were falling out; I threw it away.  I bought another newer Better Home and Garden book, but they had mostly different recipes, and not many were my favorites.  I had bought several of their newer used books on Ebay through my life, but very few of my kind of recipes exist in them.  Last week I found one like my first one, though.  It was in pretty good shape, and when it arrived, I spent a lot of time just looking and remembering all the things that book had given to me.  Believe me, it won't be sitting anywhere near where I am cooking; it's mainly just a look back in time.  

Here are some of the recipes from this book I've been making for sixty years:

    

One thing though:  When I made a peach pie last week, I decided to use the pie crust recipe in an old Betty Crocker cookbook just for a change, and I liked that pie crust better than the one I've made for sixty years.  

You can always learn something new.

Oh, and I just remembered what people call that salt thing:  Salt cellar!  Also Here's a more detailed breakdown:

• Salt Cellar:

  This is the most common and formal term for the container. 
• Salt Box:

  This term is also frequently used, particularly for open-topped containers. 
• Salt Pig:

  This term often refers to a specific type of salt cellar, typically a wider, open-topped container, often ceramic, shaped like a pig. 
• Other terms:

  Depending on the specific design or context, you might also hear terms like "open salt" or simply "salt".