Prairie Girls

Callie Mae

 

After Pappy died my brothers, Will and Tom, left for Kansas on their own. Granny didn’t think she could make the trip, so I stayed with her on Mr. Sullivan’s land. As long as one of us cooked, we could keep our cabin. Granny taught me all she knew about cooking; I was getting pretty good. Because she was now sick most of the time, I worked in Granny’s place.

I came from the big house one evening and found Granny had passed away while I was gone. She had told me earlier if something happened to her I was to live with some of Pappy’s friends on the plantation. She had made the arrangements. Although my heart was broken over Granny dying, I didn’t want to live with another family. I needed to make a plan. Only what would that plan be? I’ll tell you more about it later.

Grandma’s Cooking

by Judy

Like Callie’s granny, my grandma was a good cook. She never owned a cookbook, and I never saw a recipe card in her house. Grandma had seven sisters, and they shared recipes written on the backs of envelopes or whatever pieces of scrap paper were available. She didn’t use a measuring cup either. Yet she baked cakes, that if entered, would have won first place at the county fair.She was a hard cook to follow.

I finally managed to make potato salad which tasted like Grandma’s. I, too, made it by guessing how much of each ingredient and going by looks and taste. A little dab of each ingredient was added until when I tasted it, I felt as if Grandma was standing at her counter, and I was sitting at her kitchen table telling her what happened at school that day. Recently one of my daughters called and said she, too, had made Grandma’s potato salad. “Hurry,” I said. “Write down the ingredients and proportions.”

Fifteen years after Grandma’s death I sat in my mother’s kitchen and ate warm peanut butter cookies as they came out of the oven.  One bite and I was back in Grandma’s kitchen. “I want that recipe,” I said.

“Oh, it’s not written down anywhere,” my mother answered. I got her a pencil and a recipe card.