Fighting/with Wooden Spoons

It's good to be home. We had a fine anniversary week trip, as Gene said, "A whole week together and we didn't get in one fight!" Maybe because we both had to work while we were away. And no, we're not the fighting type, it's the "whole week together" that usually brings it on. Each of us has a fine appreciation of our own space. So we're home again and back into our own spaces.

On the home front, Jojo took her SAT yesterday and we're getting ready to go see Humboldt University in California in a couple of weeks. Nostalgia is the devil and it's beating me up daily with a heavy wooden spoon. So I'm posting some recipes.

Grandma Angel's Mulled Apple Cider

(for the Moyas)

1/2 cup sugar
2 cups water
2 sticks cinnamon
12 whole cloves

Place above ingredients in 2-quart pan and bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes.

Add the following ingredients to above mixture:

1 quart apple cider
1/3 cup lemon juice
1 tsp. grated lemon rind
1/2 lemon, sliced

Heat through and serve.


Great Aunt Mary's Fresh Apple-Nut Cake

(For Talia)

1 1/2 cups oil
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp. salt
3 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
2 tbl. vanilla
4 large apples, peeled, cored & chopped fine
1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts

Mix like any other cake. Bake in tube pan 1 1/2 hours at 300 degrees (spray pan with Pam); or may be made in rectangular pan allowing for difference in baking. (I usually do the rectangular thing. It takes a little less baking time. Just keep an eye on it after an hour or so.)

Glaze:

1 stick butter
2 tbls. milk
1/2 cup packed brown sugar

Bring all glaze ingredients to a boil; turn down heat and simmer, stirring often for about ten minutes, or until mixture starts to thicken. Pour over cake slowly while cake is just warm. Let sit for at least an hour so that the glaze can completely saturate the cake.

This last recipe helps me break the nostalgia into a million pieces. Aunt Mary was an awesome cook, but she didn't particularly like kids. Unfortunately, during the time I knew her I was a kid! Too, she was my favorite grandma's sister-in-law, and grandma really must not have liked her at all, because she gossiped about her something fierce. It must have been a nightmare for poor Aunt Mary to come down from Chicago to visit us. I haven't seen her in over thirty years. In fact, I don't even know if she's still alive. But if she is, my apologies, Aunt Mary. Your cooking was always divine.