Just an Old Fashioned Girl

For some reason, summertime reminds me of the generations of women who came before us. The women for whom homemaking was not an art or a pasttime but a way of life that was necessary to make ends meet and put food on the table for the family.

For them, there was no fast food. For them, there was no convenience foods from the grocery store freezer section. No instant mashed potatoes. No frozen pie shells. Nope, they did things the old fashioned way, from scratch.

Today, I thought I'd follow in their footsteps.

Today, I got up early (10 a.m.) and got dressed (put on a nightgown). I completed my morning chores (read my emails and surfed a few blogs) and headed into the kitchen to do some baking--from scratch!

First, I ground my flour (no I didn't--I just opened the package), mixed it with lard rendered from the last time we killed a pig (actually, it was Crisco vegetable shortening from a can--I've never killed a pig in my life), and mixed in a little salt brought across the prairies by covered wagon (bought at the grocery store in a cardboard canister). I added a few tablespoons of water, fresh from the well (kitchen faucet), and in the twinkling of an eye (about an hour), I had dough for pie crusts!

Next I cleaned and pitted fresh cherries (yes, I really did!) just picked from the tree (last Saturday from my neighbor's tree). I mixed them with some magic cherry pie filling ingredients (flour and sugar), poured the mixture into the pie crust, and dotted it with fresh churned butter (at least I think that's how they make it).

Then, I went to a secret grove of blueberry bushes (refrigerator) where I picked just enough fresh blueberries to bake a pie (two packages of blueberries from the grocery store). I cleaned and mixed the blueberries with magic blueberry pie filling ingredients (flour, sugar, and lemon juice), poured the mixture into the pie crust, and dotted it with fresh churned butter (whatever).

Next, I stoked up the wood burning stove (gas oven) and once the oven compartment reached what experience tells me is the right temperature for baking pies (425 degrees according to the knob on the oven), I put the pies in the oven to bake. While they were baking, I did the rest of my morning chores (took a bath).

Yum! Fresh cherry and blueberry pies!

Can she make a cherry pie,
Billy Boy, Billy Boy?
Can she make a cherry pie,
Charming Billy?
She can make a cherry pie,
Quick as a cat can wink an eye,
She's a young thing
And cannot leave her mother.