Over The Back Fence - stdhd

It seems that thunderstorms are more frequent this early part of June. Severe ones Sunday late afternoon and evening were not as damaging as the ones a year ago, but they still left homes without power, took down some tree limbs, and brought with them a mighty downpour.

Saturday, Wendy came down from Harwinton and did the weekly shopping. I am finally able to add some items to the restricted diet I was given last time I came home from the hospital. It is a treat to be able to enjoy a salad again and to slice into a melon!

Susan, and Stacie, who is Susan’s daughter, also came Saturday and Wendy joined them for lunch at a local restaurant. Scott was making the rounds of tag-sales and visited for awhile. It is interesting to see his interest in antiques getting stronger. He knows far more about china, glassware, and pottery than I do. Now he is having fun chasing down old toys!

Sunday my longtime friends, who are the original proprietors of the Christmas Tree Farm in Huntington, came to visit and brought me a box of beautiful strawberries. They know I’m not allowed to eat them “as is” but I intend to strain the juice and make jelly.

It is unjust punishment to not be able to eat strawberries sprinkled with sugar – a special favorite of mine. The same is true about tomatoes, which were my main lunchtime item for years. I plan to cut out the seeds and make myself a sandwich, occasionally.

The strawberries that Phil and Elisabeth Jones brought will get juiced and strained and made into clear strawberry jelly. I’ll do the same with enough raspberries to do one batch of clear jelly.

Whenever I use strawberries I think of my favorite grandmother in Danbury. We lived in the same house, and I used to spend time with her – learning to knit, darn socks, and many other things. She made strawberry jam by letting the sun do the “cooking.” Two big shallow pans of strawberries were placed in the hot sun on the roof of the shed. Covered with a layer of cheesecloth, it sometimes took two days to thicken, two anxious days with Grandma Hull watching the weather with an anxious look. It was my job to stand on the stepladder, and with a long-handled wooden spoon stir the strawberries so they all got full exposure to the sun. My reward was a saucer full of that delicious strawberry jam, when Grandma bottled it in little glass jars.

I have my grandmother’s little booklet with handwritten notes on many of the pages. Things like “use more sugar” or “cook longer” were scattered through the pages. Nothing was timed – no “bake 30 minutes” or “cook for one hour.” Just “bake till lightly browned,” or “cook until mixture thickens” are the only instructions given.

Imagine how surprised yesteryear’s cooks would be to see the fancy automatic timers, the settings that turn on the oven while the cook is away, and the oven cleaning abilities of today’s stoves.

Last week the column ended with words by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, from “The Rainy Day,” an appropriate title. Who said: “I’m extraordinarily patient, providing I get my own way in the end”?