Kitchen duties or detour........

You might start to realize that 'detour' is my middle name....if you haven't then follow along for a while and you will soon have to agree .

This curve in the road will be a fun light hearted one, well deserved after the seriousness of the previous one.

So sit back, get your apron out---what you don't know what that is? Then you are much tooooo young to be reading my blog.

Over a decade ago a friend gave me an antique cook book ( guess we know what she thought of me)...might I add I could have been her baby-sitter.

The copyright of this collection of recipes was in fact dated a special year- -the year before my birthday.......nope, not giving that info out--not yet--- I'll give a hint...it was 19??....good luck figuring it out.

I just- a few weeks ago took this book down from it's resting place above the kitchen cabinets---doing what all the other items there are doing in unison--catching dust.

After successfully removing "close to a decade" worth of dust, I decided it was time over-due to look at this gem .

" The Gardeners' Cook Book

published by

The Anson Jones Press

Houston, Texas 1945

In the back of this book are 18 pages of "things good to know".

(way before google for the info)

I thought some reading this blog might find these tips helpful.

Here are a few of them:

Use a wide pair of tweezers for removing pin feathers instead of a knife when dressing a fowl.

If you are working from a loose recipe, try pinning it top side down on your apron. This will enable you to carry the recipe with you as you move around the kitchen.

After baking, always leave the oven door open to permit moisture to escape. This prevents the oven from rusting.

You can peel sweet potatoes with ease and without waste if you rub the skins first with lard before putting them in the oven.

To prevent chicken livers from popping in the grease when frying, puncture them a number of times with a toothpick before placing in the hot fat.

Now for some cleaning tips:

For cleaning woodwork, mix 1/3 cup kerosene and 2/3 cup vinegar. Shake well and use on woodwork.

Use a square of wood mounted on casters to hold the pail of water for scrubbing floors. This can be pushed around at will and the soap can be left on this platform instead of leaving it in the water.

Clean coil springs of the bed with a tapered bottle brush and the work may be done much faster.

The best furniture polish is-equal parts of olive oil and vinegar. Shake well before applying.

Laundry Tips:

You will have no pin marks on your curtains if you press the edges with a hot iron as soon as you remove them from the curtain stretcher.

When boiling tea towels, put a few lemon peels in the water to make the towels whiter and give them a clean freshness.

Soak garments in a strong solution of salt water before washing and perspiration stains will disappear.

In windy weather starch will not blow out of your laundry, if you add a little salt to your starch water.

You can remove fresh coffee or tea stains from your table cloth by pouring hot water over the stain from a height of 2 or 3 feet.

Inside and outside the house:


You can drive a nail or screw through wood without splitting the wood by first driving it thru a cake of soap.


You can retrieve small articles that have fallen into some hard-to-get-at places by sticking chewing gum on the end of a stick.


Grow roses more successfully by burying a handful of iron shavings around the roots of the rose bush. The rusting iron becomes available as a plant food.


Before driving a nail into plaster, if you will place it in hot water for a few minutes, it will not crumble the plaster.


Always use a razor blade or a sharp knife when cutting fur.

I certainly could add so many more interesting things from the book but I know want to get on with trying some of them out.......

It was -1945 the ending of WW2.....many hardships had been endured by society at large, food and basic items of life had been rationed.

I can only imagine life with it's sweet moments of joy that the war was over--as well as the sorrow and loss felt by many who lost loved one in the war. Still another kind of heart ache was in the lives of those whose loved ones returned in body yet were so traumatized by the violence of war that they could never function normally again.

I read the pages in this book and it caused me to wonder about each woman who entered a recipe to be published. My thoughts went something like, was she dealing with and or doing life with her man at war? Was she one of the many women doing factory work so that the troops had the supplies necessary to do the job they were sent to do? Was she a mom or a sweetheart? My thoughts wonder as I wounder........But this one thing I am sure of-- that our freedom today is an end result of the sacrifice that was made on our behave......For that I am grateful.......

In closing, if you are looking for the favorite recipe that Mom made--or your grandmother made--or your mothers grandmother made---or if you are young enough that you can say my grandmothers, great grandmother made---then send me your request and I will search the pages of this little gem of a cook book and if I am fortunate to find it---I will post it for all to enjoy......thanks for following me on this detour.....till later.....