Friday Photos

Vintage Soap Saver ~ Thursday Focus on Vintage and Antique

Not too long ago I picked up some vintage kitchen tools at a local estate auction.  The lot boxes were filled with tools that were easy for me to recognize as well as a few items of which I really had no idea.  One such item looked like a small, wire basket with a long handle.  It was too large and the holes were to big for it to be a tea strainer and I was curious as to its use.

I actually had several of these in the boxes I bought and pulled out a couple for my own collection and took the rest to our booth at Verona Antiques.  I started searching online trying to find out the purpose and function of the metal tool.  I put in this description and that description and searched dozens of images until finally I found the answer.  The tool is a vintage soap saver which were patented in 1875 and produced until about 1900, at least according to one source I read.  On another site, there was one for sale that said it had a date of 1940 on it.   The purpose of this vintage tool was to hold slivers from larger bars of soap so as not to waste even the smallest amount. The soap keeper was a perfect way to collect those little pieces and be able to use them.  The thrifty housewife would simply swish the soap saver around in the water, holding it by the handle, to distribute the soap either for washing dishes or clothes by hand.

My great grandma Starnes, who raised a family during the Depression Era never wasted anything but I don't remember her having a soap saver.  I do, however, remember visiting her and seeing little slivers of soap that she collected in an old pair of hose.  Once she had collected a good many of these slivers, she would melt them in old tuna cans that she had cleaned out and saved for that purpose.  I remember using those round bars of melted soap made from various pieces of larger bars when I would bathe at Grandma's house. We live in a society of so much waste today that most of us just toss those end pieces but there was a time when that wasn't the case.

Wire, vintage soap saver of rectangular design.  The metal ring moves up the handle and the wire basket then opens to hold small pieces of soap.

This round soap saver is designed to simply squeeze to open.  It is discolored with remnants of what is most likely lye soap around the wire mesh.

Sourdough Pancakes

When my friend, Dianne, offered to share her sourdough starter with me, I could hardly wait to make sourdough pancakes.  While living in Alaska, I frequently had sourdough pancakes at my grandma's house.  She had an old McCoy crock that she kept her sourdough starter in and she made pancakes at least once a week.  I loved the unique taste that sourdough gave the pancakes and the contrast between the taste of the pancakes and the sweet syrup.  My mouth has often watered just thinking of those pancakes and I wished that I could duplicate the taste.  I will admit, as I was cooking my first batch of pancakes from Dianne's starter, I pulled pieces off the first pancake so that I could taste the distinct sourdough flavor.  I wasn't disappointed.  The pancakes were as good as I had remembered.  

 A memory from my very early childhood is that of visiting my Great Grandma Armstrong who lived in Southwest Missouri, about two and half hours away from where I lived sixty miles south of St. Louis.  Little Grandma, as I called her, would get up early and mix up pancakes in the kitchen of the old house in which she lived after having fired up the wood cook stove to get it burning hot.  I remember lying in the big old bed on a feather mattress on which I threatened to disappear in the "fluff" and listening to the sounds of Grandma in the kitchen cooking breakfast.  When the food was ready, I would hop out of bed and be served a special treat of "silver dollar" pancakes.  These were miniature pancakes that grandma made just for me that were the size of a silver dollar.  

Pancakes evoke a lot of good memories for me and I still feel like I am getting a treat when I eat them.  I love mine smothered in real butter and maple syrup.  How do you like yours?

Sourdough Pancakes

2 cups all-purpose flour

4 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup sourdough starter

1 1/2 cups milk

1 large egg beaten

2 tablespoons butter

In a large bowl, mix your dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar and salt)

Add sourdough starter, 1 large beaten egg, and 2 tablespoons of butter.  Pour in 1 to 1/2 cups of milk to make batter and mix by hand.  I use around 1 cup of milk to make a thicker batter.  If you want thinner pancakes, use more milk.  

Grease skillet and pour batter onto hot skillet to make pancakes.  Turn when pancakes bubble and edges begin to turn brown..  

Tips for making pancakes: 

Pancake batter is supposed to be lumpy.  Do not over-stir.  Stirring the batter too much will keep the pancakes from being light and fluffy.  Use a heavy, non stick skillet or griddle or a well seasoned cast iron skillet for cooking pancakes.  Don't use butter to grease skillet as it will burn.  My healthy choice for greasing a skillet is either ghee or coconut oil.  You will know your skillet is hot enough when you sprinkle a drop of water on the surface and it bounces across the skillet.  Once the pancakes begin to bubble uniformly, turn them and wait approximately two minutes for them to cook on the other side.  One can use some sort of measuring device to pour the pancakes so that they are all the same size.  A dry measuring cup or a cookie scoop works well for smaller pancakes.  I like to make larger pancakes and make them one at a time, using my small, cast iron skillet as a guide to determine size as I pour.

Monday Journal Entry

March 15, 2018

Winter and Spring seem to be contenders in a game similar to the one we played as kids called “King of the Mountain”.  We know that eventually Spring will kick Winter’s butt and take over the Appalachians but Winter isn’t going away without a fight.  A lot of times, we will get snow in Laurel Fork when there is none in Staunton, but this past week, snow arrived in both places covering the green grass that had emerged after the warmer weather we had experienced.  Last night when we arrived in Laurel Fork, the wind was bitter and the house was cold.  We keep the temp cut back to around 50 in the house when we are away and the temperature had dropped to 59 inside which really wasn’t too terrible considering the outside temps had dropped to the upper 20’s at night and not above the mid-forties during the day.  Our first priority was to get a fire going to help heat the house.  I cleaned out the cold ashes and laid a fire.  We had forgotten that a man was to come by to give us an estimate on some fence work.  Mike was tied up with him for a good while, but he seemed like a really nice man and gave Mike a lot of good information.  Before leaving Verona/Staunton, we had to go by the bank because my statement showed a deposit of 1500 dollar from the IRS that did not belong to me.  I was agitated thinking it might be a difficult process to get corrected and not feeling comfortable about having someone else’s money put in my account by the IRS.  Fortunately, the IRS had realized their mistake and had already removed the money with a note saying they had inadvertently put it in the wrong account.  I think I was more irked by the fact I had to get out of the car and go inside to address the problem.  I typically use the drive through window option.  A couple years ago, Dupont remodeled and changed the inside of the bank.  They have stations where the tellers stand and everything is open with television and big screen computer monitors behind them on the wall.  All the business on the wall with the large, moving screens and the way the stations are located in the middle of the room makes me feel anxiety the minute I walk in the door.  I feel exposed and vulnerable.  Their new floor plan and customer approach caused me to want to move to another bank. I really must be getting old and set in my ways. We also had to make a stop to pay a bill and a stop at Factory Antique Mall to pick up paperwork and a check.  For the first half of the trip I was busy with paperwork and hardly looked up from the computer until we got to Dublin.  Going to Dublin makes our trip a bit longer but there is a restaurant we like there so we go that way on occasion.  We got into Laurel Fork a little earlier than we sometimes do and it was nice to have time to get some things done before settling in for the night.  I love to let the quiet soak into my soul and feel the stress melt away when we are in the mountains.  We have been here a year this month and the place hasn’t lost one bit of its charm for me.  I breathe deeper when I am here. 

March 16, 2018

Another fence builder came yesterday to give us estimates.  We are delayed once again by several factors.  We have to make a decision if Mike is going to build part or all of the fence.  If Mike does it all, then it will take a good bit of time to get it accomplished.  Even if we get the fence builders to do the job, we are looking at several months out due to the contractor’s schedules.  We also have come to a delay because we are considering working with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service to try to come up with a plan for some major erosion, some wild life areas, and possibly fencing the cattle out of the streams.  If we do that, then it is going to take some additional time for planning before we can get the fences put up.  The delays are somewhat frustrating and the process of making the decision that will affect the future of the farm bring a certain amount of consternation but we want to do this right and to the best of our abilities with the resources we have available.  The delays could mean that I don’t get the Jerseys to Laurel Fork until later than expected, which means milking them is going to be an issue for a while until their calves are old enough and big enough to consume enough milk that I don’t have to milk them daily.  It will work out, it just means that I may be spending more time in Staunton than I had planned when the cows calve since we might not be able to move them until mid to late summer.  Still, even with the possible delays and the decisions to be made, I am excited to have dreams that include more than just our instant gratification as we try to find ways to protect the land for future generations.  Our children may never live here but I hope that someday there will be someone who loves this place as much as we do when we are no longer living. 

March 19, 2018

This past week has been a whirlwind of activity.  I feel like every week I write something similar about being so busy and time getting away from me.  It seems like time just moves faster and faster.  That is why taking the time to do things intentionally are so important.  It is so easy to get caught up in “doing things” and miss the real opportunities that life has to offer us to slow down and absorb the lessons that bring peace and greater understanding in the world around us.  I do intentionally set aside time now to do certain things that help me slow down and breathe deeper and as a result, maybe I don’t get some of the” things” done that I use to accomplish, or at least not as thoroughly.  More and more I let the housework go.  I like things to be in order but where I use to clean until I drove myself crazy, I have learned that a little dust and dirt are not going to kill us.  This is a conscious effort for me because I have been somewhat OCD in the past about cleaning and I can let it control and concern me very easily.  This week, instead of taking the time I probably should have taken to clean the house, I spent a whole day sewing.  I didn’t do anything difficult, simply making various sized pillows out of vintage grain and flower sacks.  However, it was so relaxing and I had so much fun doing it.  I have my sewing machine set up in the guest cabin at Laurel Fork.  (It is not actually a cabin and is above the detached garage, but it is set up with a retro hunting/fishing cabin theme.)  Currently, the cabin has no heat, so I have to use electric heaters in there and it has been too cold most of the winter to spend any real time there.  It was great to be able to get in there and do some sewing.  It was still pretty cold even with the heaters blowing right on me, but I love being in that room.  It’s so peaceful.  I also took the time to walk several times throughout the week.  Those intentional down times are so important.  One thing I did not do this past week was write a lot and I do regret that.  It seems like it is so hard for me to write in the evenings.  I’m tired by then and not quick with my words.  My best time to write is in the morning and that just didn’t work out well for me this past week. 

Last Monday I had Alissa’s girls but Alissa was home during the day as well because the snow caused Blue Ridge College to be cancelled.  Alissa had a lot of work to do for her Master’s classes, so I tended to the girls while she worked at home.  It did make for an easier day for me because Rory was able to nurse whenever she wanted and she was more content with her momma here.  Alissa did have her regular evening classes.  Mike drove her to James Madison in Harrisonburg as she was afraid to drive with the weather.  It turns out, Harrisonburg didn’t have hardly any snow at all and we had probably five inches at our place.  Tuesday, we had a get together with the Twins as well as Alissa’s girls.  I had set up a St. Patrick’s Day “party” and we had “green food”, played games, and made a shamrock card.  The kids had a lot of fun and it was so good to have them all together.  I don’t write as much about the twins and about what is going on in their parents lives because they are much more reserved and private about their lives.  Our daughter Kristin and her husband Nate don’t participate in Social Media other than a picture of the kids a few times a year.  Out of respect for them and their privacy, I try not get carried away with what I write concerning their lives and I try not to share too much personal information.  Now that I don’t watch the twins on a regular basis, we don’t get to see them weekly but we try to see them every other week and get together to do fun things as a family.  This ended up being a two-party week but unfortunately, Hudson and Ella became sick between parties and were not able to be here for Rory’s birthday celebration on Sunday.  We missed them so much and I know they were so disappointed to not be able to come.  We had a nice, low key birthday party for Aurora Geneva (Rory) who will turn one year old this week.  Alissa’s grandma and two cousins came from Lynchburg, Alissa’s step sisters from a previous marriage of Alissa’s biological father were here, Gabino’s two brothers, a friend of Alissa’s from her Master’s class, a dear high school girl who watches Analia and Rory for us a good bit and her little brother made up a wonderful, diverse group of people who love Rory dearly.  I loved seeing the mix of ethnic, social and economic background as well as a conglomeration of folks from various points in our lives all represented in our home gathering around little Rory to celebrate her day.  Together we are Rory’s family and I can’t help but be thankful that my grandkids have such a rich and diverse support system as they grow up.  I am thankful that even though there were some hurtful and ugly things in our past, we have been able to keep close the people we love so much who were a part of our lives during that time.  I love my ex mother in law and Alissa’s step sisters and step mom (who couldn’t be with us on Sunday).  I’m thankful to be able to have such a great relationship with these folks after so many years and after so much of life has tried to beat us down. 

I got up at 4 am to be ready to leave Laurel Fork and get back to Staunton for Rory’s birthday party at 1 pm.  I wanted to be a little early so that I could help Alissa get set up.  She had things in order and all I did was help with the girls a little and help put some food out and do some dishes.  It was a great, low key party.  Rory was not impressed much and kept looking at all of us like she was saying “Why are there so many people here?”.  She wasn’t herself until everyone left and then she played music on her new toys and danced around the room entertaining herself.  After the party, Mike and I went to both of the antique malls and worked on our booths.  I took a lot of smaller items out of the booth at Verona Antiques and moved them to Factory Antique Mall.  The booth at Verona Antiques needed a good cleaning up.  Mike and I have a difference of opinion on what we present for sale.  Mike figures there is nothing worth throwing out and someone, somewhere will pay something for most any item.  I am more particular about what goes into the booths and want to weed things out that have been there for a while or that I consider junky.  It’s hard to find a balance sometimes.  Many times, items I don’t think will sell actually do sell, proving Mike right.  However, Mike’s habits of keeping everything and placing value on everything tend to sometimes create clutter that needs to be cleaned out so that we can have a cleaner looking area. And, the items can become so eclectic that it is hard to have a display and things end up looking more like a warehouse for second hand items.   There is no question that moving merchandise is good for business, so occasionally, Mike will give his blessing to my decluttering. (He tends primarily to Verona Antiques and I tend to Factory Antiques giving us each our own space but on occasion, he likes for me to come and try to put things together for him at Verona Antiques.)

 I had left the pillows unfinished that I made earlier in the week so that I could sew up the seams where I had stuffed them as we travelled.  I thought I could get more pillows made if I just kept to the machine work and then did the hand work in the car.  I started sewing when we left Laurel Fork and finished them up about ten minutes from the mall in Verona.  I put my makeup on in the car and we dropped the pillows off on the way to Rory’s party and then came back after the party to work on the booths.  By the time I got home from the antique malls after 6 pm and had been on a dead run since 4 am, I was exhausted.  Analia met me at the door and wanted to know if I would read to her, so we took time for that, and then I took a 20-minute power nap before getting up to help with the girls until bedtime.  Alissa was babysitting a little two-year-old who took to me after initially sizing me up to see if I was trustworthy.  By the time her momma picked her up around 9:30, she was calling me Tita, sitting on my lap, and seemed to have accepted me as her honorary grandma.  (She is here often and calls Alissa mom and Gabino daddy just like our girls do.)

It is now Monday morning and I am writing quickly to try to finish this up because the Little Girls will be awake and our day will begin in earnest.  I struggle with not wanting to come back to Staunton simply because I love our life in Laurel Fork and because being on the road so much makes it difficult to get things done in either place.  However, once I am back in Staunton, I am always happy to have time with the family, be able to invest in the lives of the grandchildren, spend time with my animals and absorb the wide-open views from the valley.  For years, I gazed across the valley at the Blue Ridge Mountains on one said and the Allegheny Mountain Range on the other side and fed my soul with the beauty.  Now I am blessed to be able to escape to those mountains I love so much.  While I love being in the mountains, for I been aware all my life that I a mountain girl at heart, one needs to step back and be able to view things from a wider perspective from time to time.  Being in the valley gives me that wide open space with bigger skies for viewing the sunrises and sunsets and it gives me time to pour myself into my family who mean more to me than anything in the world.   

Soul Full Sunday

“If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.”  ― Emily Dickinson

Friday Photos

Sourdough Bread from Century Old Starter

Life doesn't get much better than being able to combine friendship with good food and that's exactly what my friend and I were able to do last week.  We live over 2500 miles apart, have never met in person (having met online through The Family Cow Forum around a decade ago), but share a love of so many things that our friendship has grown and I can't imagine my life without her in it.  One of the things for which we both have a passion is preparing homemade meals in our farm kitchens.  Last week, my friend Dianne sent me a really special gift of sourdough starter (and polish or "old dough") that has been in her family for  near 50 years or more! The sourdough originally travelled by covered wagon to Washington State with a family most likely a lot like' Dianne's. (Dianne just published a book about her Grandmother, Bessie Knapp,  which I had the privilege of reading before it went to the publisher. Dianne's family homesteaded  land which was part of the Colville Indian Reservation. I can't recommend the book enough.  It is called TO THE RESERVATION AND BACK.  I will include my book review and contact information for Dianne at the end of this blog post.)   I can't tell you how much it meant to me to receive this special gift of sourdough from my friend and I could hardly wait to get started using it.  

Dianne sent me the starter and poolish in a double layer of Ziploc bags that were put inside several plastic grocery bags and then in a priority box and mailed USPS.  The weather was cold both in Washington State and in Virginia and the starter travelled well.  

From Wikipedia:  

A pre-ferment (also known as bread starter) is a fermentation starter used in indirect^[1][2] methods of bread making. It may also be called mother dough.
A pre-ferment and a longer fermentation in the bread-making process have several benefits: there is more time for yeast, enzyme and, if sourdough, bacterial actions on the starch and proteins in the dough; this in turn improves the keeping time of the baked bread, and it creates greater complexities of flavor. Though pre-ferments have declined in popularity as direct additions of yeast in bread recipes have streamlined the process on a commercial level, pre-ferments of various forms are widely used in artisanal bread recipes and formulas.
In general, there are two pre-ferment varieties: sponges, based on baker's yeast, and the starters of sourdough, based on wild yeasts and lactic-acid bacteria.^{[note 1]} There are several kinds of pre-ferment commonly named and used in bread baking. They all fall on a varying process and time spectrum, from a mature mother dough of many generations of age to a first-generation sponge based on a fresh batch of baker's yeast:

• Biga and poolish or pouliche are terms used in Italian and French baking, respectively, for sponges made with domestic baker's yeast. Poolish is a fairly wet sponge (typically one-to-one, this is, made with a one-part-flour-to-one-part-water ratio by weight), whereas biga is usually drier.^[3] Bigas can be held longer at their peak than wetter sponges,^[4] while a poolish is one known technique to increase a dough's extensibility.^[5]
• Old dough (pâte fermentée) may be made with yeast or sourdough cultures, and in essence consists of a piece of dough reserved from a previous batch, with more flour and water added to feed the remaining flora. Because this is a piece of old dough, it has the typical ingredient of salt to distinguish it from other pre-ferments.^{[6][note 2]} Once old dough had rested for an additional 10 hours of age, the French named it Levain de Chef

I fed the poolish/old dough for three days before making bread.  My house was a little on the cool side, so I learned to set the poolish in our bedroom on the mantle so the heat from the fireplace would give the starter the right atmosphere for the yeast to work.  That was the perfect arrangement and the poolish thrived in that environment.  

On the third day, I made my bread dough using my friend's recipe.  There are posts online that give mathematical formula's for adapting recipes so that one can produce a quality loaf without a lot of guesswork.  I simply followed a recipe that my friend had posted on her Facebook page for making bread with poolish/old dough.

Again, I found that the cool draft in our house didn't allow the bread to rise like I wanted, so I moved the dough to the mantle in our bedroom where we keep a fire going when it is cold outdoors.  It might seem a little strange to have dough rising in the bedroom until one considers that our early American history includes many one room cabins and dwellings where it would not have been unusual to have bread rising in close proximity to where the family might sleep.  I love any connection with the past and having this century old starter growing in the bread on my mantel was such a treat.

I allowed the bread to rise three times before shaping it into loaves and baking.  

I divided my dough and baked a rustic loaf in two iron skillets.  If I had a dutch oven without legs (which I don't) I could have baked the bread in that. 

I can't tell you how pleased I was with the results!  The bread had a wonderful flavor and texture with a chewy crust just as I like it!  The house was filled with the aroma of fresh baked bread and I felt a connection to my friend even though we were so many miles apart.

Dianne's recipe (in her own words)  for sourdough bread using poolish:

"I take out 1/2 cup sour dough from my bread making...leave it on the counter. I add 1/2 flour & 1/4 cup warm water to this everyday for 3 or so days. Then the morning I am going to make sourdough. I add 4 1/2 cups flour, 2 cups water, 1 Tbs sugar, 1 Tbs salt, 2 Tbs olive oil, 2 tsp yeast. I mix this together in the sourdough...adding enough flour to make a good dough. I let it rest for 20 min covered. I knead for 15 min or so & let rise for one hour. I then knead & save out a hunk of dough for the next poolish & shape the rest of the dough. I put on a stone with cornmeal. I let rise 40 min & turn on my oven to 425 deg. At one hour or when double I slice the top & spritz with water. I put in the oven & spritz the oven with water often in the next 5 min. I bake for 40 min or till browned. When it comes out of the oven I sprinkle with flour to give it that rustic look. YUM!!!!!!! They say the longer you can let it rise the yummer the flavor will be. I feel like it takes several times doing this & saving the poolish to make a wonderful out of this world taste!

Then I also have my sour dough that I keep always in the fridge. I feed it 1 cup of milk, 1 cup flour, 1 heaping tsp sugar. Feed it every several days if you use it & leave it out on the counter...If you leave it in the fridge feed it once a week if you want it more sour leave it out on the counter covered. If it comes inactive from little use, add 1/8 tsp yeast to 2 tbs warm water & stir that into your sourdough & it will make it smell better, taster better & give it pizzazz.

I always wondered why sourdough did not go bad...it is because it is preserved...The liquid at the top of sourdough when left undisturbed for a time is called HOOCH this is slightly less volatile than high test aviation gasoline & will give someone a hangover of gigantic proportions! HA!"

I highly recommend Dianne's Book TO THE RESERVATION AND BACK  The following is the review I wrote for her book after reading it before she sent it to the publisher.  The story and history in the book alone are a treasure and the historic photos are an added bonus.

TO THE RESERVATION AND BACK is one of those rare books where the reader feels as if they have been pulled into the story and are somehow a part of it.  The author and her family share the life of Bessie Knapp, the author’s grandmother, who followed her own grandparents to the Colville Indian Reservation to homestead.  As one reads these accounts, written in first person narrative, one feels as if they have been invited to be an honorary member of the family.  The reader will laugh at the humorous anecdotes, as well as marvel at this family’s strong survival instincts and the ingenuity that helped them find ways to exist and endure within a land that sometimes seemed intent on destroying their efforts.  When reading TO THE RESERVATION AND BACK the reader will feel as if they are a part of the struggles and walk away with admiration for this family whose hearts were captured by a remote piece of property in Washington State that continues to call them back to the land.    

I strongly urge the reader to grab a cup of coffee or hot tea and find a comfortable spot to settle in when you begin this book, because you will not want to put it down until you have finished it to the end.  Upon reading the last sentence, I felt the sadness one feels after having satisfying conversation with good friends and not wanting the visit to end.  

Warm, intimate, moving, inspiring and with nuggets of first hand history of the area, TO THE RESERVATION AND BACK is a book you will want to read more than once. 

Please contact me via email tcuppminiatures@yahoo.com and I will give out the contact information to order a copy of Dianne's book.