Throwback Thursday: People Standing In and Around a Car

Man holding hat: “I don’t like this hat. Anyone want to trade?”

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Memory Monday: Coffee in Our Family Part 2

my great-grandfather's brother and sister-in-law

COFFEE IN OUR FAMILY—Part 2

Last week I wrote about how we drink coffee in my family. This week I want to share some interesting tidbits about making coffee. Recently as I was researching for my historical magazine—Worbly’s Family Monthly Magazine—I came across ways to make coffee without coffee beans. My great-grandfather and his brother would still have been at home when the following book came out. Here the hints for the homemaker from The Ready Adviser and Family Guide by Isaac Shinn, published in 1866:

Acorn Coffee (a pleasant beverage).—Take sound, ripe acorns, peel off the hull or husk, divide the kernels, dry them gradually, and then roast them in a close vessel. When roasted, add a little butter in small pieces, while hot, in the roaster. Grind like other coffee, and to each teacup­ful add a tablespoonful of common coffee. To be made and drank as common coffee.

A Substitute for Coffee.—Boil clean white rye until the grains swell; then drain and dry it. Roast it to a dark brown, and prepare as other coffee, allowing twice the time for boiling. This alone makes good coffee, but if you add a little of the extract of coffee, or some beets or carrots sliced thin and dried in an oven till brown, it will make a coffee but little, if any, inferior to the genuine article.

Another.—Roast Indian meal in a bread-pan to a very dark brown; then mix it with molasses to a thick batter, and put it in a pan, and bake slowly until it becomes dry. It can be stirred often, so as to make it crummy, or baked in a cake, and a piece ground, or pounded fine, when wanted for use. This is said to make good coffee.

Last week, I said that I love cream/half & half. Well, 150 years ago, the people also needed something to lightened that black beverage. But what to do if there was no cream handy? Here is the solution they had for that problem:

A Substitute for Cream.—Cream, when unattainable, may be imitated thus: Beat the white of an egg to froth, put in a small lump of butter, and mix well; then turn the coffee to it gradually, so that it may not curdle. If perfectly done it will be an excellent substitute for cream. For tea, omit the butter, using only the egg. This might be of great use at sea, as eggs can be preserved fresh in various ways.

I am so thankful we have several grocery stores nearby so I can get my canisters of Folger’s Black Silk ground coffee, my cream, and flavored syrups. Think I’ll go make a large glass of iced English toffee coffee.

Throwback Thursday: Woman Wearing White in a Garden

Woman—“I know, I know. No white after Labor Day.”

That's my caption. What's yours? Leave it in the comments.

Memory Monday: Coffee in Our Family Part 1

my father and grandfather - they both loved their coffee

COFFEE IN OUR FAMILY—Part 1

I didn’t start drinking coffee until after I graduated high school, but I remember my parents and grandparents drinking it. My grandfather had a special cup that he used. It was oversized and part of a set of light yellow and brown plaid dishes that my grandparents always used. Every morning at the breakfast table, he would pour his coffee from his cup into his equally-large saucer, then sip it. As a child, I thought that odd, but later learned that was how many of his generation (and those before him) drank their coffee. My dad always had at least one cup of coffee before he got out of bed. My grandmother-in-law would only pour an inch of coffee into her cup at a time—she liked it really hot.

Today, my husband has a metal insulated mug that he fills in the morning and drinks from it all day. I, on the other hand, have several large glasses that I use to make iced coffee year round. I fill one of the glasses full with ice cubes, at a bit of fat-free half & half or heavy cream (depending on which diet I am currently on), a good splash of flavored syrup (sugar-free since I’m diabetic), then give it a good stir. This is the way I drink my coffee year round.

On the other hand, our husband and daughter always drinks their black and unsweetened whether it is from their Keurig, their French press, cold-brew container, or the local coffee place. (A side note—a couple of those coffee devises were lost when a tornado passed by their home.)

It doesn’t matter how we drink our coffee—hot, cold, black, sweet, unsweetened, or (as my husband says of mine) not real coffee, we love it.

Throwback Thursday: Man in the Yard

The latest from my "old and unknown" files:

Man: “Yes, sir, I’ve come to court your daughter.”

Father: “Which daughter?”

Man: “Whichever one will have me.”

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Memory Monday: The Beginning of Another Generation Passing

THE BEGINNING OF ANOTHER GENERATION PASSING

For both my husband and me, all of our grandparents (Grandma, Grandpa, Papaw, Mamaw, Mawmaw, Granddaddy, Grandmother, and a grandfather who died before my husband was born) have passed away. We have precious memories of time spent in their homes. Our children knew some of their grandparents (Grandma, Granddaddy, PawPaw who passed away before our son was born, and Granny who passed away before we had children). Fortunately, our children were old enough when my husband’s father and my mother passed that they also have a wealth of memories of them.

But life moves on. Our granddaughter has lost her first grandparent. Appa (her paternal grandfather) passed away over the weekend. At three, she may not have formed many of those precious memories that we have of our grandparents. But maybe, as we (and our family) did with our children, she will learn about him from those who are still here.

Thowback Thursday: Man in Front of a Chimney

What do you think is hiding in that hole in the chimney?

That's my caption. What's yours? Leave it in the comments.