Tips from Mom

flowers from Laura Brown-thank you!

Happy Mother's Day!

I learned so much from my mother, Marie. A home economics (home science) teacher, she had the social graces of Emily Post, the advice of Ann Landers, the culinary talents of Betty Crocker and the overall family devotion of Donna Reed, Carol Brady and Stella Dallas, combined. 

I got to thinking about those everyday lessons from Mom and these random tips popped into my mind:

Always close kitchen drawers when you are cooking or baking to avoid having to clean out any falling crumbs.

Turn the top sheet hem back over the blanket when making the bed to keep the blanket clean longer, since you change the sheets more often than you do the blanket. 

When you finish using the oven on those cool or colder days of the year, leave the oven door open a few inches to release the expiring heat into the room.

To prevent stretching out the tops of your socks, tie each pair of socks into a simple knot rather than stuffing one inside the other. 

Ever have a cake come out of the oven and be high in the middle? To help keep a baked cake flat, push the raw batter toward the sides, leaving a shallow hollow in the center, then bake.

If your sheets have a printed side and a plainer side, in the summer, when it's hot, lay the printed side up so the pattern shows when you've no need for a blanket.  In the winter, face the printed side of the top sheet down and cover it with your blanket.  Then, when you turn back the covers, the pretty pattern will be seen. 

Sure you can buy pre-made cinnamon and sugar to sprinkle on toast, but you have no control of the amount of sugar.  Save an empty shaker bottle and make your own, lessening the sugar or adding more, for that matter!

Store household extension cords in toilet or paper towel tubes.

Save shelf space by hanging your toilet paper. Find an old paint can lid, punch two holes in that lid with a nail, thread an eight foot cord/heavy string through and tie it securely against the lid.  Take an old fashioned clothespin and tie it to the other end of the cord.  String your rolls of toilet paper over the closespin and hang your contraption  on a nail inside the linen closet!  (We still use one of these at the family home and it brings a smile every time I see or even think of it.)

There you have some of Mom's common sense teachings.  I know you have more from your mother and some of your own.  Send them along to graciousjanemarie@yahoo.com and we'll add them to our list of helpful hints.

P.S. Readers often ask me if the characters in my novels are copied from real people I know.  The answer is no.  However, I will say that my dear mother was the inspiration for Miss Ella, the matriarch of the Dunnigan family of Fernandina on Amelia Island, Florida in the late 1800s...

A Mother's Recipe + Goodbye Lie Diaries - Peeper's Fave

Fernandina Beach on Amelia Island, Florida
for Mother's Day
2014

Jane Marie writes:

On birthdays and holidays, I often make a chocolate cake with "Boiled White Icing" as my husband, Bruce, calls it, just like his mother, Mary Jo, used to do for him.  It is a wonderful way to remember her for all of us.

Happy Mother's Day to everyone because our mothers brought us into this world and that, in itself, is a miracle and cause to honor these special women, grandmothers, great grandmothers, aunts, neighbors, etc.! A mother's love goes beyond blood.

 

Mary Jo's Seven Minute Boiled White Icing

You'll need:

• Double boiler with water in the bottom or a 4 quart sauce pan or pie or cake pan filled with a 1/2" of water in which you will place the sauce pan for heating.

Combine in the top of your double boiler or saucepan substitute:

• 1/3 cup boiling water
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon cream of tarter
• A few grains of salt

Turn burner setting to medium high and place double boiler on the stove.  (Watch to see that the bottom of the double boiler neither boils over or boils dry.)

 

Add:

• One unbeaten egg white

Beat mixture until soft peaks form when the beaters are stopped and lifted.

 

Add :

• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla just before the frosting is spread on the cake.

This makes enough frosting to cover the top of a 9”X12” cake.  The recipe can easily be doubled.

***   Fernandina on Amelia Island, Florida 1880s   Grandmother Peeper writes:   Now ain't that the silliest thing.  I been amakin' this frosting the last longest!  All the Dunnigans just love it and I, also, sos I make a double batch, too.  Aunt Noreen tried it once but she forgot ta add the vanilla and it tasted only like eatin' a fork fulla sugar.  If it tweren't fer my naner puddin', the family party would have not had no dessert. Nobody said nothin' mean to Noreena but she is so stubborn, she cut herself a piece of her cake and ate it all down.  I have ta say, that woman is a good actress cause she didn't never make a face whilst gobblin' the stuff.  If ya make it right, and don't forget the vanilla, sure as the world, it'll be one a everybody's favorites.   Also, diary,  I like that there is a special day for all the mothers in Jane Marie's time.  I'm awonderin' why we don't do that, too.  Think I'll be gatherin' some flowers from Miss Ella's roses garden and make a extree perty settin' for the dinner table fer her.  She's a extree special mother, and it's best nobody says different.  Maybe I'll tell the children ta pick some weeds and give 'um ta Noreena.  The children don't know a weed from a flower but old Noreena does and I like to needle her whenever I kin.  It might not be the most Christian act, but it sure is fun.    Peeper, Aunt Noreen aka Noreena and Miss Ella Dunnigan are all featured characters in Amelia Island's Goodbye Lie Trilogy set in Victorian Fernandina on Amelia Island, Florida, USA.

 

 

 

 

Bless Our Mothers

Each day I think of my mother, Marie, smile and then thank the good Lord for the blessing of such a wonderful woman.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom