Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Farmhouse cookies



First of all, I grew up in a farmhouse, complete with a large covered front porch, side porch and backporch. The side porch was covered with grapevines and made of stone. ( This is the porch show in the old photo from 1963 of my Mom and 6 kids. The youngest to be born in about 6 weeks from when the picture was taken. ) We picked the grapes to eat, large purple sweet and juicy grapes and also I remember making grape jam with my parents. I'm the oldest of the family, shown in the photo to the far right with my hand in front of my face, probably hiding a cookie. I grew up loving to bake, we baked from scratch cookies, pies, bread and rolls. Christmas was a bake-a-thon, every year my sister, mom and I would try to see how many flavors we could bake before the males in our family ate them right out of the freezer.
But back to the farmhouse. I loved that house with it's huge attic, 2 kitchens ( one we called a summer kitchen, I'm not sure why) and huge yard filled with fruit trees, pine trees, and peony bushes. I'm still looking for one to replace it, living in western Pennsylvania, the old farmhouses have given way to new construction and the suburbs. The house has been torn down to make way for a new house, the barn and yard are still there. Horses for riding replace the cows and chickens, my parents live in the house built in the late 60's where the corn used to grow. I've moved on to owning a cookie business with my husband in western PA in the suburbs of Pittsburgh and baking farmhouse cookies from recipes I've tweaked over the years! But more about that later.

1 comment:

  1. I liked reading this little story of all that good food while growing up in a farmhouse.

    ReplyDelete