Category Archives: mother

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Katy B’s Fruit Torte

Katherine White Burling was my maternal grandmother, and this recipe is attributed to her. I still have the small three ring binder that my mother gave me when I was in high school, explaining that my sister and I had to do some of the cooking. We told her what we wanted to make and she would write the recipe in our book and help us. I wrote this recipe out in the 1970s.

preheat the oven to 350 F

cream: 1 C sugar
1/2 C butter

while the butter is softening enough to cream, cut up fruit: apples, pears, peaches, rhubarb, or use berries…

Add: 1 C flour
1 tsp baking powder
salt
2 eggs

Spread in in a buttered, floured pan. Cover with chopped fruit: apples, pears, peaches. Today I am using rhubarb and a peach. I particularly like the tartness of rhubarb.

Sprinkle with sugar and lemon juice
Dot with butter on top.
Bake for 30-40 minutes, depending on your oven.
Cook until browned a little in the part that rises around the fruit, and when a toothpick comes out clean.

mmmmmm

For a while I lived at 7500 feet and had to alter recipes:
subtract 3 tablespoons sugar
use 3/4 tsp baking powder

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Last bonsai

This year both my children are 18 or over and they wanted this small tree for the Christmas tree. “Don’t kill a tree, mom.” they said.

This tree is the last bonsai from my parents. My mother died in 2000 from ovarian cancer. She was at home in hospice for nearly seven weeks and we had over thirty visitors. My sister and my father and I all ignored the plants: and most of the bonsais died with her.

My father cared for the remaining ones even as his health deteriorated. He died at home as he would have wished, in 2013, alone and a sudden death. Two of the three remaining trees died. So this ficus came home with me. I water it faithfully and brought out the small ornaments to decorate for the holidays. I don’t know how old it is. After we lose our parents, we wonder about things: where is this from, how old is it, was it important to you, was it a random gift? Did you buy it, did you love it, was it not something that you cared about?

This holiday ask a family member to tell you a story about something in their house. Ask about something that you like, or is unique, or that really doesn’t fit in. Ask about a piece of art or a piece of furniture or jewelry. And write the stories down for the next generation…. while you can.

 

 

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Through storm and fear

This is for photrablogger’s Mundane Monday #34.

I was downtown in the early morning for coffee and a walk. I walked out to Port Hudson. The wind was blowing very hard and the rigging was singing that eerie whistle wail. There are giant cleats out as both seats and advertising. I put one of my earrings on the cleat and took the picture. The earrings were my mother’s. After she died I looked at her jewelry. She loved little boxes and I was trying to understand the organization of the earrings. It was not by value, since plastic and gold were all mixed together. She was an artist and organized the earrings by color. These little plastic eiffel towers were in the box with red and pink earrings of all sorts. They are probably at least 30 years old. The tower looks so small against the black cleat with the rainwater. I hope that we can all care for each other through storms and fear.