Dash #23 Peggy Bird

          My mom’s birthday is June 29^th.  Our neighbor, Peggy, had been born on June 28^th.  Mom had been raised in San Francisco, California while Peggy had been raised in American Fork, Utah.  Peggy already had one son when she and my mom were both pregnant with Danny and me.  I was born at the end May and Danny was born in early June.  We were raised together by both moms. 

Until Jimmy was born in 1970, there were six of us:  Daryl, me, Danny, Patrick, John and Matt (in that order).  We would spend time together doing different things. They’d invite us to go on outings and do things with them.  I remember camping with the Bird family when Jimmy was just a baby.  I remember going to the amusement park with them.  I also remember Patrick and I going to Birds’ house after school after mom had gone to work for a few weeks.  I also remember staying the night when my brother, Corey was born.

I remember going to the American Fork Steel Days parade with the Birds almost every year even after Corey and Becky came along. There is one picture of Corey sitting between Jimmy and Becky, and though the other two are smiling, Corey looks bored out of his mind.  I don’t know if Kayla was around then or not.  Kayla is mom’s youngest and Becky is Peggy’s youngest and the only girl.

During the 60’s, Peggy was mother earth as her home always smelled of molasses cookies and gingerbread.  It appeared that she was always baking.  I loved the smell of her house.  She and mom would take turns driving four of us to the Deseret gym so that we could learn how to swim.  One day the car had a problem while we were on the freeway.  I was just a kid and hadn’t paid much attention to what was wrong or the cause.  My only memory of that time was seeing two “hippies” or long-haired youth assist Peggy with the car. It was in a day when the word “hippy” signaled a bad vibe for some people.  I knew their assisting was not a bad vibe.

If ever Peggy went shopping in whatever shops surrounded our area, she was never satisfied.  According to my mom, Peggy believed that Chipman’s department store in American Fork had everything and anything she could possibly need and would make the trip to American Fork just to acquire whatever it was.  Mom said she told me that she had gone with Peggy one time so that she could discover what it was that drew Peggy to Chipman’s.  Mom said she had expected a glorified K-Mart or something and was actually unimpressed with the size of the store or not appreciating the selection.

I don’t know how old Peggy was when she decided that she would go to work, but I suspect it wasn’t until after Becky had graduated high school.  Peggy left behind her mother earth and became one of five curators at the church museum.  She was the only female. 

She is quite well read and knows her church history.  Very knowledgeable.  A feminist.  I have learned a lot through her over the years.  I appreciate her more now than when I was a child.  I am grateful for the friendships that we have established.

A Domestic Goddess, I am NOT

                After we had picked pears in Medford for the Church, we gleaned about four bags of pears for us to take home.  Roland took 24 pears to give to friends he had made at the theater, and  I took 18 to my friends.  Most of the pears were not ripe at the time.  We continued to pass them out to neighbors until they became too ripe.  It got to the point where we needed to do something - such as pear sauce or pear cake or something.  I made pear sauce last week.

                Roland is the one who loves to bake and cook.  I was disappointed that he didn't do more of it during his time off.  I prefer not being in the kitchen for a huge length of time.  But Roland has returned to work and more than just the pears have ripened - but bananas as well.  In addition to our ripened fruits, Jaime and I had picked two buckets of apples - which Roland cored and I cut yesterday.  We're currently drying some apple rings and have put the rest of the pieces (5 1/2 gallon bags full)  of apple pieces probably for pie.

                This morning I baked one loaf of banana bread and started on a pear butter recipe that my neighbor had given me.  She had also given me a sample of the heavenly deliciousness.  Exhausted with my morning workout in the kitchen, I decided I needed a break and went to the pool to relax - or at least attempt to. 

                The pool was a nice temperature, but there was a light wind that made the air too cool for the wet skin to enjoy.

                When I returned home, half of the banana bread was missing, and I decided I would have a slice with Maxine's pear butter (as I had not finished making my own).  I had to fourth the recipe as it called for about 15 pears (I would assume enormous ones) which would add up to about 8 cups of pulp.  I had only 11 pears, 2 unusable, and not many in which the entire cup could be used.  I barely had 1 cup of pulp and 1 cup of juice combined.  I had left it in the refrigerator while I was at the pool.  I think that helped, for when I returned, I used the strainer once more and barely had two cups of sauce.

                I followed the recipe as best as I could.  I was appalled with the tiny amount.  It reminded me of having the juicer and getting only one or two ounces out of 20 apples or whatever else was used.  I had to put a drinking glass in the photo so as

Maxine's nearly gone, mine in the middle is mine did not fill an entire marachino jar. 

 

to prove what a tiny amount it was. 

 

                Jenna and I have been putting the pear butter on what's left of the banana bread.  Delicious.  Still a lot of work though. 

The Secret is to Bake With Cold Filling Inside

            At the top of our back hill is the cherry tree belonging to our backyard neighbors. I don't know if Bill and Cheryl planted the tree, or if it was already there when they moved in. Bill likes cherries.  Cheryl does not. 

            They told us that we could come to pick cherries whenever we wanted.

            Jenna's Easter bucket holds exactly 18 cups of cherries - though we hadn't figured that out until later. I did not get any pictures of Jenna and Roland picking them. 

            I hadn't considered posting about this at the time.

            Roland wanted to make a pie, and thus we cut or pulled cherries apart in order to get the pits out.  And Roland started on the filling (I personally would have waited until the following morning as it was quite late at night when he started) but put the filling in a container to put in the fridge and work on the pie the next day.

            The next day Roland decided that we needed an actual cheery picker and we made our purchase and picked more cherries and he made filling for another pie. 

He poured his new filling into a pie shell and suggested that we just freeze the pie filling in the fridge.  I would have rather frozen the new creation as I had used an overly large container for the first but did not wish to transfer . . . and since we had to pour out the hot mixture anyway . . . but I talked him into making two pies.  

            He put the hot pie filling into a new glass plate that we had purchased.  It almost looked lost compared to the other which was in a smaller tin and looked like pink jelly compared to the rich whole cherries.  We latticed the hot batch and covered the other.  The hot batch leaked in the oven, not because it was latticed.  I figured out that the hot had been overheated which is why it boiled over. 

            We had intended to give the other away, but part of the crust burned.  Perhaps it's only my imagination, but the one we baked using the cold feeling tastes better to me than the first. 

            We gave approximately eight cups to our neighbors who have let us pick apples and we put the remainder in the freezer.  Each bag is filled with three cups and we will need two bags for each pie.  Currently, we have enough cherries for four pies.

Heavy Bars for Tonight's Cook-Off

                I think the young men and young women have a combined activity each month.  Once a year (I guess in January) they have a cook off.  Jenna had wanted to make the "cupcakes" that we had at her last birthday party - sure she is combining three ingredients to make something else, but I don't really think it should count if Reese's, Pillsbury and Duncan Heinz are really doing most of the work.  The rules are that it needs to be a recipe and not from boxes.  We didn't happen to have brownie mix, cookie dough and peanut butter cups hanging around anyway and so Roland had talked her into making an apple pie.

            Pie for an armature cook-off?  Really?  I could sense that Jenna was not that thrilled with the idea of making any kind of pie. Nor did she wish to start it last night but rather after she returns from school today.  However, Roland was able to assist last night and will be working when she returns from school.   I don't want to make pie!  I looked for a recipe that would work with ingredients that we already have.

            From years' past, I can remember when Peggy Bird was in her domestic mother earth stage.  The woman was always baking.  I loved going across the street because her kitchen was always filled with pleasant smells of baking.  Molasses cookies seemed to be the number one staple.  But I do remember my first encounter with Peanut butter squares (or peanut butter fingers as the boys called them) coming from her house and had searched for that recipe so that Jenna could make them.

            She found all the ingredients and placed them on the table and then measured each one out and really did do most of the stirring and combining and baking herself.  We didn't have the right size pan and so our bars came out thicker - and heavier.  I don't recall ever having such heavy bars before.  We could have made the frosting, but chose to sprinkle on chocolate chips as soon as the pan was removed from oven.

            I turned the oven off and returned the pan to the warm oven to allow chips to melt as the oven cooled down.  After a few minutes we spread them over the bars. I cut them into rectangles this morning, but thought better of it and cut each rectangle in half - not only because it would give Jenna more bars to take, but because they are heavy and a long bar might be too much sugar shock for some.  

            So here is the final product minus what we sampled and the oversized edge that she ended up taking to school.

            The recipe we used is found here, though there are others.  I might have used a different recipe the last time I had made them (recently as October) or had used two different pans as mine were not as heavy.  I think these ones that Jenna made are definitely the most heavy I have ever eaten.  I am assuming there will be leftovers.