Personal
Notes: |
Personal
Notes: Except for brief stints into a dry cleaning business or a siding enterprise, while we were growing up Dad made his income from selling insurance on straight commission. Even though we relied considerably on his impressive hunting, gathering, and gardening skills, sometimes times were pretty lean. (e.g. when living on Broadwater and 8th Ave N. in Billings) We never, however, seemed to be without bread and milk—for breakfast, lunch, dinner or a snack. Mom would make Milk Toast—hot milk poured over a slice of buttered (?) toast on a plate--breakfast. Or she’d make Cream Tuna on Toast, tuna thickened by a sauce of milk and flour in a pan and poured over toast on a plate—lunch or dinner. Or we could tear up bread and pour milk over it and spoon it out of a glass—bread and milk, or get a slice of bread and spread some mayonnaise on it, or just take a slice, as I did, and “mash it,” compressing it tightly into a ball, for a somewhat “different” taste--snacks. . For Dad, who was only 6 when the Depression began (Mom was born as it began), a sign of prosperity was a full refrigerator. He loved to go grocery shopping long after the “kids” were gone. A real bargain hunter, mom would clip coupons and he’d “go to town” and spend quite a lot of time going up and down the aisles selecting items on sale, usually in significant quantities—though many purchases in later life were not so much dictated by necessity as preference or the desire to have a treat for visitors handy—e.g. the candy squirreled away in the lamp table by his chair or goodies in the freezer. He exposed us to a tremendous variety of foods. And he was a great cook. Mom had the challenge of cooking regular daily fare (to his specifications, of course!), canning, or making desserts (pies, cobblers, pumpkin bars, “heavy” carrot cake, cookies) and, while Dad did make such mundane things as homemade noodles for chicken and noodle soup or chicken and dumplings, he was freer to experiment, be creative—with meat, seafood, wild mushrooms, soups, salad dressings (Ross’s Sauces), wine, etc. Can’t you hear him still--laughing, urging you to taste it, demanding that you acknowledge that it—whatever it is he'd made--is the very best?
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This recipe for Hard Times Bread & Milk is from