Oh shoot SS! I forgot to get that recipe for you, didn't I? I gotta get my hands on that Schwenkfelder cook book.....and I'm making an actual handwritten note right this moment.....so sorry hun!

Mom was such an "innovative" cook.....making use of what was on hand. But, to be honest....till dad left us (mom kicked him out....lol) we weren't so bad off! He was a butcher/breakdown man by trade...and we got some of the most prime beef you could ever know. And mom made the absolute best pot roast and baby browned potatoes I have ever had in my life.....and to this day I (nor my sister's) can duplicate it! She also made the absolute bestest bean soup on the planet.....and I have been able to come really close to duplicating that.....so says my baby sis!

Later in life when I would visit dad and he'd ask, before I came, what I would like for dinner.....I would say, "What's your specialty"? When I got to his apartment I could smell the pork and sauerkraut cooking even before I got inside. He'd start cooking it around 4am that morning and the meat would just fall off the bone and the sauerkraut was never bitter or tart. Mmmmmmm! I think that's one of my most favorite meals to this day!

And one other dish (lmao...lunch dish)....that I can remember from my childhoood wasn't made by mom....but by the neighbor lady across the street. Whenever she made tuna sandwiches for lunch...I had to have one. My mother always used Miracle Whip® in her tuna and didn't by the best tuna on the market (oil packed, cheapy stuff)....and it was rather plain.....but Mrs. Michaels had solid white tuna packed in water and made hers with Hellman's® mayo....and she would dice up dill pickle spears and add them to it. Oh.....and she always made it on rye toast. To this day that is the way I prefer my tuna sandwiches!

*EDITING* I just remembered this too...(and you might be interested in it SS...if you like succotash)*

My first boyfriends mother would take fresh, white corn on the cob and take it off the cob......lots of ears.....like maybe 40 ears..no kidding......and add it to a giant soup pot...to which she would add "fordhook" lima beans (the bigguns)...either fresh or frozen...and lots of them too.....and about 2 cups of reserved bacon fat (she'd save up the fat in the fridge till she had 2 cups and then she would make this dish)......I know....I know....my arteries are hardening as I type this, but it's so friggin delish I would die to have it right now...maybe literally...lmao! Anyway.......she would add a little water.....enough to just come up to the top of the veggies..and the fat would go in...and she would "cook it down" all day and into the evening...on a slow simmer just after the boil. The starch from the corn and the beans would make this thicken a bit and......OMG!!!! I think it's a variation of a soul food recipe she got from a friend...who did the bacon fat with collard greens much like this. Oh...and that's real yummy too! LOL! Oh shit...now I'm gonna start reserving my bacon fat instead of nuking the bacon on that idiotic bacon tray!

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Minds are like parachutes. They only work when they are open.

~Thomas Dewar~