Saturday, September 6

Wouldn't it rot your socks!

I feel this weather would rot anyone's socks, - & probably while they are wearing them!
It has blown, & howled & rained all night! Great gusts of wind, trying the windows, & sneaking in cracks. Thrusting against tree trunks, forcing the palms almost double.

This is the dismal view from our lounge window. Grey on grey, with more grey for salsa.


We have watched all our taped & DVD entertainment. I am trying to locate some tempting books to read, but Gom, the meddler Efficient, has taken them all out of the bookcase by the bed. grrrr.

No doubt they are squirrelled away down in the garage. It will take me a week of searching to locate them. *^%$$@!

No bread for toast in the house, meant I had to be creative, with my breakfast choices. I actually dislike toast, it mostly tastes like cardboard. I also detest cereal, due I suspect to the sickening -as in vomit- effect of milk when I was young.

I decided to treat myself to hash browns, bacon & eggs, this morning.

As I cooked the bacon, I was swept back to my childhood, when my Grandmother used to cook us breakfast every morning, & made sure we left for school, with a full nourishing hot meal to begin our day.

I remembered how she used to cook the bacon in the huge cast iron frying pan, which was covered in pale green, cream speckled, enamel. It was a very heavy pan, & the bacon would crisp up nicely. To avoid the spatter factor, my Grandmother would take a sheet of brown paper, & tear a small hole in the center of it, then place it over the top of the pan.

I would watch as the grease spatters gradually turned the paper to 'greased' paper.

She would place the bacon on more brown paper, which was crinkled up, so that the bacon fat drained off, & place the plate in the oven, on the warming plates for our breakfast. Those days were before Paper towels had become a household staple. Groceries still came in brown paper bags, & the butcher wrapped the meat in nice clean sheets of white paper, with a final wrap of brown paper. No plastic to pollute.

The eggs were always cooked in the fat from the bacon, & she would ladle, flick, or spoon, the fat over the yolks, so they turned white, & were cooked, but not hard. We would usually have toast under the eggs, or beside the eggs.

We walked, or rode our bikes to school, so I suppose we burned off the fat! It was always butter for the toast too, as margarine was yet to be introduced to New Zealand.

Some days we had hot baked beans on toast, or tinned spaghetti, or creamed corn. And other days there would be poached eggs, or delicious scrambled eggs.

My tastes must be changing, because I was never one for sauces on foods. My mother loved Worcestershire Sauce, & we always had Tomato sauce in the cupboard, but I was happy not to use either.

I was never very keen on the taste of Worcestershire sauce, & when I became pregnant with my son, I could not stand the smell of it, & it is an aversion I have until this day.

My Mother & Father in law used to make delicious tomato sauce, & I did occasionally eat some on meat. We never did get the recipe from them, & so now it is lost to us forever.

Lately I have taken to having a little tomato sauce on bacon. I am surprised with myself.

When I think of my Grandmother, or my Mother & their cooking I am always reminded of words from a Phoebe Snow song, Sweet Disposition-
"You have got a sweet disposition,
Warm like the oven, in my mother's kitchen."

There must be 'something in the air'. I have just received an email from my Beloved Brother, with memories of the eggs I have been posting about!


Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here.

23 comments:

ancient one said...

Your weather seems to be similar to what we are expecting tonight. Your breakfast reminds me of my moms cooking. She always sent us off to school with a hot breakfast. Now I just eat cheerios, except on Sunday. Then I have two pieces of toast with grape jelly, bacon, and my one cup of coffee. I cook the eggs for my husband..but I flip them carefully to not break the yokes.

Tanya Brown said...

Fascinating!

For me, it's the memory of my grandmother making biscuits. A hard-working woman, she made batches morning and night, and had lost the need for a recipe long before I came on the scene. When they lived in town, there would be "oleo". When I visited them on their homestead, there would be milk and butter fresh from the cows - and the accompanying "joy" of using a stinky outhouse, since they didn't have electricity or running water.

Granny J said...

It occurred to me that I don't recall just what my mother used to crisp the bacon before paper towels. But crisp the bacon she certainly did; she was into crisp big time for as long as I remember. She might have used newspaper, which would have worked just fine. As for the weather you describe, it's not what I associate with Australia in my mind's eye....

Mary said...

My mouth was completely watering as you described this.

Thimbleanna said...

Boy Meggie -- send some rain our way -- we're dry as a bone! Isn't it funny how food can bring back childhood memories? Loved your memories...as always!

Rosie said...

it is just as rainy and nasty here... that cooked brekkie sounds good. I'll bring the eggs if you supply the bacon and baked beans (we cant get them in our ex pat paradise)

Anonymous said...

I have always wanted a house with a window that the rain can hit. Like in the movies, when rain streams down a window during a storm. I just get blown in drizzle stains.

Frankofile said...

What did any of us do before paper towels?

Pam said...

We have the same weather here. How can that be? Somewhere in the middle it must be nice... I suppose that's Thimbleannaland.

With my grandmother, it was porridge.

Lovely memories.

Anonymous said...

That's the view from my window too! Not uplifting.

I am steadfastly refusing to shift out of summer clothes and am marching about in the rain in flipflops and silly skirts!

Anonymous said...

Your description of the fried bacon and eggs sounds so much like the breakfasts of my childhood too. However, I like toast very much. I'm in agreement about Worchestershire Sauce, I don't care for it, never did.
Before long your weather will turn warm as ours here up north turns cold. I am ready for a change of seasons after a hot July & August.

velcro said...

It is infuriating when your to read pile disappears. MrV managed to put most of them to one side before the packers came, but a few escaped and are hiding out somewhere on the bookcases. Will take months to track them down.

I hope you find yours sooner.

Anonymous said...

Those rainy days are indeed perfoect for curling up under a quilt and reading or wathcing TV. Good luck in your search for your missing entertainment!

Ali Honey said...

Please let Thimleanna have the rain. We are having a break from it here this week.
That sounds like a typical country breakfast before school....must have something warm and sustaining inside before we walked quite a distance for the school bus. ( I couldn't handle that in the morning these days ).

LBA said...

oh Meggie - how bizarre that we could live parallel lives sometimes !

You took me back to my own memories, even right down to Pink Floyd, who would often be playing softly in the background during our Sunday breakfasts..

And I am *so* the sauce Nazi !!

Anonymous said...

Meggie , Do you remember too we often had " Hats" -- -- fried luncheon suasage slices -- which curled into the ' hat' shape as they cooked -- As well , I loved fried tomatoes. At weekends the big re-cookup of all the left over veggies mashed together and fried with runny yoked eggs on top . My mouth still waters when I think of it ! Good memories .
We have had our and everybody elses share of rain the past two months , Supposedly 22 days of rain in July , about the same in August -- I think it rained every damned day , It felt like it anyway . Come on Spring and Summer !

Anonymous said...

Suasage ?? HaHa Sausage of course

Linds said...

We have the same weather. It is still raining. Unending rain. Did I mention RAIN???
And for me it is the smell of bacon and eggs, but also memories of my Scottish gran staying the night and making porridge in the Scottish way!

Maggie May said...

The weather is diabolical, isn't it?
Hash browns & egg. Yum! That's the only thing to do in this awful weather, isn't it? eat.

Anonymous said...

Your breakfast sounds wonderful, Meggie. Those are the kinds of breakfasts we seldom have, though, these days!

When we got home from the lake this afternoon, our rain guage read 5 inches. I don't know how much we got at the lake..it poured from Tuesday to Friday! Then again, Saturday! We're getting a bit of a break, but if the hurricanes keep coming, we're sure to have more. Last week's rain was from Gustav.

Have a wonderful week. Hope you find those books!

Kellie said...

I cooked up bacon and eegs for breaky here yesterday ... a staple Father's Day tradition! YUM!!!!

Jorth said...

Now I'm hankering for a good old fry up, yum!

Maggie R said...

Hi Meggie,
I came by here from Julia's Blog...
Your post on Breaky made me hungry:-}
Hope you are feeling more"up" now..
xoxo
((((hugs))))
Maggie