DAY 20

Mrs. Cordell and Aunt helped in the kitchen. I got through just fine. Aunt helped me out by dressing a fat young rooster and bringing it ready for the roaster. She also insisted on making pies since I had my hands full – mince and pumpkin. One of each would be plenty, I said, but no – here came two each and ginger cookies frosted. She’d tried a new recipe. So, we had mince and pumpkin pie with whipped cream on it, ginger cookies, fruit cake and do-nuts, and fruit and whipped cream for that, coffee, oranges, nuts and candy besides the after-dinner mints.

Well, we just parceled out the leftovers. Mr. Boehm got half of each kind of pie. I believe Mrs. Cordell got a whole pie, some donuts, cookies, and buns. Mr. Boehm also got some of each. Aunt got the remains of the roast, buns and donuts, and this is how we do. It was a good day. – Ina

Dear Aunt Bertha! How she loved to cook – from roasted meats to baked goods and everything in between and heavy on the butter and cream. And yes, she liked to eat, too. Ina, on the other hand, was mindful of her weight and ate accordingly. She does say of the Christmas meal, though, “I ate my fill according to a previous promise to myself.”

Both Ina and Aunt Bertha made mincemeat with meat, the old-fashioned way. I like a fruit-based mincemeat, such as the Nonesuch brand, and in the past, I’ve made my own from green tomatoes. I had many green tomatoes this year, but they ripened before I could make the mincemeat, so we had stewed tomatoes instead.

And then I couldn’t find mincemeat locally and the price online was horrendous! So, I thought again about making some. What could I use instead of green tomatoes, I wondered, and I happened to think of the boxes of shredded zucchini in the freezer. So, yesterday I made zucchini mincemeat, simmering it in a Crock Pot. It was rather juicy, so I thickened it with cornstarch. “Very good!” as Ina would say. KW