food

National Creamsicle Day

I hope you have had a creamsicle as least once in your life. If not, I urge you to give one a try. I know, when it’s hot out and you want ice cream on a stick, a chocolate fudgesicle or fruit flavored popsicle probably come to mind first. A creamsicle has an inner vanilla layer completely surrounded by an orange sherbet layer. In my opinion they are more creamy than the other options.

When I was young, icies and slurpies were only treats to get at a carnival, not the local convenience store. We did have squeezies which were small cups of sherbet that you ate by squeezing it out of the cupcake paper type cup. They didn’t last long, and invariably the last bit dripped onto your shirt when you tried to “drink” what had melted.

We have a local fast-food diner that sells creamsicle twist soft-serve ice cream in the summer. I visit my father’s grave on his birthday every August and on the way home I have a creamsicle cone. My father loved ice cream and so do I.

A refreshing dessert when you want to serve a group is a refrigerator poke cake. (You can Google that name for directions.) I think I’ll make an orange one for our next family gathering.

08/14/2016 0

National S’mores Day

The origin of this tasty snack is credited to the entrepreneur Alec Barnum. However, the first recorded version of the recipe can be found in the 1927 publication of Tramping and Trailing with the Girl Scouts. Even though the Girl Scouts were not the first ones to make s’mores, Girl Scout groups describe them in their reports as early as 1925. Earlier recipes used the name “Some Mores”. It is unclear when the name was shortened to “S’mores”.

What ever the name, I hope everyone on earth has had a form of this treat at least once. Maybe even once a summer.

I know the most common place to have s’mores is around a campfire. That’s great if you like mosquitos and camp fires. When my kids were in their early teens we got all the ingredients and cooked the marshmallows over candles in the living room. I thought too late about what the black smoke would do to the ceiling. Not a good idea in a hotel either. It sets off the smoke alarm! Not telling where I tried that one.

A couple years ago we were visiting my husband’s niece in Cleveland. Her husband made her a s’more by cooking one of those new huge marshmallows over the flame on their gas stove; after their boys had been pronounced fully asleep. She proved to us, no matter how old you are, dessert is a good thing, and there is no lady like way to eat s’mores. She ended up with marshmallow on her nose and fingers. If it hadn’t been bedtime we would have joined her.

I never went to Girl Scout camp, but we had s’mores at 4-H camp and at church camp. In those days there were only three true ingredients: graham crackers, chocolate bars and marshmallows. Today substitutions are encouraged, most of which have to do with peanuts. Use a peanut butter cup, or add peanut butter or Nutella.

Which ever way you choose to enjoy this delicious, messy treat, make sure summer doesn’t get by you without having one.

08/10/2016 0

National Frozen Custard Day

Ice cream vendors, Archie and Elton Kohr, invented frozen custard on Coney Island, New York in 1919 when they found that adding egg yolks to ice cream created a smoother texture and helped the ice cream stay cold longer.

The Kohr brothers sold 18,640 cones on their first weekend on the boardwalk.

That is a heck-of-a-lot of cones! I had to look up how frozen custard is different than ice cream, so thought I would share the information.

In western New York state, where I live, we say we only have two seasons, winter and construction. It’s sort of that way with frozen custard and ice cream too. A lot of the specialty stores that sell just that are not open between Halloween and Memorial Day. One place near Conesus Lake posts a sign that says “Closed for the season, Reason, Freezin’.” Reading it always makes me smile.

As a military wife I lived in my home state of New York, Mississippi, Illinois, Washington, and England. I don’t remember “going for ice cream” like we do here. In Mississippi it melted too fast, and western Washington was rarely hot enough to create the craving. It would be interesting to look up which states sell the most custard and ice cream. I’ll leave that for you to do.

If you have read my previous posts, I think you have figured out that I like to eat. A special young couple in my life was discussing my birthday last year. They thought gift certificates to Bruster’s and Abbott’s would be an appropriate gift. Bruster’s sells home-made hard ice cream and Abbott’s sells frozen custard. I’m glad they didn’t get me the certificates. My car knows its way to both places without any coaxing.

With the summer we are having, hotter and dryer than usual, any day is a good day for frozen custard. Maybe I need some right now.

08/08/2016 0

National Root Beer Float Day

This is another one of those days that there were too many subjects I could write about. So we’ll start with a couple of sentences enveloping the topics.

After playing disc golf, wiggle your toes through a lunch of a Jamaican Patty with mustard on it while drinking a root beer float. Then, freshen your breath so you can enjoy a glass of mead later.

It’s interesting when I look at the National Day of ………calendar. Many of these days have been designated for less than twenty years. They were created to bring awareness to a specific thing by a specific group; often times for advertising purposes. Fresh breath is about keeping your teeth/mouth clean. Mustard Day is an annual festival in Middleton, Wisconsin, where the mustard museum is. The profits from the festival help organizations in that town. And just so you know, a Jamaican would probably never put mustard on a meat pastry, but it sounded good in the sentence. We have a Jamaican friend that owns a roofing business near us. When he stops into the office my husband works at, he often brings patties. We enjoy them as a treat for supper.

Disc golf is new on the scene. One of our cousin’s adult sons is very into this type of fun exercise. During the seven feet of snow in Boston a couple of years ago, he posted pictures on Facebook of himself and friends throwing Frisbees into garbage cans, from a good distance of course. They could see no reason to stay indoors when there was a game to be played outdoors. I hope they had a warm fireplace to wiggle their toes in front of afterwards. And knowing them there was a little alcohol to celebrate with. That’s where the mead fits in. “Mead has been known to be called the “ancestor of all fermented drinks.”

So what happened to the root beer float? If you are as old as I am, you remember the car hop days when servers on roller skates brought your burger (with mustard), fries, and root beer float to you on a tray that hooked onto your car when the window was rolled down. Yes, we rolled the window down with a crank handle. I’m not sure why the root beer float is more common, than say, a coke float, but it is in my neck of the woods. I find it refreshing, especially on a hot summer day.

08/06/2016 0

National Oyster Day

Oysters are a delicacy you either like or don’t like. I can almost hear the simultaneous “yuck” and “yum” comments. I’m on the yum side.

Growing up the family Thanksgiving dinner was at our house. In preparation to make stuffing from scratch, all year long we would put the crusts of bread in a pan in the lower cupboard. The night before Thanksgiving we would turn them into crumbs in the grinder that we attached to the table. It was my priviledge to turn the hand crank. Some of the crumbs were set aside so Mom could make scalloped oysters. When she would open the container of oysters, I never minded the fishy smell, but the slimyness got to me; I usually left the room. That traditional dish was probably the most expensive and least fought over on the adult table.

I’m not positive when my taste changed, but now I order them whenever I can. I am fortunate to have been able to enjoy them out on Cape Cod and in Boston, Massachusetts; at an ocean front restaurant on the New Jersey coast; on Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco; on the Oregon coast near Cannon Beach; in Seattle; and at local clam bakes in upstate New York. The discussion between my husband and myself is whether we are going to share or not. Usually, it’s not. I like them with a bit of cocktail sauce.

According to my sources, over two billion pounds of oysters are consumed each year. The east coast ones are smaller, milder and saltier. The ones from the west coast are creamier and sweeter.

I’m sure you have heard that oysters are a natural aphrodesiac. From my experience I couldn’t attest to that. Since it is also National Underwear Day, maybe it would be an idea to have some oysters and see if you are more anxiouos to strip down to your underwear. Just a thought.

08/05/2016 0

National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day

One of my favorite smells is chocolate chip cookies baking in the oven. It’s not only the smell; it’s the satisfaction of mixing them up, licking the beaters, having well used cookie sheets, and family waiting to eat them while they are hot.

I grew up in a 4-H household so I learned early how to measure ingredients correctly, use good ones and have the butter and eggs at room temperature. We rarely bought any baked goods; Girl Scout cookies and Oreos were exceptions. Nestle’s semi-sweet chocolate chips were, and still are, my chip of choice. I’ve tried others, but nothing comes close to the familiar taste I came to know as a child. I can probably recite the cookie recipe on the back of the Nestle’s bag.

My mother was born in 1906. I’m not sure her age had anything to do with it, but it was customary to serve a snack whenever coffee was poured for a visitor. Mind you, the definition of visitor was usually a neighbor, a best friend or one of my father’s hunting buddies. I have carried on that tradition and I like that I am known for scratch-made cakes and cookies.

My grandson stayed overnight when he was about five and asked if we could make cookies. Of course I said yes. He opened the refrigerator door, stood there inspecting the shelves and finally said, “I don’t see any.”

I smiled when I realized he was looking for a package of pre-mixed dough. I told him, “Grandma doesn’t do it that way. How about you help me.” He watched wide eyed as I got out all the ingredients and the mixer. He had a ball cracking the eggs and being my taste tester. I got a call about a week later from my daughter. She said in a sarcastic tone, “Thanks.” I asked, “For what?” Her answer, “William now expects me to make cookies the way you do.” I told her to think of it as a bonding opportunity.

I find it sad that families today are so busy that baking from scratch is not the norm anymore. Heck, I know a bunch of young women that don’t cook at all. It doesn’t make sense to me that they never learned.

May I suggest, the next time you eat a chocolate chip cookie try to imagine yourself at a kitchen table eating it hot out of the oven. I guarantee it will taste better.

08/04/2016 0

Sue Spitulnik

Writing, Sewing, Travel, and Thoughts

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