At least, she was called Granny when I first met the cast iron skillet. But she informed her grandchildren that she no longer wanted to be called Granny because she looked it up in the dictionary and it meant old woman. She seemed ancient to us, but looking back, I'm sure she was probably in her late 40's, certainly not 50 yet. Just a kid by my standards today. So we called her Grandma. Years later, my sisters and I were taking our kids to see their Great Grandma and my daughter got mixed up and said, "I just can't wait to see my Great Big Grandma!" So that's who she was for the rest of her life, although she was not Great Big! At all!
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| Granny and me. First grandchild. #win |
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| Grandma with grandkids. I'm crying because I have to sit on the grass. |
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| Great Big Grandma with the great grandkids |
But back to the cast iron skillet. This skillet has seen a lot of years and a lot of cooking. Bacon, sausage, chicken, squirrel.
It began its work early in the morning. By 5:30 am, we would smell sausage or bacon cooking so Poppy Ed could eat and then tend to the cows. WFAA radio had a super strong signal that reached from Dallas all the way to Lane, Oklahoma and accompanied the cooking.
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| Granny and Poppy Ed |
Breakfast almost always had sausage or bacon or both, biscuits (from a can, interestingly enough), and fried or scrambled eggs. Gravy. I don't remember any frou frou dishes such as French toast or pancakes. Certainly not omelets or quiche. Any sausage or bacon that was left over sat on the stovetop for hungry granddaughters to grab later. With a cold biscuit, also on the stovetop. Next to the cast iron iron skillet, which may or may not still have grease in it until lunch.
Lunch was usually the big meal with the previously mentioned fried chicken and/or squirrel. I honestly don't think I ever chose the squirrel, but it didn't look that different from the chicken and it was all on one platter. So....maybe I ate squirrel. Mashed potatoes, green beans and corn. From the garden that you had to hike what seemed like miles through barbed wire to get to. This was not an adventure for city girls, but my sisters and I did it anyway. The green beans required snapping, which we helped with on the front porch. The corn needed shucking, which we did once in the back of a pickup. No idea why that was. We never questioned why anything was done the way it was, until a few years ago. My sisters were snapping beans outside by Sister 3's pool and it was blazing hot. Finally, Sister 2 said "Is there any reason we can't do this in the house?"
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| Holiday table. To the left is platter of fried things next to mashed potatoes. Fruit is wax! |
After lunch, the cast iron skillet was done for the day, because dinner would be leftovers from lunch. It needed its rest because the next day started early.
It is in this skillet I cooked my first meal, under Grandma's supervision. She pulled a recipe from one of those homemade cookbooks like churches sell for fundraisers. I remember it being a Girl Scout stew recipe. The only time I ever knew her to reference a recipe was helping me cook this meal. And although you can find virtually anything on the internet, I haven't been able to find what I think is the exact recipe. But it was a pretty standard formula.
Brown ground beef and onions. Layer in some order tomatoes, corn, green beans. Maybe cheese? At this point my memory gets fuzzy. I think it was yummy. I have never made it again.
When it became necessary for Grandma to move to a nursing home, my mother and her sisters cleaned out the house, and mother brought me the cast iron skillet. Grandma knew this for some reason, and frequently fretted to my mom that she needed to season that skillet for me.
I wish she could have seasoned it for me, BUT I was able to find instructions for seasoning the skillet online. I think of her every time I cook in it. The other night I made my own layered stew of sorts. Mushrooms and onions layered with chicken and roasted in the cast iron skillet. The green beans were out of a can, because I don't have a garden to hike miles to through barbed wire. And I didn't have to sit in the sun and snap them. There are, after all, taste sacrifices to be made for convenience. I have yet to fry my first squirrel, but if I ever do, you can bet I will fry it in Granny's cast iron skillet.
It is in this skillet I cooked my first meal, under Grandma's supervision. She pulled a recipe from one of those homemade cookbooks like churches sell for fundraisers. I remember it being a Girl Scout stew recipe. The only time I ever knew her to reference a recipe was helping me cook this meal. And although you can find virtually anything on the internet, I haven't been able to find what I think is the exact recipe. But it was a pretty standard formula.
Brown ground beef and onions. Layer in some order tomatoes, corn, green beans. Maybe cheese? At this point my memory gets fuzzy. I think it was yummy. I have never made it again.
When it became necessary for Grandma to move to a nursing home, my mother and her sisters cleaned out the house, and mother brought me the cast iron skillet. Grandma knew this for some reason, and frequently fretted to my mom that she needed to season that skillet for me.
I wish she could have seasoned it for me, BUT I was able to find instructions for seasoning the skillet online. I think of her every time I cook in it. The other night I made my own layered stew of sorts. Mushrooms and onions layered with chicken and roasted in the cast iron skillet. The green beans were out of a can, because I don't have a garden to hike miles to through barbed wire. And I didn't have to sit in the sun and snap them. There are, after all, taste sacrifices to be made for convenience. I have yet to fry my first squirrel, but if I ever do, you can bet I will fry it in Granny's cast iron skillet.
