Post #98 – Women’s Memoir Writing, ScrapMoir – Matilda Butler and Kendra Bonnett
Scrapbooking Our Memories, One Story at a Time
Want a way to capture memories for the future? I’m not talking about a journal where you write. This way stores sounds that will evoke memories for years to come. What is this approach? It is a lovely take away from June Baker Jefferson’s memoir vignette, The Best Gifts.
Memoir Contest Award Winner, Finalist
THE BEST GIFTS
June Baker Jefferson
Mama and Daddy both worked long hours, on weekends as well as weekdays, especially during the holidays. It was rare for us all to be together at home as a family. At church, sure, but that was to be expected since Mother was our church organist and being the organist’s children was like being the PK’s, the Preacher’s Kids: always present.
Mama’s musical skills were required for the many holiday-themed weddings, in addition to her regular piano and organ teaching. Our town had so many Thanksgiving and Christmas music programs, I’d lose count and track of where “Mother was playing.”
Daddy would be called at home sometimes by his customers, asking him to perform some emergency tailoring or drycleaning for the fancy dress events of the season. Back then, clothes appropriate to the occasion were a necessity and my father’s skillful and conscientious touch were in demand.
Both my parents’ services would also be required without prior notice when a funeral had to be scheduled for an unexpected, seemingly inevitable, death of a community member.
So it was a special circumstance when either or both of them were able to be at home relaxing for awhile, not only during the holidays, but any time of the year. Our best Christmas gifts were the few hours our whole family had together in the house with no particular place we had to go.
In the early days before television, our holiday time was spent talking, reading, napping, sometimes listening to a radio show in front of the fireplace, or in the kitchen, helping to prepare or just enjoying my grandmother’s renowned food. Friends of all ages would drop by for that same reason because Mama Grace’s cooking made everyone feel good. Sometimes the visitors brought their own contributions – the anticipated fruitcake (really!) or the famous cocoon cookies, divinity and fudge.
I remember one holiday season after my grandmother died when I purchased a portable cassette tape recorder. It was only about the size of a clipboard and ran on either batteries or a wall plug. Compared to an old reel to reel behemoth tape machines, it was considered state of the art.
That year we started a new family ritual. I had no idea what a treasure it would be to us in the future. We placed the tape recorder in plain sight on the big table in the kitchen and soon everyone forgot its function and its presence. It recorded our lives, the rare times at home all together, and the blessed voices I love to hear just one more time.
I especially value one tape of the clatter and conversation of a Christmas Eve, just a few phrases distinguishable amid the noise of a family’s preparation for holiday meals, wrapping of presents and, finally, the attempts by each of us to stealthily fill Christmas stockings and sneak gifts from “Santa” under the tree.
Voices on the tapes sound so much alike across the years. At times, I can only tell the difference between my sisters and Mama by what they are saying. Occasionally there is the interjection of a cat’s voice and rattle of food pellets into a bowl. Doors, familiar from a certain creak of the hinges, open from the living room or the back porch.
Always punctuating the murmurs, bursts of laughter, and some fully distinct sentences, are the sounds of our life in the kitchen. I recognize cast iron skillets being set on stove burners, the clank of utensils against plates, whispers of ladles stirring in pots, a spoon mixing dry ingredients in our crockery bowl, a spatula clanging the edge of the griddle.
When the kettle whistles and I hear a teaspoon click against the side of a mug, I think of the spiced tea mix that arrived in our home as a gift from one of Mother’s students and became a staple recipe from then on.
Thoughts of Mama Grace’s gingerbread, pineapple drop cookies, or brown sugar toast dance through my head and onto my taste buds as I recognize the scrape of the baking sheet being pulled from the oven. Warnings of “Hot! Hot!” accompany its transit to the cooling racks on the counter by the old soapstone kitchen sink.
There were the unique noises, too, ones I knew no one else could associate with their home. When the oven door hinge broke on a perfectly good stove, we called on a dark iron length of rebar to wedge under the handle to hold the door shut. It thudded when it was inched along the floor as we checked on casseroles, cakes, and roasts.
The double door of the tall metal cabinet that held flour, sugar, spices and tea had a warp and wouldn’t release its pungent-scented, vital baking ingredients without a squeak of protest. Likewise, I could tell when brown sugar or cocoa were being replaced; the squeak was accompanied with a slight kick at the door’s bottom.
I’ve tried to make most of our family’s recipes at least once somewhat successfully. So many of them were never written down. Most were designed for a family of seven and a passel of relatives and are hard to break down into servings for two.
But there’s one dish that began for us as breakfast, then carried over as an “any time” family comfort food we prepared through the years. Today, Brown Sugar Toast is something I turn to whenever I need a taste of home. It’s a remembrance of the best gifts our family had for each other: the rare times we got to stay home together.
BROWN SUGAR TOAST
We were first served this from a large patterned metal cookie sheet which held ten pieces. My grandmother “cooked” it in our gas oven and told us of her mother serving it to her, an indulgence but relatively inexpensive. As the family got smaller, and the oven died, we found a sheet of four would fit nicely on the tray for the original Munsey Toaster. It’s your choice to use a rack for a toastier underside or just the baking tray, which allows the toast to be sweetly soft and droopy.
I think four is the minimum one should prepare; you’ll see why after the first two pieces disappear quickly.
Years ago, the hardest part about this dish was the wait after we decided to “fix up a batch” of brown sugar toast. The butter had to get to room temperature to be spreadable because if it was too chunky, the melting process would be uneven leaving little scorched places that were not too fun to taste. However, the wait was always worth it.
Ingredients
Four square slices of bread
Butter, margarine, or olive oil “butter” substitute at room temperature or soft enough to spread
Brown sugar
Equipment
A standard oven, electric or gas, or a toaster oven will do. Must have broiling function. NO microwaving!
Cookie sheet or toaster tray, rack optional.
A silverware knife and a table setting teaspoon.
Using the knife, thoroughly cover the bread with your chosen spread, all the way to the crust edges, as if painting over one color entirely with another.
On the baking sheet or toaster rack, the pieces should be positioned with sides touching, forming a square with no space between the slices, so the edges don’t get too crispy.
Ladle brown sugar by teaspoonful over the top of the spread bread, applying a complete covering of sugar with no lumps.
Place under lit broiler of toaster or oven and watch carefully until butter melts and just before the brown sugar bubbles. You don’t want to caramelize the brown sugar.
Remove from oven, slide onto saucer or bread and butter plate. Allow to cool only enough to prevent burning your mouth. Best eaten while warm to savor the melted toast texture and flavor.
Goes nicely with hot tea and honey or, as a contrast, with a glass of cool apple juice.
memoir writing
writing tips
memoir writing contest
memoir
