Daniel's Ginger Cookies

On a cold and damp day last spring, Ezra and I were drawn into historic Joseph Schneider Haus where we were warmed by the cast iron stove and these simple ginger cookies. They are, quite honestly, the best I've ever tasted. And the museum had a copy of the recipe on hand! The secret ingredient is apple syrup, which is a consistency somewhere between molasses and maple syrup. If you're from Waterloo county, it's easy to procure. (For sure you can find some from Wellesley). In a pinch, I would try thinning some apple butter with maple syrup and a bit of molasses. Worth a shot!



More on the museum:

The Georgian style farmstead was built in 1816 by one of Waterloo region's first pioneers: a Pennsylvania-German mennonite who came to Canada in pursuit of farmland in the years after the revolutionary war.

And the cookies...

3/4 cup lard (I use shortening)
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
4 Tbsp apple syrup
2 tsp soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp ginger (I added a bit more)
1 tsp ground cloves
2 cups flour

1. Blend together the lard and sugar until smooth.
2. Add the egg.
3. Add syrup, soda, salt, ginger, and cloves.
4. Stir in flour.
5. Chill the dough.
6. Shape dough into round balls. Place these on a cookie sheet and flatten with a fork.
7. Bake cookies in a quick oven (400 degrees)

*A note on baking with historic recipes

-I use medium eggs for historic baking. In this time period, eggs were not graded, but came in all manner of sizes as you collected them from your chickens. Most historic recipes measure eggs by weight. This one may have been converted for a modern kitchen. For best results, use medium or large and avoid sm or XL.

-How long? Well, when you cook or bake on a woodstove, it's impossible to gauge temperature, therefore impossible to gauge how long something will take to cook. I think these cookies took 8-10, but watch the first batch carefully and take note on the time. Remove when golden brown.

DIY Xmas: Lambrequins!

One of the most awesome crafty DIY things I learned during my initiation as a Victorian hostess was how to make a lambrequin. A lambre-wha??? Lambrequin. A trimming of sorts, that involves fresh greenery arranged above mirrors and art work, and, well, anything with a back on it, really. Even a chair.

As main greenery, use cedar, pine, or fir boughs, about 3 feet in length. Try adding blueberry cedar for a hint of colour. This will also bulk it up, as its boughs are more bushy and dense. I recommend using real greenery as its smell permeates the home. Don't worry about falling needles. Art work tends not to get knocked about so it's not too much of a mess.

Colourful and textural additions include:

-berries
-dried rosehips
-dried Chinese lanterns
-teasel heads
-fluffy milkweed pods
-dried orange and apple slices
-pine cones

For added scent, insert long sticks of cinnamon into your arrangement, or affix cloves or star anise into the dried apple/orange slices.

And last, but not least, be sure to add long cuttings of curly Willow and dogwood for dramatic effect!

To assemble, simply place arrangement into a shallow cardboard pouch. You can staple or tape the sides. Measure the depth behind your art work so there is no evidence of the pouch once it's pushed down.

Behold, our Victorian lambrequins:

Crock Blocked

It's worth noting that if we never made mistakes, we'd never make anything. Bob Dylan sings: There's no success like failure...but then he negates it with: And failure's no success at all. So it still sucks.

In late August, I was so optimistic. I had purchased 3 bushels of pickles, and sourced an old-fashioned ceramic crock from a mennonite hardware store. I harvested grape leaves from Woodside. Purchased several heads of garlic and stalks of fresh dill from the local market, soil still clinging to the roots. Salt from the Himalayas. Yeah, I was pretty smug about the whole thing, and spared no expense. I had visions of friends and family clamoring for jars of my crunchy sour beauties, floating in wispy clouds of fermented perfection. I remember thinking: if all goes well, I should open a business. If-I-ferment-them-they-will-come kind of pipe dreams. Oh how wrong I was. That night, I layered and compacted my ingredients in the crock, dissolved the salt into water, and left the rest to time.







Three weeks went by, and every day I dutifully skimmed the scum from the top. The smell was putrid. I told myself this was a good sign. Like gorgonzola or blue cheese, I couldn't judge the complexities of taste by a bad smell. Turns out, sometimes you can.

Long story short, the pickles had completely mush-ified. With my touch, they imploded. And all I was left with was a house that smelled strongly of a dog vomiting a brick of cheese. The smell of total defeat.

But take heart, take heart. If at first you don't succeed, make SAUERKRAUT! I can't leave off on a sour note, pardon the pun. So here's my silver lining: my sauerkraut turned out awesome. Cabbage has never let me down. Here are the pictures of my beautiful beet-tinted kale and cabbage kraut. Next we will try the Korean variety, for some spicy times. Stay tuned for kimchi.




As for pickles...well, I recommend Bubby's. They're pretty darned tasty.

Peasant Hands

When I was trying to come up with a name for this blog, I thought long and hard about my focus. My other blogs tended to be directionless messes, not a bit like me I am sure, but I wanted to rein it in this time. Keep it from going off the rails. My job in heritage has afforded opportunities to learn and try out historic cooking in a historic kitchen. But I don't want to limit myself to olde thyme cookery. Or to one culture. Or to one type of food. So I'm back where I started. A food blog with no focus.

And then I thought about why I'm here in the first place. It's quite simple, actually. I want to feed you. It's how I show my love. It's how I learn and experience culture and share my own. And it most certainly is how I remember the past. And now, it is how I will prepare my son for the future. Here is where he will read about his childhood. And learn who his mama is. And who the other important women in the kitchen were. Times have changed. And so have gender roles. He belongs in the kitchen just as much as I do. And he will learn to cook his culture. Bake his past. And roll out his future on a flour-dusted counter.

Take our hands, and come along on this family journey if you dare. If you've ever had the misfortune of taking my hand, you'll know. They are peasant hands. Just like my mom's. And my grandma's. Dry and chapped. They have worked the earth and toiled by the hearth. Deeply lined and tanned and chapped. Scrubbed and sinewy and smelling distinctly of onion and garlic. They are, in a word, awesome. They are my very best feature. And when I get done with my son, I hope his will look and feel the very same.

Here we go again

A new blog! Not again, you say. Haven't we been here before, Sarah? And you suck at updating. Plus, you're boring.

Yes, I'm back. And I'm making a mess. Baking stuff. Fermenting stuff. And probably blowing sh-t up too. There will be casualties, I promise you. I will document my divine creations and the disasters too. And share some recipes. We're going to have fun! (sound of a mouse clicking the f-ck outta here)

OK, I will throw in some special features to sweeten the deal a bit, OK? How about I devote an entire month to cabbage recipes. And drunk-bake once in awhile. Deal? Goody.