Suzy would like to honor her two moms, sharing a little bit about them and a couple of their recipes.

My mom the poet

My Mom was a poet and loved poetry.  She didn’t sing to me as she would push me on the swing at the neighborhood park in Dickinson; she would recite the poem, The Swing by Robert Louis Stevenson

How do you like to go up in a swing,

             Up in the air so blue?

Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing

             Ever a child can do! ………..

I loved to go to the park with my mom and loved to hear that poem.

Mom

My mom, Wilma, was born in 1918. When she gave birth to me in1958,she was 40 years old, not common in the 50’s to be a older mom.   She tells when she was pregnant with me, her sister, sister-in-law, and their families were gathered for Thanksgiving.  She was running water over a jello  salad mold (common side dish then) when one announced they were expecting a baby in late May, early June, then the other announced she too was expecting, and then my mom almost melted that molded jello salad into the sink proclaiming she too was having a baby, that would be me.  One cousin was born May 30, 1958, and another cousin and myself were born June 9, 1958.

Mom the baker

Mom was a great baker, a caregiver. She once made a meal for the Norwegian immigrant Governor Moses of North Dakota when she worked for the Austad’s in Hettinger North Dakota.  As a child that made me beam with pride. 

My favorites of my mom’s were homemade raised donuts, caramel rolls, butter fingers (butter horns) homemade noodles, Tollhouse bars, brownies and cutting out sugar cookies with her.   She baked delicious pies and would let me make the Lemon Meringue Pies for family gatherings.  She told me how her mother would bake the meringue in their firewood burning oven, using her hand outstretched above the heat to tell the just right temperature.  I can’t even imagine that.

Suzy’s Baking

A favorite time of year for me growing up was the holidays. Mom would be busy in the kitchen. She baked the apple, cherry and pumpkin pies but let me make the Lemon Meringue Pie. We would also bake cookies together using the tupperware red cookie cutters and the vintage aluminum cutters she had.

Suzy’s Modified Recipe of her mom’s cookies

Royal Icing

Suzy used these recipes to do a fundraiser for the Bisman BPW Legacy Art Project

My Other Mom

My other Mother, Rose, is the best mother-in-law anyone could ever have.  She served the community with the humble work she did at the grocery store.  She told me about her limited education. Many, back in the day, never went to high school, she was afraid that she could not learn how to check out a customer ‘s groceries at Bill’s Super Valu in Mandan.  She said it was the encouragement of Bill Joresz that she did learn how to run the cash register which was a pull-down handle when she first started, people paid with a cream check, and digital when she retired more that 40 years later, people paying with a credit card. 

Rose was the Hometown Hero during the 4^th of July parade in Mandan in 2003 when she rode the float for Barlow’s Super Market, the photo of her is in

Grandma Rose’s German from Russia recipe for Creamy Cucumber Salad

Rose’s son favorite summertime German from Russia salad she makes for him is the Creamed Cucumber. 

She made all the family meals for birthdays, holidays and loved doing it till she got into her 90’s than she would let her granddaughters or others bring the food, but she would still host the gatherings.

She hand wrote out many recipes in spiral notebooks and had them numbered with a index in the back as to the page you would find them, often notes of who originally gave her the recipe.

The creamed cucumbers are not written down, but she tells how she makes them in a video I recorded

This is a very easy recipe, but it is one you taste as you go. Rose was 93 years old at the time of recording this video and has been making this for years. She is Suzy’s mother-in-law.

Rose’s German Cucumber Salad

Peel and thinly slice cucumbers Marinate in salt till they get juicy (visible liquid forms in bowl)

Add heavy whipping cream diluted with water Vinegar to taste.

 Diced chopped onion Pepper to taste Serve or store in refrigerator.

A recipe from her spiral notebook for frozen cucumbers from her mother-in-law Frances, she said can be thawed and used in the salad.

She said she uses the thawed cucumbers but eliminates marinating the cucumber step Ma Beehler’s frozen cucumbers (Suzy hubby’s grandmother’s recipe)

4 quarts of cucumbers peeled and thinly sliced

1 medium onion sliced thin

4 teaspoons salt

 Mix well and store in refrigerator for two hours

Stir a few times after 2 hours and strain

 Mix and stir 1 1/2 cup sugar and 1/2 cup vinegar till sugar is dissolved.

Add cucumbers, put in containers and freeze.

Happy Mother’s Day!