As I walk into the kitchen at the farm, the old wood stove is laughing and talking. She says, “Your getting ‘red flannels’ for breakfast again. They will be served along with eggs sunny side up, crisp thick bacon, and apple rounds fried in butter.” Oh my. A sweet way to start the day. I suspect most of you have never had red flannels for breakfast. Easy to make, just shred beets, toss them in crushed rosemary, and fry them in butter. So very good. I wonder where red flannels got the name. The wood stove reads my mind and says, “Your Mother named them. She made them often in the fall and winter and I think she named them red flannels because it was the cold time of the year. Remember the red flannel pajamas you Mother made for you?” Oh my. The wood stove has me off on memory lane. Mom had a habit of naming her recipes and always seemed to be creative about both her cooking and recipe names. Enticing us to eat whatever was served, I think she was. One morning we had red flannels for breakfast and a few nights later again for dinner. I said, “oh no, not more red flannels.” While that got her going. She said “tonight these are not red flannels they are ‘Beets Rossini.’” She went on, “I named them after Gioacchino Rossini--you know the great Italian composer. He composed a lot of great operas including “The Barber of Seville. You need to get to know him.” Well as a young teenager I was no great fan of opera. Still am not. But Mom and Dad would always find a way in dinner table conversation to send us kids to the World Book encyclopedias for research after dinner. That night I learned that Rossini was not only a great composer, but a fabulous chef and he often composed as he cooked. Funny how the old wood stove just saying “red flannels for breakfast” got my mind going down memory lane. When Mom grew up she was traveling by horseback herding cattle on this farm. During my younger years she enjoyed travel by car, but she never flew until my Dad passed away in the ‘70’s. Then in the 80’s, when she was in her 80’s, she really let her self go on the travel circuit. Her first trips were to Costa Rica with the Minnesota Horticulture Society. Oh how she loved the flowers and birds of that tiny country. Then she was off to New Zealand and Australia to see the world of down under. Then approaching 90 she announced that she was going to travel to China. Well we thought Mom was to old to do that but she said--with a twinkle in her eye and a smile on her face-- that she wanted to walk on the Great Wall before she died. Well there was no stopping her. And when I start writing there is no stopping me. But I keep you far too long, but some lifetime lessons here--at least for me. We are never to old to try something new. “Yes, I can” is a better approach to life than “No I can’t do that. What would people think?” And there may be better things to do on a Saturday morning than to walk down memory lane, but I can think of any at the moment. Today I hope you savor old sweet memories and build some new ones as well. After all life was meant to be enjoyed--not simply endured. On this day the very best to you from the little farm deep in the woods north of Brainerd.
Posted on: Sat, 09 Nov 2013 15:23:26 +0000
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