Food as Memory

When I was a girl, my grandmother made most things from scratch. She had a huge pantry full of canned fruit. Living on the hill overlooking amazing Lake Chelan she was blessed to live in an area full of wonderful soil that provided orchards full of fruit and gardens full of vegetables.

Rhubarb chopped & ready for Jam.

Of course I love the apricots and apples that were so readily available for her but what I love even more was the RHUBARB! I can't tell you how wonderful her strawberry rhubarb crisp was or her lovely rhubarb jam.  Being its spring now the rhubarb is growing wonderfully here.  I have rhubarb that I transplanted last year and it is growing great but its still a bit small. Thankfully I have a friend who has an old rhubarb plant that it just a monster and he gave me about 16 large stocks to use.

I had planned on making a rhubarb crisp for my husband but as I was surfing along on my favorite recipe website, AllRecipes, and found a wonderfully odd recipe to use my rhubarb up on. Strawberry Rhubarb Jam, sounds normal right? Funny thing is the recipe doesn't use any strawberries at all! It uses strawberry jello! The jello helps to gel up the jam and provides the strawberry flavor. The recipe only has three ingredients, rhubarb, sugar and jello! You can even go sugar free and it works. Long story short I made a monster batch of this jam and it was so easy and tasted great.  Next time though I am going to add some curls of orange zest to it for a little more firmness to the jam and only 2/3 the amount of sugar, I like things a little tart- kind of like me!

My son is going crazy over it and for me it was a sweet reminder of my grandmother... a fun, fiesty lady I wish that my children could have had the opportunity to meet.  Maybe get out a favorite recipe from your grandmother and share it with your children...that love will come across the generations.  Perhaps my sweet children will remember this rhubarb jam so much they will want to make it for their babies 20 years from now!

OMG! Wonderful, Crazy Trip....

so we had a lovely, lovely time in Chelan, the water was amazing, my family & especially sweet Aunt and Uncle were welcoming and generous as always....this is where we got to stay:

BUT it was a crazy adventure getting there and most definately getting home!  My husbands girlfriend Betty (his motorcycle!) started getting fussy and so my sweet Cousin let us park her in his garage and then we were off to Chelan in the van that I was driving with the kids & luggage to enjoy those amazing waters!  On the way home she was playing nice but then just as we got about 60miles from home these beautiful crazy looking skies....

... started a lighting firestorm that was like driving through the breath of a dragon!  Sounds dramatic I know but it was crazy, the wind came up due to the fire and it was crazy smoky and huge tumbleweeds started coming out and attacking us, my poor husband was getting pushed all over the place and trying to breathe in all that smoke was aweful!  Thank goodness for our dear friend who was shopping in town and brought her ramp just in case!  She rescued Betty and a kind man gave us a strap to lock her in the back of the truck and we made it home surrounded by lighting flashes and just as we walked through the front door the rain came!  Pouring down and drowning out the flames, dust and wind and we were safe inside our home with our dogs, who had been taken care of beautifully by another dear family friend, wanting lots of love...definately not a trip we will forget anytime soon!