The Thrift Store Cookbook
Never Enough! There are two things the Kansas Woman can never get enough of — chocolate and ice cream. Her go-to comfort food is, understandably, chocolate ice cream containing little chunks of chocolate “surprises.”
When she is faced with a day in which there is nothing to do (that she wants to do) she sits down with a thrift store cookbook, pacified for most of the morning.
The TV weather-guessers said yesterday would be rainy from the git-go, so she didn't plan backyard tinkering and sat down with her newest find.
“Whoa!” I heard from her chair and she held up the cookbook, her newest treasure.
“Did you know anyone at the Methodist Church in Alma?” she asked.
When my family lived in Alma, the kids were known by and associated with kids from their family church. The school was split up that way, but my “bestee” was William Walter (Bill) Lee, named for surgeon Dr. W. W. Sharpe. Bill was a Methodist and we got along just fine.
Dr. Sharpe had a prosthetic leg and operated propped up on a stool.
The story goes that a nurse in the surgery held Dr. Sharpe's lighted cigarette while he operated. He turned his head when he needed a pull which he took through his cotton surgical mask.
Yes, I know about the flammability of either and don't know how they handled that.
I probably should save the story of the ash on the end of Dr. Goldwasser's cigarette and how people wagered on how long it would take for it to fall off. continued from page
“Did you know any of these people?” she called out. The first one was Sylvia Sweat Sears. We were in the same class until my family moved away. She married Joe Sears, one of the best athletes I ever knew. She called out “Jeanie Lee.” Jeanie was my neighbor and married Bill. The Cliatts had connections in Vidalia. She became a Methodist by marrying Bill. Then came “Midge Lawson,” married to the lawyer R.E. Lawson, but they were Baptist as far as I knew. They switched.
Eloise Douglas was my teacher. Twice. The KW scribbled down her recipe for Caramel Icing. Mrs. Douglas is buried at Douglas Chapel Baptist Church, a stop I need to make on my next road trip. “How about Vicki Vickers?” Well, Alma had two of those. The one in the cookbook has been one of the greater lights of the Alma Methodist Church for years. The other was Olin Vickers' daughter. He was a deacon and on the building committee at First Baptist Church when the new building was constructed.
The cookbook offered some household hints: “wax your ashtrays to avoid daily cleaning.”
I don't even know anybody who owns an ashtray. Next was a suggestion to use a plain chocolate bar to remove gum from hair. Then, what do you do with the chocolate bar?
No. Don't say it.
joenphillips@yahoo.com
