Today is Memorial Day. I hope we all take a moment today to thank all of the men and women who gave everything they could to protect the rest of us and to preserve this wonderful country.
Many of my uncles (and some aunts) served during WWII. None of them are walking this earth any more, and while none of them talked about the war, I wish I had learned about their experiences when I had the chance. I know people on the home front during WWII also have their memories. My mother grew up not far from Fort Campbell, KY. She was old enough at the time to remember her older sisters collecting scrap metal for the war effort, and the young soldiers who spent Sunday afternoons on my grandmother’s porch. She also remembers rationing of various commodities during the war. In honor of Memorial Day, I am sharing one of my grandmother’s recipes. It’s for an unbaked fruit cake she made during WWII without using any rationed ingredients, such as sugar. (It’s not clear to me why sugar was rationed but marshmallows weren’t – perhaps that is some fun research for another day.) The image I included below this blog the original recipe in my grandmother’s handwriting. A typed version is below: Unbaked Fruitcake 32 marshmallows 1 ½ pounds graham crackers ½ pint whipping cream ¼ cup sweet pickle juice or wine ½ teaspoon cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, allspice 1 cup chopped dates ¼ cup chopped figs 1 ½ cups raisins or 1 cup raisins and ½ cup currents 1 cup pecans ½ cup candied pineapple ¾ cup candied cherries ¼ cup citron 2 Tablespoons candied orange peel Roll crackers into fine dust. Chop marshmallows, add to whipped cream and wine. Wash raisins. Pour boiling water over raisins, using enough to cover. Let stand 30 minutes. Mix spices and cracker dust. Add fruit and nuts to cracker dust. Add marshmallows and cream. Stir as long as possible with wooden spoon. Then with hands. That is where my grandmother’s recipe ends. (I am sure she assumed any cook worth her salt would know what to do next.) Based on other recipes for unbaked fruit cake, the rest of the directions are most likely to press it into one or two greased loaf pans, and store it in a refrigerator for at least a week. That’s it for today. Enjoy the parades and the cookouts, and don’t forget to thank all of the members of the military who died to make it all possible. God Bless America. - Karen
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Hello, my name is Karen Marcam, and welcome to my blog. Let me just say up front – I like to make up stories. There, I said it. Telling stories is in my DNA. But it took me a while to realize not everyone creates scenes in their head for people they just met, or strangers they saw across a crowded restaurant. (I guess storytellers are special that way.) I finally decided it was time to start writing down the stories crowding my mind. So here I am now. I write historical romances, and I invite you to join me a on my journey to being published. (I took a big step forward on the journey this spring because one of my stories, Saving Columbine Ranch, is a 2016 finalist in RWA’s Golden Heart® contest for non-published writers.) I will write notes periodically to update you on how the journey is progressing, and also to tell you a little bit more about myself. For instance, I like to bake. I may have inherited the storytelling gene from my father’s family, but I inherited the baking gene from my mother. She is a great Southern cook who, even in her eighties, still makes more pies each year than I could conceive of making in my lifetime. And she starts making Christmas cookies in September. Not surprisingly, she has accumulated a treasure trove of old recipes, and every now and then, I’ll share one with you. As someone who enjoys history, I enjoy learning bits of historical trivia while I’m researching a story. Since half the fun is in the sharing, I’ll share some of fun bits of history with my readers from time to time. And speaking of fun and history, am I the only one who thinks it’s fun to look at an old building and imagine its past? Often, when I see an old house, my first thought is “If these walls could really talk, think of the stories they could tell.” Does anyone else do the same thing? Don’t be surprised if I give you a chance to do it with me. I just may post a picture of an old house, speculate on its history, and invite you to do the same. So, there you have it. I invite you to stop back periodically and see what I am up to. I could use your moral support while I am working toward getting my stories published. And in return, I’ll make sure we do things purely for fun sometimes, too. Until next time, - Karen Marcam |
AuthorI write historical fiction, and I invite you to share the journey to published author with me. Archives
December 2022
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