On 11/27/2020 04:40 AM, wrote:
My mother and grandmother both worked, so neither had much time for or
interest in cooking. I "enjoyed" such staples as:

Pan-fried whitefish breaded with corn flake crumbs
Spaghetti made with Campbell's tomato soup
A dessert involving vanilla wafer crumbs, marshmallows, Cool Whip, and canned pineapple.


Luckily my mother managed to both work and cook. We had pan-fried perch,
bullheads, sunfish, or whatever else was biting but they weren't
breaded. The only breaded stuff I remember was a long drawn out fried
chicken process. First she parboiled the chicken then rolled it in flour
and fried it. It wasn't one of my favorites.

Looking back she had a lot of energy. She was in her 40's when I was
born so wasn't a young woman but she put in her 8 hours in the office at
Cluett & Peabody, cooked, was in the Home Bureau, the African Violet
Society, and Rebekahs and a few other activities.

This time of year she would ramp up terrarium production and other
Christmas stuff she sold. The terrariums were a good thing. They gave my
father and I license to go tromp around the woods as long as the game
bag included suitable moss, princess pine, british soldiers, partridge
berries and other raw materials.

Then there was the rose garden and rock garden in the summer... I had a
happy childhood but I wasn't necessarily a top priority in her busy
schedule.