Have you ever been to a cookie exchange? I went to my first one last Sunday and had a blast. All those treats!  Even better, the exchange was part of a bigger program. The Women’s Ministry at Centerpointe Christian Church here in Lexington used their December event to support a ministry called the Refuge for Women. The Refuge is a safe place for women who want to leave the adult entertainment industry. It’s an awesome program and one that is much needed. Yesterday’s event was a combination of education for those of us attending, gift giving to the women and children at the Refuge, and . . . cookies.

I’ll get to the cookies, but they weren’t the best part of the day.  The best part was seeing changed lives. As the women spoke, I thought of the Old West, brothels and how few choices women had then and sometimes even now. Today we have many more options, but once a person goes down a rabbit hole of abuse, drugs and the allure of quick money, it’s as hard to get out as it was for a woman in the Old West who found herself alone and in need for whatever reason.

The subject’s been on my mind a lot lately.  My current project has an 1894 story line about a crusading young woman from Indiana who goes to Cheyenne, Wyoming to teach school. Her story isn’t pretty. The handsome outlaw she meets is alluring but not hero material. Not at all. She goes down that rabbit hole of abuse and is afraid to go home. She’s about as low as a woman can go when her father comes to her rescue. Things turn around for her, just as they are turning for the women at the Refuge. It was pure joy to share the holiday with a mom recently reunited with her son and another woman thriving in a new career. It was sweet indeed . . .

Which leads me to the cookies! There must have been 50 different kinds, everything from decorated sugar cookies to ooey-gooey concoctions of pecans, caramel, peanut butter, coconut and every other ingredient in the baking aisle at the grocery store. The cutest were the reindeer cookies. I brought Christmas Tree Spritz. They’re super easy. I had planned to bring something else, but I’ve been in the hurt locker with a tooth problem. If it weren’t for the tooth (which included a trip to the ER for pain meds and an antibiotic shot), I would have made “Nana Bylin’s Almond Crescents.”  Just for fun here are the recipes for both.

Super Quick Spritz Cookies

• 1 lb. butter or margarine
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs beaten
• 2-1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 4-1/2 cups flour

Cream butter and sugar.  Add beaten eggs and vanilla and mix well. Add flour.  Use a small cookie press on ungreased cookie sheets.  Bake at 325 degrees for about 15 minutes or until bottoms are just slightly brown. Makes about 10 dozen little cookies

Nana Bylin’s Almond Crescents

• 1 lb. butter or margarine
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 lb. raw almonds, ground fine in a food processor or blender
• 4 cups flour
• 2 tsp vanilla

Cream butter and sugar. Add almonds and vanilla. Mix well. Add flour. Shape into small crescents, about 2 inches long. Bake at 300 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes. Roll in powdered sugar. Makes about 8 dozen cookies.

Merry Christmas to all! I hope your holidays are filled with bright lights, beautiful music, reindeer on your roof, cookies, love and good cheer.

One of the things I love about Christmas is traditions. I’m a farm girl, and I have a lot of “country” based traditions that I remember fondly. Some of them have gone by the wayside as I bring up my own family, but I remember them with a special sense of nostalgia, and one of the things I love about writing Christmas stories – in particular westerns – is that I can bring those traditions back to life.

Sometimes I think those traditions are part of what’s missing these days, too. Our lives get so busy that it’s a challenge to take the time to put in extra effort-  it’s easier to go into a store and buy it. But there really is nothing like a down home holiday and I think readers like them too – it provides a connection that they might not experience, or it may bring back fond memories too.

So what makes a down home Christmas?

Do you all know the scene in Christmas Vacation where they go out looking for the Griswold Family Christmas Tree? It’s a little extreme, but there’s nothing like going out in the back 40, finding the perfect – or not so perfect – tree and cutting it down for Christmas. Then freezing your feet off when you haul it back on a toboggan, and then put it in a Christmas tree stand and turn it to hide the “bad” side.

For our family, it’s also Christmas carols and movies. We have our favourites and make a point of watching them curled up on the sofa, or playing the carols as we work around the house. When I was a girl, I adored The Sound of Music. And I lived for Christmas specials on television. DVDs have kind of made that a little more “unspecial” because you can watch it when you want, however many times you want.

How about a candlelight Christmas Eve service at church?

When I was a girl we also used to gather at my brother’s house after church on Christmas Eve and have a potluck. My fond memory of that time is my sister in law’s chocolate bundt cake with peanut butter frosting. MMMM!

And speaking of food – how many traditions revolve around food? I’m guessing more than any other. There’s the Christmas dinner, of course, complete with turkey and stuffing and potatoes and vegetables and any number of desserts. My mom used to make a steamed pudding with sauce, and she always had pie for anyone who wasn’t into pudding. But beyond the meal there’s so much more to enjoy. For me, it’s the making of it that is as special as the eating. I have carried a lot of traditions forward to my girls. Some we’ve changed to suit our tastes – making shortbread is a big one, and fancy iced cookies, and my daughter makes a gumdrop cake each year and her younger sister is the master of Chocolate Peanut Butter Clusters. I remember being in the kitchen and making mocha cakes with my mom – what a mess! My mom did so much Christmas baking she could feed an army – and often did. We had a lot of drop in company in December, or she’d go to a church or community function with a big tray of goodies. Peanut Butter Balls, Scotch Cakes, Mocha Cakes, Doughnut Holes, Squares of every variety….

And there was always time to put on a kettle.

When the baking was done and the mess cleaned up, it was pretty normal to find my mom sitting with her latest knitting project in her hands, too. That’s how you’ll find me a good portion of the winter – especially Sunday afternoons, curled up with my girls and a movie.

It’s those sorts of things that make me really happy to be writing a holiday story right now. Not just drawing on the experiences but the warm, happy feelings that the memories bring. I can’t wait to bring this story to readers next November!

The first freeze of the season hit us this morning in Abilene, Texas. The cold snap reminds me that winter is fast approaching. Those blue northerner winds that cut through you like ice shards, sweaters, fuzzy socks, and lots of snuggle time with loved ones. Like any season, there are things to look forward to with excitement and things we tend to dread. One thing that I enjoy about the cooler temperatures, however, is the excuse to drink hot beverages. I’m not a coffee drinker, but I love hot tea sweetened with honey or even better . . . hot chocolate.

Hot chocolate makes me think of the ski lodge at Tahoe where my family used to go for our annual ski trip at Christmas. It makes me think of my mom and me huddled on the couch watching movies. It makes me think of my daughter who inherited my sweet tooth. But it also makes me think of my first heroine, Hannah Richards, in A Tailor-Made Bride. She couldn’t start her morning without a cup of hot cocoa.

Hannah mastered her sewing skills while working under the tutelage of an established dressmaker in San Antonio, but before coming to Texas, she lived with her mother and younger sister in Dorchester, Massachusetts. To support her girls after her husband died, Mrs. Richards took a job in the Baker Chocolate Mill where she was rewarded for her diligent work with discounts on their products. So instead of coffee or tea, the Richards women drank cocoa.

Not knowing how available breakfast cocoa would be in Coventry, Hannah made sure to pack one of the large five pound canisters in her trunks. And upon arrival, her first order of business, beyond finding her shop and unloading her belongings, was to arrange for a daily delivery of milk. One couldn’t drink breakfast cocoa without milk.

To prepare her morning cocoa, Hannah would first need to boil 2 cups of water in a kettle. While the water heated, she would take a small pan and mix 1 ½ tablespoons of her Baker’s Breakfast Cocoa, 2 tablespoons of sugar, and a few grains of salt. Once the water boiled, she would add ½ cup to the cocoa mixture and stir until it formed a paste. Then she pours the rest of the boiling water into the pan and lets the mixture boil for one minute. In the meantime, she is also scalding 2 cups of milk in a second pan. When the mixture has boiled for a minute and the milk is ready, she turns the chocolate mixture into the scalded milk and beats it for two minutes with a hand-held egg beater. Not quite as convenient as the instant packets we have today, but something tells me it would taste much better Hannah’s way.

1897

Thank you for the opportunity to share my new western historical romance, TEXAS TWILIGHT, with your readers.  It’s book two in The McCutcheon Family series, and was a joy to write.  I think it’s because I got so attached to the family in MONTANA DAWN, I was eager to learn more about them, create a little havoc in their lives, and feel the joy of them falling in love.

John Jake McCutcheon, the fourth brother, was only mentioned twice in book one.  Now, he’s out of medical school and starting a new practice in Rio Wells, Texas, the town where his extended family reside.  All goes well until Dustin, the oldest Texas cousin, takes a shine to Lily Anthony, the pretty young woman who has traveled in the same Wells Fargo coach with John to Rio Wells.  Sparks fly as the two McCutcheon men, so different yet also alike, square off.

For all you cowboy lovers, here is a short excerpt;

* * *

Chapter one

Texas Badlands, 1886

The stagecoach lurched. John Jake McCutcheon opened his eyes and saw the young woman next to him grasp the leather loop that hung from the coach’s ceiling to keep from being tossed around. She tipped precariously to the right, then left, bumping forcefully into his shoulder. With an apologetic glance she moved away, then dabbed at her brow with a folded handkerchief. She looked at her elderly aunt.

“Tante Harriet? Are you all right?” she asked in a soft German accent. She opened the fan she held and swished it back and forth in front of the tiny woman. “Your face is extremely red.”

“Of course, Lily,” Harriet Schmidt said in a raspy voice laced with exhaustion. The old woman’s hair was swept up atop her head and fastened in a bun, but after the miles and miles traveled on the dusty, sun-baked road, it looked more like a weather blown tumbleweed after a storm. She patted her niece on the knee. “Thank heavens we’re almost there. Just one more day and we’ll be out of this oven.”

John glanced away, not wanting to seem impolite. He’d met both Harriet Schmidt and her niece, Lily Anthony, when they’d boarded the stage together in Concepción. He’d seen them on the train from Boston, too, but they’d kept to themselves, never speaking with anyone else.

John gazed out the window, thinking. He was finally finished with his medical training and heading to West Texas. Anticipation coursed though him.

Rio Wells was a long way from his family ranch in Montana, but he’d get used to it. His plan to return to Y Knot after graduation hadn’t panned out. His hometown already supported two full-time physicians. If he really wanted to make a difference in people’s lives as a doctor and surgeon, he had to strike out in a place where the townsfolk were in need. At least he wouldn’t be a complete stranger in Rio Wells. Uncle Winston and his family were there. And his fiancée, Emmeline Jordan, would be joining him this fall.

John closed his eyes, recalling Emmeline’s elegant profile and dark, alluring eyes. In his mind’s eye, her mouth drew down into a seductive little pout, a manipulation he knew all too well, but one that, all the same, fueled his blood. She was like a beautiful, exotic bird, needing care and affection.

“Oh, just to take this corset off,” Harriett said to no one in particular, then chortled softly at her niece’s shocked expression at her bluntness. “It pinches horribly. I think I’ll throw it away for good.” She paused, thinking. “No…”  Her eyes twinkled mischievously. “Actually, I’ll burn it.”

Cyrus and Jeremiah Post and Abigail Smith, the other passengers cramped uncomfortably on the opposite seat, just smiled, now used to the old woman’s antics. Miss Smith, a teacher, had been hired by the same town council that had hired John, and he felt a small kinship with her.

“You know, Doctor McCutcheon,” Harriett Schmidt went on, trying to catch his eye, “my Lily doesn’t need a corset. Her waist is eighteen inches without one.”

“Tante Harriett. Please.”

John chuckled and shrugged his shoulders. He’d tried not to notice something like that, but it had been difficult, if not impossible. The girl had practically been snuggled to his side for several days.

Without warning, the driver called out sharply to the horses and the coach picked up speed. The two guards riding on top of the stage scuffled around and one shouted something unintelligible. John glanced out the window.

A shot rang out. One second later, one of the guards fell from the top of the stage, past the window, landing with a thunk as the stage rolled on. Lily gasped and threw her arms protectively around her aunt. Abigail screamed and then fainted, flopping over onto Cyrus’s shoulder.

The driver bellowed to the horses again and the stagecoach heaved forward as the six-horse team was propelled instantly into an all-out gallop. Three more shots were fired, and the sound of horses’ hooves thundered from behind.

John looked back through the dust to see a number of riders racing toward the stagecoach, eating up the distance between the two. What the hell was he supposed to do now?  He was a doctor. He’d taken the Hippocratic Oath to heal not three weeks before. His job was taking bullets out, not putting them in. But then, he’d also been raised on a rugged Montana ranch, where the unwavering reality was hard. Sometimes staying alive meant killing someone else. Besides, everyone’s lives were on the line, not just his. It would be especially bad for the women aboard. These hills were a common hiding place for Comancheros. They used women in the worst ways and then sold them into prostitution in Mexico. As pretty as she was, Lily Anthony would fetch top price. Hell, they’d sell the skinny teacher and the old woman, too.

Smoke and dust filled the coach. Pop. Pop. Pop. Lily covered her ears. Her elderly aunt coughed as she struggled to hang on. Abigail, now fully awake again, filled the small space with one shrill scream after the other, never even pausing to take a breath. John reached for his satchel under the seat, withdrew a Colt 45, and strapped on his holster. Carrying his guns was a habit he hadn’t been able to break even after his years at school. With hands nimble from experience, he loaded and fired several shots out the window. Two riders fell.

“You have another gun?”

John was surprised to see old Harriet Schmidt eyeing him expectantly. One hand was outstretched while the other grasped the windowsill as the coach careened down the road, jerking violently this way and that. “I’m not letting those filthy dogs take my Lily!”

“Can you shoot?”

“I wouldn’t ask if I couldn’t. My derringer’s not worth diddly.”

John squeezed off three more shots, then pulled another gun from his bag, handing it to Harriet. He pushed the bag toward Lily. “Bullets.”

Cyrus Post fired out the other side of the coach just as a bullet hit Cyrus’s brother in the chest, slamming Jeremiah violently against the back of the seat. Jeremiah gasped several times as he tried to hold back a rush of crimson that spurted through his splayed fingers, soaking his clothes. With just a glance, John could see he wasn’t long for this world. Abigail’s eyes grew round as she took in the blood. With a gasp, she fainted again, blessedly putting an end to her screams.

“Son of a bitch! “ Cyrus cried out. “There’s too many. Prepare to meet your maker.”

“Hush your mouth, you old coot,” Harriet shouted as she hefted the heavy gun and shot out the window. “I have more faith in God than that.”

The coach rounded a corner dangerously fast and then slowed up a bit as it began an uphill climb. One side of the road dropped off, falling some forty feet to a bed of jagged rocks.

Seizing the moment, John holstered his gun and opened the narrow door. He climbed the side of the rocking coach using the window as a step, and grasping the luggage rack, pulled himself up. He flopped onto his stomach, facing the oncoming killers and picked up the fallen guard’s Winchester. He took aim.

* * *

Since the holidays are just around the corner I’d like to share the recipe for my sister’s Beer Bread, which she makes every year at Thanksgiving and Christmas.  It’s not exactly a recipe from the 1800s, but it surely could’ve been—it’s that easy.  Give it a try.  You’ll be hooked, too;

3 cups Self Rising flour

3 Tlbs sugar

a 12 –oz can or bottle of beer (at room temperature)

1 cup chopped walnuts, 1 cup raisins

(OR ½ cup raisins and ½ cup cranberries—I use cherry flavored!)

a good shake of cinnamon.

Mix all ingredients together and put into a sprayed and floured bread pan.

Split the top with a knife.

Cover and set in a warm spot for 30 minutes so the dough can rise.

Cook in a 375-degree oven for 1hour and 15 minutes.

Watch at the end so it doesn’t become too brown.

Remove and while still hot, brush top with butter. ENJOY!!

I’m giving away an E-Book copy of TEXAS TWILIGHT, and also a paper copy of MONTANA DAWN to two different commenters.  Share with us if you’ve ever been in competition with a friend or family member for the same sweetheart?  Don’t be shy….

Available in E-Book online at Amazon and Barnes & Noble

LINK TO AMAZON

LINK TO B&N

In my current work in progress, I have placed a large, modern, garden just outside the kitchen door of the ranch house. In the days before refrigerators and all-night grocery stores, nearly every settler planted a kitchen garden once the house was finished, be it soddy, cabin or a mansion. But what exactly is a kitchen garden?

It’s just what the name implies: a garden planted near the kitchen in which you grow all the vegetables needed for every-day cooking, as well as a variety of herbs to add sensational flavor to every recipe.

“The bulk of homesteaders’ diets were harvested from their claim or gathered from the wilderness that surrounded them. “Store-bought” items consisted of those few items which could not be grown, shot, picked, or made on the farm… the homesteaders…often lived a prohibitive distance from the nearest store, and “trips to town” were few and far between.

“…Many families planted two gardens a year: one in the spring, which would supply greens, peas, and radishes, and one in the summer, which would provide heartier vegetables such as pumpkins, beans, potatoes, and squash. Settlers brought seeds with them to their new homes, bought them once they arrived on the frontier, or wrote to relatives “back East” asking for a hasty shipment. Creating bountiful gardens required constant vigilance against gophers, deer, bears, crows, and a host of other “invaders.” A successful garden was critical to homesteaders’ ability to feed themselves and their families; a single heavy storm or an unexpected frost could, in fact, destroy half a year’s supplies.
[Christopher W. Czajka, PBS Frontier House Essays, http://www.pbs.org/wnet/frontierhouse/frontierlife/essay6.html]

Here’s an example of the plantings in a recreated 1800s kitchen garden at the NEW HAMPSHIRE FARM MUSEUM:

“…Peas, snap and shell/ Onions, sweet, yellow storage, red, and red storage/ Leeks, early and late types/ Scallions, purple and white/ Cauliflower (some spring, mostly fall)/ Celeriac/ Lettuce/ Mesclun mix (mixed lettuces and other greens)/ Spinach/ Herbs: Basil, Dill, Parsley, Cilantro, (Cumin?)/ Bok Choy/ Cabbage/ Broccoli/ Fava Beans (trial size planting)/ Swiss Chard/ Kale, green curly (Winterbor), red curly (Redbor), Red Russian, Lacinato/ Collards/ Beets/ Carrots/ Hakurei (Salad) Turnips/ Radishes/ Beans, green and dry types/ ParsnipsTomatoes, red types, cherries, heirlooms/ Husk Cherries (Ground Cherries)/ Peppers, sweet and hot types / Eggplants/ Cucumbers, pickling and slicing types/ Summer Squash, yellow, Pattypans, Zucchinis/ Potatoes, early, mid, late types, (fingerlings, reds, whites, blues, golds….)/ Corn, sweet, ornamental, popcorn Brussels Sprouts (fall only)/ Muskmelons/ Watermelons/ Winter Squashes/ Pumpkins, Jack-o-lantern, pie, mini types, and gourds/ Fall Turnips/ Rutabagas (for storage).“ http://www.farmmuseum.org/farm.html

The lady of the house might also plant herbs and flowers in her garden, for cooking and for medicinal use. And just because they looked pretty on the table. I remember my grandmother, who grew up on a North Dakota homestead, telling me which plants in her extensive kitchen garden were to eat and which were there to ward off pests, both insects and deer.

When I was growing up, we had a garden, though it was planted more with an eye toward supplying our favorite fruits and vegetables rather than a balanced diet: strawberries, melons, sweet corn, green beans, tomatoes… Mostly I remember it was hard, hot work.

Do any of you have a “kitchen garden?” Did you grow up with one? What was it like?

Good Morning!

Going along with a similar message from my last post, I thought we might continue on in the same vein as we did a couple of weeks ago — survival.  With droughts in the south and midwest, flooding in our farmlands and northern states and with grain elevators gradually reduced to only about 3 months of food supply, it takes only a little foresight to see that we may be in for a long haul in the near future.  To that end, I thought we might revisit some survival tactics.  I’ll be giving away, by the way, a book on survival tactics (well sort of survival tactics) — LONG ARROW’S PRIDE to some lucky blogger.  So be sure to come in and leave a message.  (Note, this offer applies to the greater 50 States and to Canada only.)

In the old days, the Indians lived off the land and rarely starved.  It wasn’t until reservation days that starvation became a real threat.  Before that time, the Indians knew what plants to look for and where to look, what animals to kill, how to kill them for food, how to jerky the meat and how to survive and live off the land.  In truth, before the last World War, most Americas were living on farms and so the Depression (I never call it the Great Depression, as I think of Great things as good things) — but the collaspe of the economy during the Depression – bad as it was, wasn’t as bad as it might be in our future because most people still lived on farms back then and knew how to grow their own food.  So, as I used to learn in the Girl Scouts, let me ask you this.  How prepared are you for a collapse if it were to come upon us?

Heaven forbid it ever happen.  But as my mother used to say, “You prepare for the worst and enjoy those things you stored when it doesn’t happen.”  So let’s go over a few things that might come in handy to have, just in case, okay?

1)  Food — do you have a minimum of a 1 year supply for all members of your family on hand.  These are storeable items like grains, dried fruits, canned organic veggies, nuts, baking soda, fish-liver oil, baking powder, and anything else that you can thing of to store — meat, etc.  Get them for long storage — again that’s minimum 1 year supply for every member of your family and any member of your family that in a catastrophe might come home.  : )

2)  Medical supplies.  You can’t have enough medical supplies.  Bandages, bandaids, aspirin, alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, and any other medicine that you need.  For me, because I don’t take drugs, this means a year’s supply minimum of vitamins and minerals, as well as any herbs needed for medical emergencies.  And remember this is a 1 year supply for every member of your family — and those who might join you later on.

3)  Seeds — organic seeds, if you please.  The reason for heirloom, organic seeds is that the new Monsanto seeds and even the more common hybrid seeds don’t produce seeds for replanting — and keeping seeds from year to year is vital.  Even is you live in the city, you can start a garden of some kind.  My husband and I live in the city and instead of growing a lawn, we are now growing a garden.  We are learning also that one needs to LEARN how to garden and how to keep out pests.  So far squirrels and rabbits are benefitting from our new garden.  : )

4)  An herb garden is pretty essential.  From an herb garden you can obtain many medicinal plants — like  Echinacea and Goldenseal, as well as Oregano, sage and other herbs.  And again, even if you live on the city, you can probably start a garden on the roof or on a window seal.  You might even be able to make friends with local farmers who might be able to help you through a tough time, but I would advise you to plant as much as you can for yourself and for your family.

5)  Protection.

Now, while it might be fun to have these two men riding protection for you, probably it is a good idea to have a rifle or a gun of some kind as a form of self and family protection as well as protection of your food stores.  Personally, I think our Founding Fathers were right in guaranteeing the natural God-given right to bear arms.  Every creature will try to defend itself against any who seek to kill it.  For people, this means guns and other means to protect yourself.  After all, criminals and vandals are criminals and vandals because they can’t obey the law — therefore, they will always find a way to get guns.  My huband and I belong to Frontsight, a shooting organization that teaches you not only self-protection and makes sure that you know how to place a good shot, but teaches you when to make that shot and when not to.  But not only is protection important in emergencies — to protect the lives of your family and yourself — guns are important in keeping pests like rabbits and squirrels away from your garden — guns can also bring in fresh game in case of a food shortage.  If you don’t like guns and will absolutely not have one in your household, then I would advise you to learn self-defense — hand-to-hand — and to learn to use a bow and arrow for hunting.

Okay, let’s see.  What have I left out?  There’s something that’s important that I’m not thinking of here.

Oh, yes, a subject that is dear to the pocketbook:

6)  Some sort of cash.  Now what do I mean by cash?  Some say silver or gold with lead to protect that silver or gold.  : )  Some say to invest in the Euro — just in case the dollar falls.  I will say right here and right now that this is not an area that I know much about.  And if there is some kind of castastrophe — heaven forbid — or martial law — double heaven forbid — what might people use as money?  Barter?  Gold?  Silver?  Your guess is as good as mine.  All I know is that you might want to have something on hand to barter with.

Well, now that’s all I can think of right now.  You might be able to think of other things that one might to do be prepared.  In the old days — the days of my grandparents, all families had either a full year’s supply of food on hand and/or a victory garden.  When I was growing up, almost all of my neighbors  had gardens of one kind or another — chicken coops, etc.

How about you?  Can you think of something I’ve forgotten here in order to be prepared for any sort of economical or other kind of emergency?  Do you remember the victory gardens?  Families with supplies of food on hand, just in case?  Or were you a Girl Scout and taught to always be prepared?

I’m not wishing for  this — I hope a cause for this never happens — but just in case…

And don’t forget, I’ll be giving away a free copy of LONE ARROW’S PRIDE to some lucky blogger.  This applies, by the way to the great 50 States and Canada only. 

So come on in and let’s talk about survival.

 For every Easter of my life, I’ve decorated eggs….except one. Last year when we away from home on a trip to Northern California. Yep. Even one April, when we were in Hawaii I colored eggs –the condo had a big kitchen, and we took the finished product along on picnics at the beach. Something I can’t resist about those little glass cups brimming bright with color. My favorite part is pouring the colors down the drain when I’m done. My own particular rainbow. To this day, the scent of vinegar always evokes this much loved pastime.

But the little PAAS kits got me thinking. How did kids on the prairie dye their Easter pretties in days gone by? I thought I’d do some digging. 

First off, the child might draw a design on a clean egg with candle wax. Then comes the fun. 

Mother Nature has a beautiful pallet and plenty of “natural” ways to get the job done. These old-style tricks certainly work today. Onion skins seeped in hot water were and are a popular method of adding various shades of yellow, brown and even red. The skins can simply be added to water for soaking or boiling, or the skins wrapped around the egg with cloth.

The juice from cooked beets can make tints of pink and red. A green leaf wrapped around an egg “leaves” behind a beautiful imprint. 

To create a marbled design, a child –and Mama; it seems to have been a project requiring more than two hands–would wrap dill or parsley around an onion-skin covered egg, tying it on with string, before boiling, afterward polishing the finished product with oil. 

Turmeric and white vinegar is said to produce a lovely yellow, and paprika with vinegar, a delicious orange. Walnut husks leave behind a rich dark brown color, and elderberry juice a lovely deep purple. Strong coffee with a couple spoonfuls of white vinegar also produces beige, tan, and brown hues.

 I learned of an old-fashioned mother re-straining the commercial “blueing” in her laundry rinse water to produce a blue tint. Blueberries and red cabbage will produce purple, my favorite Easter color of all.

For green eggs (to go with that Easter ham LOL) soak eggs in water along with four cups of fresh spinach. (One household hint said to use baking soda for this one rather than vinegar.) 

These methods all call for a ratio of one quart to two tablespoons white vinegar, and a good overnight soak before boiling. The longer the egg remains in the water, the more intense the color. Boil the eggs for ten minutes in the juices they soaked in. 

Anybody eager to give these old-time methods a try this Eastertime? 

Thanks to eHow.com, Holidays Central, and The District Domestic for these down-home hints and helps!) 

(P.s. The third Hearts Crossing Ranch novella, Sanctuary,  will be out soon. Here’s my hero: WDYT?

DEDICATED TO THOSE WHO ARE NOT ASHAMED OF ECONOMY.

When I began my newest novella for Be My Texas Valentine, I had to do some research on how laundry was done in the late 1800’s, so I went to my bookcase literally filled with reference books not only on the craft of writing, but books about everything anyone would ever want to know about the 1800’s. I’d totally forgotten about a CD I’d purchased with a number of works on it, including a piece written in 1832 and simply titled The American Frugal Housewife by a woman only identified as Mrs. Child.

After reading a while, I decided in today’s economy it might be fun to visit some of Mrs. Child’s philosophy and guidelines from yesteryear.

The author’s premise is simple: “The true economy of housekeeping is simply the art of gathering up all the fragments, so that nothing be lost … Nothing should be thrown away so long as it is possible to make any use of it, however trifling that use may be … every member of the family should be employed either in earning or saving money.”

Here are some of her tips.  Please note that I left much of the spelling, punctuation and length as it was originally written to truly reflect her authentic voice and the era.    

•           In this country, we are apt to let children romp away their existence, till they get to be thirteen or fourteen. This is not well. It is not well for the purses and patience of parents; and it has a still worse effect on the morals and habits of the children. Begin early is the great maxim for everything in education. A child of six years old can be made useful; and should be taught to consider every day lost in which some little thing has not been done to assist others.  They can knit garters, suspenders, and stockings; they can make patchwork and braid straw; they can make mats for the table, and mats for the floor; they can weed the garden, and pick cranberries from the meadow, to be carried to market.

 •           Provided brothers and sisters go together, and are not allowed to go with bad children, it is a great deal better for the boys and girls on a farm to be picking blackberries at six cents a quart, than to be wearing out their clothes in useless play. They enjoy themselves just as well; and they are earning something to buy clothes, at the same time they are tearing them.

•           ‘Time is money.’ For this reason, cheap as stockings are, it is good economy to knit them. Cotton and woollen yarn are both cheap; hose that are knit wear twice as long as woven ones; and they can be done at odd minutes of time, which would not be otherwise employed. Where there are children, or aged people, it is sufficient to recommend knitting. Run the heels of stockings faithfully; and mend thin places, as well as holes. ‘A stitch in time saves nine.’

 •           Patchwork is good economy, but it is indeed a foolish waste of time to tear gppd cloth into bits for the sake of arranging it anew in fantastic figures; but a large family may be kept out of idleness, and a few shillings saved, by thus using scraps of gowns, curtains, &c.

•           In the country, where grain is raised, it is a good plan to teach children to prepare and braid straw for their own bonnets, and their brothers’ hats.

•           Where turkeys and geese are kept, handsome feather fans may as well be made by the younger members of a family, as to be bought. The sooner children are taught to turn their faculties to some account, the better for them and for their parents.

ODD SCRAPS FOR THE ECONOMICAL

• Look to the grease-pot, and see that nothing is there which might have served to nourish your own family, or a poorer one.  Look frequently to the pails, to see that nothing is thrown to the pigs which should have been in the grease-pot.
• See that the beef and pork are always under brine; and that the brine is sweet and clean.
• Preserve the backs of old letters to write upon. If you have children who are learning to write, buy coarse white paper by the quantity, and keep it locked up, ready to be made into writing books. It does not cost half as much as it does to buy them at the stationer’s.
• The oftener carpets are shaken, the longer they wear; the dirt that collects under them, grinds out the threads. Do not have carpets swept any oftener than is absolutely necessary. After dinner, sweep the crumbs into a dusting-pan with your hearth-brush; and if you have been sewing, pick up the shreds by hand. A carpet can be kept very neat in this way; and a broom wears it very much.  When a carpet is faded, I have been told that it may be restored, in a great measure, (provided there be no grease in it,) by being dipped into strong salt and water. I never tried this; but I know that silk pocket handkerchiefs, and deep blue factory cotton will not fade, if dipped in salt and water while new Keep a coarse broom for the cellar stairs, wood-shed, yard, &c. No good housekeeper allows her carpet broom to be used for such things.
• Suet and lard keep better in tin than in earthen. Suet keeps good all the year round, if chopped and packed down in a stone jar, covered with molasses. Pick suet free from veins and skin, melt it in water before a moderate fire, let it cool till it forms into a hard cake, then wipe it dry, and put it in clean paper in linen bags.
•  An ox’s gall will set any color,—silk, cotton, or woollen. I have seen the colors of calico, which faded at one washing, fixed by it. Where one lives near a slaughterhouse, it is worth while to buy cheap, fading goods, and set them in this way. The gall can be bought for a few cents. Get out all the liquid, and cork it up in a large phial. One large spoonful of this in a gallon of warm water is sufficient. This is likewise excellent for taking out spots from bombazine, bombazet, &c. After being washed in this, they look about as well as when new. It must be thoroughly stirred into the water, and not put upon the cloth. It is used without soap. After being washed in this, cloth which you want to clean should be washed in warm suds, without using soap. 
• The covering of oil-flasks, sewed together with strong thread, and lined and bound neatly, makes useful tablemats.
• Never leave out your clothes-line over night; and see that your clothes-pins are all gathered into a basket.
• After old coats, pantaloons, &c. have been cut up for boys, and are no longer capable of being converted into garments, cut them into strips, and employ the leisure moments of children, or domestics, in sewing and braiding them for door-mats.
• An ounce of quicksilver, beat up with the white of two eggs, and put on with a feather, is the cleanest and surest bed-bug poison. What is left should be thrown away: it is dangerous to have it about the house. If the vermin are in your walls, fill up the cracks with verdigris-green paint. Eggs will keep almost any length of time in lime-water properly prepared. One pint of coarse salt, and one pint of unslacked lime, to a pailful of water. If there be too much lime, it will eat the shells from the eggs; and if there be a single egg cracked, it will spoil the whole. They should be covered with lime-water, and kept in a cold place. The yolk becomes slightly red; but I have seen eggs, thus kept, perfectly sweet and fresh at the end of three years. The cheapest time to lay down eggs, is early in spring, and the middle and last of September. It is bad economy to buy eggs by the dozen, as you want them.
• If feather-beds smell badly, or become heavy, from want of proper preservation of the feathers, or from old age, empty them, and wash the feathers thoroughly in a tub of suds; spread them in your garret to dry, and they will be as light and as good as new.
• Feathers should be very thoroughly dried before they are used. For this reason they should not be packed away in bags, when they are first plucked. They should be laid lightly in a basket, or something of that kind, and stirred up often. The garret is the best place to dry them; because they will there be kept free from dirt and moisture; and will be in no danger of being blown away. It is well to put the parcels, which you may have from time to time, into the oven, after you have removed your bread, and let them stand a day. 

I don’t know about you, but I became exhausted by just reading about the do’s and don’t of a frugal frontier housewife.  Many of her tips are still used today. So, what chore do you find the least pleasant and which one might be fun?

I’m not a sickly person. In fact, during my years teaching school, it was often more trouble to miss school than gut it out. And I get flu shots religiously every fall. 

Nonetheless, I came down with two nasty cold/viruses during the flu season of 2009-2010 and needed medical care for a horrific cough and ear infection that had me deaf in one ear. Scary! Some of the doctor’s advice was no-brainer: rest, liquids, and salt water nasal spray. Therefore, Dr. Quinn fanatic that I am, I wondered how folks fared during cold season in days of yore.

 Some remedies from our homesteadin’ ancestors still prevail: Breathing steam. Cooking up a pot of savory chicken soup, and mixing up Hot Toddies. (not necessarily together LOL). However, the old “feed a cold starve a fever” has definitely lost favor. Light exercise, fresh air, and good nourishment have proved to be essential to a quick return to health. 

Peeking through stuff for this post, I found a number of homemade cough remedies: 

        ** 2-3 drops of kerosene on a teaspoon of sugar.  

        ** Equal parts of oil of peppermint, friars balsam and tincture of red lavender. Also served drop by drop on a teaspoon of sugar.

       **  Syrup made from wild cherry bark, mullein leaf, slippery Elm powder, coltsfoot leaf, lobelia leaf, pleurisy root, elecampane root, and licorice root.

      **  Syrup made from honey, lemon and glycerin. 

For sore throats, homesteaders and city dwellers like usually dosed with teas made from sassafras or black currants, and the always popular and effective lemon and honey. A gargle of sage and alum mixed in a glass of water supposedly helped as well.

Elecampagne root

 Cold and canker sores could be eased with tea made from the berries of wild rose bushes, or a daub of potash. 

The concoction of one clove of garlic mixed in a cup of warm  milk was said to lessen the duration of the cold. Interestingly, today’s doctors know that an active compound in garlic, allicin, is an expectorant. 

Another everyday kitchen ingredient, the onion, served importantly as well. The housewife would slice an onion and put in the sickroom. Supposedly the contamination was drawn into the onion so no one else got sick. 

Furthermore, a few drops of onion juice into an infected ear was said to clear up the miserable condition in just two or three applications! (OK, not even on my worst ear day would I have tried this.)

In 1918, the following flu ointment was developed by druggist, J.D. Higgenbotham during the flu epidemic of 1918.

2 large jars white Vaseline
2 oz. turpentine
1/4 oz. menthol crystals
2 cakes of camphor gum
1/3 oz. oil of peppermint
1/4 oz. eucalyptus
1/4 oz. oil of wintergreen

The ingredients were melted and mixed well over low heat and store in covered jars.

 However, when all’s said and done, the most formidable routine therapy was the mustard plaster. I’d come across it once or twice in the books I read as a child, and the word “plaster” freaked me out.

This was apparently a very powerful treatment: To prepare, dry mustard, flour, and lukewarm water were made into a paste. The plaster was then spread on a piece of muslin big enough to cover the chest, then covered with another piece of muslin over the top, placed on the chest with tape. The chest needed to be checked in a few minutes for signs of allergic reaction or blistering. The plaster was removed after about a half hour.

One old wive’s tale suggests using the white of an egg instead of water to prevent the blistering of the skin, and that’s shown on the “recipe” above.

While I’m sure many of the above herbal treatments are still affective today, Sunday’s Parade magazine had a list of old-time cold remedies not recommended to try at home LOL. I think I’d rather cough, sneeze, and burn up than Eat snakeskin, Stuff garlic gloves up my nose, or Rub my feet with tallow and turpentine and Hold them against a wood stove.  Yikes!

Stay healthy out there!

Maybe it’s because the outside temperature is down in the teens, and my backyard looks like Siberia.  Whatever the reason, I’ve been thumbing through a wonderful book of traditional New Mexico recipes that a friend gave me.  Just reading them warms me up.  The most common ingredients are beans, blue corn tortillas, and hot, hot chile peppers (chili and chilli are also acceptable spellings, not to be confused with the soupy red Tex-Mex dish made from beans and meat).

Chiles have been part of the human diet in the Americas since at least 7500 BC.  The Aztecs accorded chiles the status of a minor god.  Christopher Columbus called them peppers because they tasted like the precious spice.  After Spanish explorers brought them to Europe, they were used as a cheaper substitute for black peppercorns.  Their use in cooking and medicine swiftly spread throughout the world.

What makes chiles hot and spicy?  It’s a substance called capsaicin.  The amount of capsaicin in a chile determines its hotness.  In high concentrations, capsaicin can actually burn flesh.  The heat of a chile is measured in Scoville units.  Without going into technical details, here are some examples:  15-16 million Scoville units is pure capsaicin.  5-6 million units is police grade pepper spray.  On the lower end of the scale, green bell peppers have an index of 0.  Jalapenos measure from 2,500 to 8,000, most habaneros from 100,000 to 350,000.  The Naga Viper pepper, which has potential use in medicine and weaponry, has an index of 850,000 to over a million.  Ouch.

Cooks working with hot chiles are cautioned to wear rubber gloves.  The customary way to prepare them (this for New Mexico green chiles) is to slit the pods lengthwise, remove the seeds and veins and roast them under the broiler or on a grill.  When the skin blisters and blackens, peel it off, and the flesh of the pepper is ready to use (or do what I do and buy them canned).   Chile aficionados say that once you get used to the taste, the memory stays with you, and you can’t wait to have more.

How about you?   Are you a lover of hot peppers, or do you leave them alone?  Do you have a favorite hot Southwest dish?

 On another note, here’s an early peek at my new cover.  THE WIDOWED BRIDE will be a March release.  I’ll tell you more about it next month, or you can check it out now on my web site, www.elizabethlaneauthor.com. 

I like this cover except for one thing.  Ruby, my heroine, is a voluptuous redhead.  Who is the pretty, slender brunette with my hero?  Go figure.

Wishing you a warm January.