I've been unearthing some gems while minimizing big time for my planned move to a much smaller home down the coast.
I've had to be hard on myself when deciding what to throw out, and what to keep - some easy, some not! This part-time soon-to-be full-time retiree is determined to leave with only the bare essentials.
While decluttering, I found long-lost secrets in Mom Lily's notebooks! Those in turn jolted my memory of wonderful experiences and some hilarious mishaps - funny now, but not at the time!
Photo by tabitha turner on Unsplash
Both Mom and I loved being in front of the stove, cooking up a storm for special occasions.
The Gecko
I'm not sure if you know what a Gecko is - pale almost transparent small carnivorous lizards that are plentiful here, and absolutely harmless. In fact, they do a good job of catching mosquitos during the summer months. They're seen outdoors and indoors on walls and ceilings. Some upcountry visitors are afraid when they see them inside the house.
It often happens that they may be on a wall above a door, and fall down when someone opens the door. I'm not sure who gets the bigger fright, the Gecko or the human!
Well, we had guests over one night for dinner, and when having coffee afterward, one of the Geckos fell from the ceiling right into one of the guest's cup of coffee! There was much spilling and splashing till someone grabbed the cup and quickly poured the contents, with the Gecko, into the kitchen sink and retrieved the poor Gecko.
I cannot remember if it survived the plunge into that cup of hot coffee!
Ginger Beer
Soon after we married, I decided to make ginger beer. My Ouma always made the best ginger beer, super refreshing during the summer months.
I followed her recipe, but made the mistake of using regular bottle tops, not cork, and tightened them!
A couple of days later Mom and Dad came to visit, and when my mom saw the gingerbeer had small bubbles, she said it should be ready, but was concerned about the bottle tops, so opened the back door just in case it exploded when she started took the lids off.
Explode it did, all the way to the ceiling, before she could point it out the door. Had we known it was going to fizz so much, Mom would have taken it outside before opening it!
I never made ginger beer again!
The Pancake Stall
I loved fetes, and when someone asked if I would run the pancake stall at our church fete, I agreed without hesitation. Easy peasy thought I, there's nothing to cooking pancakes.
One of my friends chuckled, and remarked - you know this is going to be your job every year from now on.
Hubby bought a large portable 4-plate gas cooker. We were a team of five - two cooking, the next one sprinkling the sugar cinnamon and rolling up the pancake, someone serving, and one handling the sales.
Easy cooking pancakes, but heavy going when you're cooking a couple of hundred in a matter of a few hours!
It was one of the busiest stalls at the fete, with queues snaking from early morning. It was pointless starting earlier because people would show up as soon as they smelt the pancakes cooking.
Talk about selling like hotcakes! My heart would sink when someone came along with a big order, wanting to take some home,
My friend's prediction was spot-on. I did it for many years, till I fractured my ankle and passed the job onto someone else.
I shared in a Memoir Monday post how I made extra money with part-time catering when the purse-strings were a little tight. Mom wrote about some of those funny mishaps.
The Ketchup Bottle
There was the time we were serving ice cream with chocolate sauce, it was for a church function, not our little side-hustle, and we were catering on a low budget. My friend and partner-in-crime was a great one for recycling, very creative as well. But, the day she made the chocolate sauce, she simply poured it into ketchup bottles without labeling it. We were the ones serving after all, and we knew what was inside those bottles;)
We should have left it in the kitchen, but took it through to the dessert table, out of sight, in readiness for serving dessert.
I'm sure you know someone who cannot eat without pouring copious amounts of sauce on their food.
Well, that night there was a sauce lover among the diners, and his eyes must have been darting everywhere in search of ketchup. Probably could not believe his luck when he spotted the most-wanted ketchup bottles;)
My friend walked back into the hall with the ice cream and saw the man with the ketchup bottle starting to pour the chocolate sauce on his food!
Too late, the damage was done! Thankfully there still was enough food so he could dish up a new plate of food!
My friend never made the same mistake again.
Salted Coffee
I'm not sure if I told you about the time one of the men arrived asking for a cup of coffee before dinner. We were frantically busy with last-minute preparations and showed him where the coffee supplies were, and that he was welcome to help himself.
I always took salt with me for cooking - poured it into a clear glass bottle, unmarked!
The poor man was very thirsty, we'd not yet filled the sugar bowl, and he put a spoonful of what he thought was sugar, into his coffee. We were none the wiser, as we were facing the food pots.
Well, he took a big sip, and then nearly choked, spilling coffee all over himself!
I made sure to clearly mark my salt bottle after that mishap!
Those are just some of the mishaps we had, there were many more which I will share with you. I just need a jolt from Mom's old notebooks!
Those were wonderful, carefree days, and I am super thankful that I can store all those memories here on Hive!
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