Part of our Great Depression unit study is to cook the recipes offered at Great Depression Cooking with Clara.
Tonight's dish was Peppers and Eggs.
Chelsea re-watched the video clip and cooked it. We used butter instead of cooking grease and added some chopped onions and sprinkled a bit of grated cheddar cheese on top. We did not add any salt to it but got a ridiculous delight in watching this 90+ yr-old woman add extra salt to hers.
I have to say I was stunned...stunned, I tell you...at how delicious this dish was/is. I could eat it every day, I think. Which gave me greater reason to be disappointed in my 21st-century children who refused to partake of this Depression banquet.
Only I ceased being disappointed in them with the first diaper change.
Corey bravely...grudingly...stubbornly...resisted until I got the fork to touch his lips. Then he obliged. "We aren't living in a Depression, Mom."
"Oh, yes, we are. Haven't you watched the news?"
"Well, last I checked, Burger King was still open..."
Kayleigh called from work to see if I was cooking because Kei's mom was and should she come home or...?
I enthusiastically explained that her sister was cooking a Great Depression meal and Wednesday nights would serve the dish. Tonight was Peppers and Eggs.
There was a pause. Then..."Don't you think you're taking this thing a little far, Mom?"
Beastly young adults-slash-teenagers! They spoil all the fun.
The younger group wasn't much better.
Garrett raided the refrigerator, Chelsea claimed exemption because she was the cook, and Annie was just plain defiant and settled on her regular scrambled eggs w/ cut-up ham.
Mark and I thought it was simply delicious.
And then there was the pie. The dessert pie. The blueberry dessert pie. Everyone ate the pie.
Which Annie and Chelsea diligently stabbed to death. I think they learned that you should never over "pine-tree" because it then breaks the baked crust. Ah, well, we bake and we learn.
The blueberry pie and fresh whipped cream was in recognition of today's Catholic feast day: The Feast of the Annunciation. The day Mary said "Yes!" to God's request that she bring forth the Son of God into the world.
She could have said "No!" and where would we all be today?
My husband called on the way home from work. "Need anything?"
"Yeah, could you stop and pick-up some blueberries and a pie crust? It's the Feast of the Annunciation and I saw that Cathy's doing a blueberry pie. I have a headache but that's easy enough to pop in the oven."
"Sure, but why blueberries?"
"They're blue, honey. Blue is for the Blessed Mother."
We have to tell our men-folk this. They just don't "get it."
Blue is for a lovely lady, our heavenly Mother, who submitted her will to God's Almighty Plan. She had faith the size of a mountain. She did not know the plan or the future but she believed in a God greater than any plans she could make.
This is the day, for all Christians, that God's word was made flesh.
From Catholic Culture and Holy Scripture:
"This day celebrates the actual Incarnation of Christ, the day the Son of God became man when Mary spoke her Fiat, or "yes" to God. St. Luke records the events:
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you!" But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.
He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there will be no end."
And Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I have no husband?"
And the angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.
And behold, your kinswoman Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For with God nothing will be impossible." And Mary said, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word." And the angel departed from her. (Luke 1:26-38)"