House

I finished The Empty House this morning. I don't care what you say, I loved it. I could read descriptions of the inside of English farmhouses all day and it doesn't matter what is going on inside of them.

Sunk into the folds of her coat,hands deep in its pockets, she looked about her and decided that never had she been in a room so welcoming, so secure. There were beams in the ceiling, with old iron hooks for smoking hams, and deep window sills crammed with flowering geraniums. There was a huge stove where the kettle simmered, and a caned chair with a cat curled in its seat,and there was a grain merchant's calendar and curtains of checked cotton and the smell of warm baking bread. The Empty House- Rosamund Pilcher

It is an obsession with me, I know. When I was a kid my parents had a junk/antique business, and I would save all the old cooking magazines and home decorating books and just gaze at them for hours. I was fascinated by people who cared about their environment and ate real food. In our house dinner came from a can and was served in front of episodes of the A-team or 20/20. My mom is still fascinated by the fact that she produced a daughter that thinks an ideal day is shopping for and then cooking an old fashioned meal. (that being anything that you can not make in a microwave.) She thinks I am some weirdo repressed throw-back to the olden times.

She was very excited though when I came across a recipe in MFK Fisher's How to Cook a Wolf that has been in our family for 3 generations. Granted there ARE can goods involved, but it WAS the war time, ya know. I think that when I found the recipe, it finally occurred to her that food wasn't a duty I was trying to perform, but that food does have emotional significance. I just want to provided my future generations with a little more substance to pass on. I don't want my legacy to be canned chili mixed with Velveeta = nachos. (as delicious as that may be.) I am by no means a food snob, but I think it is important to know the difference between real food and mystery concoctions though they both have their place in my world.