Peeling Peaches

Mary knows how to peel a peach. She was always able to maneuver a sharp paring knife and remove a fuzzy peach skin in a thin continuous slice. Her sister Eva,who didn't have either the patience or skill, always cut too much of the flesh. So Mary was the one that Mother Eva asked to help in canning peaches.

The last time Mary helped, it was during the Labor Day weekend. (As a young mother with a son, Mary often felt she had to spend weeknds on the Farm to help her mother with the heavy workload.) Mother Eva had three 5/8 baskets of peaches to put up. (Each basket held about 40 pound of fruit.) Mother and daughter sat at the great kitchen table working silently, because talking took energy--energy better used to work.

The fuzz on the late season Albertas was so thick that it abraided the skin on the hand that held the paring knife. (Mother Eva preferred for these canning peaches to be semi-hard. They were bought from nearby Dersch Orchards.) Once pared each peach was halved and pitted. Mother Eva, using a fork, carefully placed each peach half in the glass jar before syrup was added, a lid was screwed on, and placed in the hot water bath. Each jar was a work of art.

Mary had earlier climbed the two stairs to the attic where the quart jars were stored on the floor, upside. Since each basket produced 14 jars of peaches, that meant carrying down more than 5o jars--jars that had to be metcuously washed. Washing them was tedious, particularly the aluminum screw top lids with the ceramic liners.

The result of these efforts was money in the bank: row upon row of jars of golden peaches in syrup to be withdrawn as needed throughout the coming winter.

Cottage Cheese Pie

One of Mary's signature/classic desserts is Cottage Cheese Pie. The recipe is simple, and it's a good one. What makes Mary's version so good, of course, is her crust.

This dessert evokes sight, smell, and taste sensations of 1950s Sunday dinners.

Ingredients:

1. 1 pound of cottage cheese
2. 1/2 cup of sugar
3. 2 egg yolks
4. 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
5. 1/2 tsp of salt
6. 2 cups of milk
7. 2 egg whites beaten stiff
8. 1 #2 can of crushed pineapple
9. 1 teaspoon of tapioca or cornstarch

Directions:

1. cream sugar and cottage cheese until smooth
2. add rest of ingredients (except those below) to above mixture; then fold in egg whites
3. add tapioca or conrstarch to pineapple and cook until thickened
4. put thickened pineapple into an uncooked pie crust and laye the cottage mixture over the top
5. bake in a 350 degree oven for an hour