Food Magazine

We’d guess some of the foods or recipes contained in this year’s Sentinel Food magazine are ones you’ve never had. But to someone at sometime, they were a cherished taste. The roots of our valley’s food extend back to the farming communities and before that,

those foods still exist today and new food trends are popping up some 250 years later.

We hope you enjoy this year’s magazine and we like to recognize the cookbook committee that curated the

came out in 1989. We drew upon those two volumes to share some unique recipes from the pages of that compilation. The members of that 1989 cookbook committee were as follows: Kim Boozel, chairperson; Bessie Smith, Beverly Sarra, Dawn Sunderland, Enid Yoder, Gail Mayes, Linda Grove, Lisa Baker, Rhonda Boozel, Susan Fagan and Wilda Fisher.

So why not try something you’ve never had? It might become a new favorite

Locals go hog wild for pig stomach

BY MATTHEW BOLICH

The Sentinel

If you made a list of foods that are both 1.Pennsylvaniaered “odd” or “gross” by some people, stuffed pig stomach would be near the top of that list. Scrapple might be in that same discussion, but pig stomach is just one of those dishes, that by virtue of its very name, elicits strong reactions. Just listening to a group discuss pig’s stomach and you’ll hear the same thing—‘I can’t get past the name.’ Honestly, the alternative name, hog maw, probably isn’t much better if you want to make converts for this oft-reviled food. Maybe that’s why the dish is referred to by some as “Dutch goose” or “Susquehanna Turkey”, which sounds

Juniata Counties, there are plenty of pig stomach fans who don’t care what you call it- they just know that it’s delicious. For many, this unique main course holds a special place among their food memories, as hog maw was a special occasion meal or a cherished family food tradition. When The Sentinel published a Facebook post soliciting comments on the dish, our page was inundated with likes, shares and comments. There is an obvious passion in the Juniata Valley for this misunderstood meal.

LOCALS ARE HIGH ON THIS HOG

Ironically, pig stomach is really just a stuffed casing, much like sausage in a natural casing is made from intestine. Of course, hog maw casing is much bigger than a typical sausage and has a less genteel name. Even those who don’t want to try the dish

stomach is pretty delicious- sausage, potatoes, onions and seasonings. For those who grew up with pig stomach, the meal

holds a special place in their heart. Here are some of the comments from Sentinel readers on our Facebook page:

“This was our Christmas Dinner for years. Our family tradition is we butcher pigs every year. At 57 I have spent at -

ing every part of the craft. This tradition has been going on before I came along. And you can bet that this year the Saturday before Thanksgiving we will at 5 AM. And you can bet that the old ( original ) smoke house again. Pig stomach with fresh sausage , well , it's simply the best.” —Brooks Gamble

“This meal brings back a lot of memories when my grandmother would butcher every year Two favorite things about butchering were the kettle meat and saving the stomach for stuffed pig stomach. I have kept this meal a yearly tradition. I stuff with cabbage, diced potatoes, loose sausage and a box discovered by adding the stove other spices and makes a great Wagner

“We’ve always had this at least once a year….I wouldn’t say that it is a tradition with us …..I just make it when we get hungry for it…I actually have seeing this I may need to make

“We like equal amounts of extra peppery sausage, potatoes in small cubes and chopped cabbage…plus just a couple grated carrots and some parsley…I make enough of this mixture pig stomach to make it nice and full stitch it closed with kitchen twine or use tiny metal skewers..then into a roaster with a cup of water put the lid on and bake long and slow till it is nice and brown like your picture and what is not brown is very ten-

restaurant. Three types of sausage are used, as well as potatoes

der..

Mmmmm”—Teresa O’ Neal

“Passed down from my Grandma. Every family members birthday meal for generations. Hamburg, sausage, potatoes and cabbage.” – Kathy Woods

cut up pork chops, sausage, potatoes, and chestnuts in ours. I

Marie Bingaman

“My grandmother used to make it with smoked sausage and potatoes. She was very meticulous and diligent about cleaning them very well on butchering day. We used to have pig stomach dinner fundraisers back home at the Millheim Fire Hall back in the day. Always asionally just like she made it.” –Brad Wingard

cubed potatoes & onion...My Mother always used cabbage... Delicious....” – Audrey Peters

Quite a few years ago, the Decatur Township Fire Comheld a pig stomach fundraiser North. There were many varia-

that supper, and the comments from Sentinel readers support the idea that there is no uniform recipe to stuff a pig stomach. Cut into a hog maw and youburger, carrots, smoked sausage

One of the things that makes pig stomach a special treat for many is that it’s not something you have all the time like spaghetti or hamburgers. It’s not a simple or quick preparation and for many families they may only eat it once per year. But a restaurant just past the Juniata County line has been serving up pig stomach monthly for well

CROSS THE COUNTY LINE TO GO “HIGH ON THE HOG”

Take PA-35 North from Mifcross from Juniata to Snyder

Coming from Juniata County, on the left hand side of the road,

been serving up home cooked meals and delicious desserts since 1968. And on the fourth Friday and Saturday of each

Ronda and Chad SheafCounty

The

Sheaffer

version of hog maw? “We use three types of sausage- smoked, regular and a smoked kielbasa,” she said. Potatoes, celery, carrot and onions also go inside the

style meal, platters come as a hearty slice of the baked pig stomach with the option to have gravy with the entrée.

for lunch and ordered the pig stomach special. Although he

declared he was 91 years of age,

enjoying the pig stomach at the County Line Restaurant.

HOW TO MAKE PIG STOMACH

ple who make pig stomach have probably been preparing the dish for years and had the recipe handed down to them from family. But what if you want to try making this unique food? The pig stomach, which would likely

-

need to be ordered from a local butcher or meat shop. From

If you want to follow a recipe, there are online ones and even videos showing how to prepare the dish.

Many Pennsylvania Dutch cookbooks also have at least one hog maw recipe within them. The books Pennsylvania and The Art of Pennsylvania Dutch Cooking both contain a fairly straightforward recipe that call for diced potatoes and fresh loose sausage. Most recipes call for onions, but any vegetables are optional based on preference. It helps to have a little bit of sewing knowledge also, since thread or twine is required to close both ends of the pig stomach.

The following is a recipe re-

ty Bicentennial Cookbook that was published in 1989:

Bread Cabbage

Onions

Carrots

Celery

Apples (optional)

Potatoes

Dice or break apart ingredients and mix together. Fill stomach, put in roaster with 2-3 cups of water and cook several hours at 350.

Linda Fisher, Lewistown

This is another recipe submit-

Make sure pig stomach is clean, then soak in salt water overnight.

Cut up 5 lb potatoes

1 head of cabbage

1 bag of lima beans optional

1lb boneless ribs.

1 lb sausage

3 large onions

then mix together in a large ends.

Tie up with string like string that is used to tie a chicken. Place in roaster, add either water or chicken broth. Bake at 350 for about 4 hours, lid off and let it brown. on your plate. Most people eat the top layer of stomach, since the ends are gummy, but some do eat that. My grandmother made pig stomach at least three times a year. One time I told her that I was so hungry for it that I could eat a whole one, so she actually put one on a meat plate and yes, I ate it. OMG, I was stuffed! Great memories. – Contributed

No matter where you stand on pig stomach, there is no unique dishes that originates from Pennsylvania Dutch roots. Whether you call it pig stomach, hog maw or Dutch goose, just remember that in Central Pennsylvania, all the pig is used but the squeal!

Century-old lima bean loaf recipe

EDITOR’S NOTE: This recipe was published within the “Hints from a Housewife’s Kitchen Diary” in a June 1924 Sentinel edi-

recipe even for someone who loves lima beans!

A NOURISHING LIMA BEAN LOAF

Spring brings with it the opportunity for the housewife to exercise her ingenuity in providing her household with vegetable substitutes for the ordinary meat dishes. Here, for example, is a lima bean loaf. Use one cup of dried lima beans

In the morning, drain

slowly until the beans are tender, but have not lost their shape.

Drain them in an enameled colander.

Melt 2 ½ tablespoons butter, and into that stir 2 ½ cups breadcrumbs.

The crumbs should be

the bread, not the crust.

Add 1 tablespoon of chopped parsley and ¼ tablespoon powdered sage; also 1 ¼ teaspoons salt

Beat 3 eggs and mix with the beans.

Stir in the bread crumb mixture.

Have ready an enameled ware bread pan that is well buttered.

This will turn out quite solid and can be sliced as one would a real loaf.

Picturedaboveisagraphicelementfroma1920’seditionofthe Sentinel.TherecipefortheLimaBeanLoafwasafeaturedrecipe withinthearticle,aswellastipsforpreparingrhubarbandhowto livenupsummerpicnics.

Flotegrot: Norwegian food tradition for Lewistown woman

CONTRIBUTED BY

JENNY BARRON LANDIS

My Mom’s Norwegian heritage ran deep on both sides of her family and she was raised with many traditions especially around Christmas. The strongest food tradition we observe to this day is the Christmas production has become a pageant with various family members performing a variety of roles for decades. That’s not to say that

ures.

Flotegrot is supposed to be a smooth and

couldn’t turn the soupy mess into pudding. The pudding (no matter what state it’s in)

is then dished into the traditional glass ap-

these bowls is very important. This is where

Each bowl gets roughly a cup of pudding dropped into it. One of the bowls has a blanched and peeled almond hidden in the -

der of the bowls on the serving trays and on the top of the pudding to confuse the has the almond. The guessing continues until everyone has eaten their pudding. Finding the almond means that you will that he got the almond one year and that

Coincidence I’m sure, but none of us want to lose the almond again! And in 1993, just for fun, the cooks put an almond in everyone’s dish. There was a bit of chaos but for many in my family, it’s one of the very few times

they were lucky enough to get it, myself included.

This tradition continued even through the pandemic when we did not come together for a Christmas celebration. Two of my nieces put a lot of thought

and effort into devising a new way to continue this family tradition via the US Postal Service. One niece created the game pieces - twelve slips of paper that said “No almond for you!” and one that congratulated the

winner. Luck would have it that the one that organized the snail mail game also won the almond! Jenny Baron Landis serves as the Executive Director of the Juniata River Valley Visitor's Bureau.

The Landis Family collection sucharareoccurrence,eachand

Mince pies: A tradition one hundred years ago

EDITOR’S NOTE: It didn’t take long for pie to become an American institution (“American as apple pie”), but did you know that at one time, there were lots of pie-haters who wrote scathing attacks on the food, even calling it ‘evil’? When famous author Rudyard Kipling labeled the U.S. Northeast as the “great American pie belt” in 1892, he wasn’t actually paying a compliment to pie-loving folks. He looked down on the rural aspects of those who made and ate pie, so pie became associated unfairly with the lower class. Other magazine and newspaper writers thought pie was an unhealthy and worthless dish. But by the time of World War I, pie saw a favorable resurgence in the American public opinion. The following article from the 25th anniversary edition of The Sentinel highlights the mince or

mincemeat pie. This fascinating article references the changes in how mince pie was prepared by grandmothers, which at that time would have been mid 1800’s versus those who used canned mincemeat to make pies in the 1920’s. Interestingly, The Sentinel’s “Pies, Pies, Pies” cookbook from November 17, 2004 only contains two mincemeat pie recipes (published at the end of this story), as other pies have overtaken the now forgotten mince pies in popularity here.

PIE- AN AMERICAN INSTITUTION

Originally published in The Sentinel on October 10, 1928

If it is true that “in the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love,” so it is just as true that with the scent of

burning leaves and the snap of

thought of the whole American family turns to the coming of Thanksgiving Day and with it the succulent pie- to say nothing of the turkey which precedes it at the feast.

Pie preceding turkey certainly! Nowadays many Thanksgiving dinners are turkeyless – duck, chicken or a roast being preferred. But no Thanksgiving dinner is pieless. Again there is only one kind of turkey – barring degrees of quality – but there are many kinds of pies. No holiday feast is one unless at least two kinds of pie are servedgenerally mince and pumpkin, mince and apple, or mince and cranberry. Whatever variety is omitted it is seldom mince – the

What Thanksgiving Day Dinner would be complete that

was not topped off with deep and delicious mince pie whose aromatic and spicy odors have in advance and caused mouths to water and desires to grow.

The “kind that mother used to make” was a culinary poem, in it’s glistening brown crust covering and containing the chopped meats, raisins and spices to be plucked out by us just as Little Jack Horner of old, sitting in his corner, stuck in his thumb and pulled out a plum.

This trinity of Thanksgiving Day, roast turkey and mince pie, comes down to us from our Puritan ancestors on the bleak New England coast. They created the day and they borrowed the wild turkey of the aborigines. But they brought their mince pie straight from Old England. It is from New England that the “great pie belt” gets its or-

The“GreatAmericanPieBelt”asdepictedinthestoryoriginallypublishedina1928Sentinelarticleaboutmincepie. Thepiebelt expressionwasoriginallycoinedbyauthorRudyardKipling.

igin, that great belt of pie-eating people stretching across the continent and inhabited by those to whom the eating of pie is a second nature, since they are supposed to consume it for breakfast, dinner and supper, with a few snacks in between times. It follows the line of the New England emigration westward, out through New York, Pennsylvania along its north-

ern border, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and its course may be marked on the map as surely as we can trace the New England ancestry back to the Puritans. But no longer may it be marked and line between the dwelling place of the pie-eating and the nonpie-eating people. A survey of pie-consumption made recent-

ly for commercial purposes showed the surprising fact that today in Arizona and Utah the per capita consumption of pie is greater than in New England, the original home of the pie in this country.

market in prepared form (nearly forty years ago), the amount of

mincemeat sold by them alone

ten million deep-dish mince pies and its distribution was country-wide, which seems to indicate the famous pie belt is growing larger.

If Charlie Chaplin, in his most sublime moments, and at the very height of his genius, can throw a pie a second, it would take him just about a year, put-

ting in an eight-hour day with only a half an hours out for lunch and with no Sundays or holidays off, to keep up with the annual output of this one plant. Since 1885 they have put out enough to make 400,000,000 big mince pies. If these were all placed together in a row, two in width, they would form a new pie belt that has been a subject for joke and merriment, was that in which the home-

great pie belt is the result of the application of organization and method to the marketing of a prepared product, thus saving to the housewife much arduous work and also perpetuating the pie “that mother used to make.”

Pie is of very ancient origin, but we, in this generation and in this country, usually think of it as apple or mince, since these two outnumber all other varieties….But the real pie of the ancients was always made from a base of chopped meats. Although there had been something resembling pie before his day, it was the Emperor Verus of Rome – he who used to have his couches stuffed with rose and

the idea of concocting a mixtureered with a layer of pastry and all enclosed in a thick crusting and baked.

-

er Roman Emperor, Varro, had an aunt who raised thrushes from which to make pies and is reported to have sold 60,000 fo them for that purpose in one year. Lark pie was made famous by Rare Old Ben Johnson and became the staple of the famous old inn in England only recently demolished, known there were the “four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie,” and it must have been quite a surprise to the King the pie was opened and the birds sat up to sing.

Possibly, however, it was to prevent such a possibility that it presently became the custom to “mynce” the meat, for it would have been unpleasant to say the least, to open a pie and have a sow and a pheasant and a boar and lot more animals that propely belonged in a zoo coming

out. And it is this “mincing” of the meat that gave rise to the name “mynce pie” or “mynced pie.”

When the Puritans brought the “Mynced pie” to New England they called it “superstitious pye” and well they might have done so, for there was something not wholly in keeping between the straight-laced ideas of our puritanical forefathers and the tang of the pie that came something less innocent that the raisins and condiments that were put in. When dear old Mother Appleby, as we may call here, back in those early days, used to bring together all the delicious things called for by her recipe to make the wonderful pie, Father Appleby was wont to contribute to his share of the anticipated joy by hunting out the hidden demijohn, which through it perilous journey from far shores.

Britons apparently contained little of the piquant spices and luscious fruits of the pie we today, for this was the contribution of its development made by Mother Appleby and those like her

who, in their limited way, tried kind through their stomachs,rite and an annual event in the household. It began with the long and arduous culinary task.sins, spices and the like were all chopped by our puritanical ancestors and packed away inlogical moment should arrive

minced meat seeking out every

the good things to come. It was dramatic, artistic and wholly inthat arouses a song in every the “eats” which the old homestead used to know.

good old way and vending it

be watching the moom to getstooping shoulders, she would wend her way to the secret place where her spiced treasures were buried and unearth

and her little home have been succeeded by the roar and rush as big as they were and they are now largely presided over housewives who have not the-

en pot to ripen and to age. But the mince pit has not passed. and haste there may not be the private homes, a great industry has grown up around the presour grandmothers.

put into the crust at home, thus carrying grandmother’s mincestarted a great industry, which is now conducted by the sons partners. Others came into the the idea, until today there are a dozen brands on the market and -

grandmothers may know.

MOM’S MINCEMEAT PIE

17, 2004 Sentinel “Pies, Pies, Pies” cookbook)

4 apples, peeled and sliced ¾ cup sugar

3 tablespoons apple butter

meat grinder (hand turned type) would sprinkle homemade wine with pie crust. We liked it hot vanilla ice cream.istown

HOMEMADE MINCEMEAT PIE

17, 2004 Sentinel “Pies, Pies, Pies” cookbook)

½ cup water or cider 1 teaspoon allspice ½ teaspoon clovesthe sausage in a iron skillet and bake it in the oven, but it

4 pounds cooking apples, peeled, cored and quartered 4 ounces suet 2 ½ cups water

14—The Sentinel

1 (15-oz.) package- raisins

2 cups dried currants

½ cup diced mixed candied fruits and peels

orange peel

1 cup orange juice

lemon peel

¼ cup lemon juice

1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon ground nutmeg

¼ teaspoon ground mace

Milk follows)

water to cover. Cook and simDrain; cool.

apples and suet.

sins, currants, mixed candied fruits and peels, orange peel, orange juice, lemon peel, lemon juice, salt, nutmeg and mace.

mixture. Cover and simmer 45 mixture. (Freeze remaining mincemeat mixture in 4-cup portions until needed.)

Cut slits in top crust (or cut cookie cutter). Adjust top crust. a little milk. Cover edge of pie Bake in a 375-degree oven for crust is golden. Cool on a wire

Makes 8 servings.

cups sifted powdered sugar, ½

Unique recipes from local 1989 cookbook

RIDGE ROAD COUNTRY STORE

TEABERRY CAKE / CUPCAKES

ICING

CAKE

CHOCOLATE ROSETTES (OLD WORLD WAR II RECIPE)

cookie press.

Bake at 350 degrees in oven 10-12 minutes. I prefer to add to the above mixture 1 (12 oz.) bag of chocolate chips, and chopped nuts. Drop from teaspoon and bake as above.

Emily K. Crossgrove Lewistown

HICKORY NUT COOKIES

1 c. butter or Oleo

3 eggs

2 c. sugar

1 tsp. soda

1 c. thick sour cream

1 c. Hickory nuts

to be able to drop, about 3 1/3 cups.

In memory of Kathryn S. Baker (Her mother’s recipe) McVeytown

Submitted by Rhoda Bratton (her granddaughter)

CHOW MEIN CANDY

1 (12 oz.) butterscotch

1 can chow mein noodles

Morsels

1 sm. can peanuts

In double boiler or microwave, melt butterscotch morsels. Add chow mein noodles and peanuts. Mix. Drop by spoonfuls on wax paper.

Leah Young McVeytown

MILK PIE

1 ½ c. top milk 4 tbsp. sugar 1 tbsp butter

Into the unbaked pastry shell together and spread over shell milk and dot with butter. Bake at 400 degrees for 35 minutes.

Betty Houser Milroy

RAISIN PIE

2 c. raisins

3 tbsp. butter

1 c. sugar

3 tbsp. lemon juice

2 c. water 1 tsp. Lemon extract

½ tsp. salt 2 tbsp. cornstarch

Cook raisins, sugar, water, salt, butter and lemon juice for 5 minutes. Dissolve cornstarch in 3 tbsp. cold water, add to raisin mixture. Cook for 5 minutes.on extract. Bake for 25 minutes.

Lois Hesser McVeytown

CONFETTI COLESLAW PARFAIT

1 pkg. lime gelatin

½ c. Miracle Whip

1 c. boiling water

½ c. chopped celery

½ c. cold water

½ c. chopped carrots

1 tbsp. vinegar

¼ c. raisins

Dissolve gelatin in boiling water. Stir in cold water and vinegar. Gradually add gelatin to Miracle Whip; mixing until well blended. Chill until slightly thickened. Fold in remainder of

Lynn Dippery Reedsville

QUALITY HARDWOOD FURNITURE

CRACKER PUDDING

1 egg

1 c. coconut

1 qt. milk

1 c. sugar

2 c. crumbled crackers

1 tsp. vanilla

Mix ingredients in a large pan. Boil all ingredients together until thick. Remove from stove and let cool.

Tina M. French Lewistown

IRISH PUDDING OR PLUM DUFF

(CAME FROM IRELAND, 1870)

Mix

1lb. brown sugar

4 eggs

¾ lb. white sugar

¾ c. Crisco or shortening

Add

2 tsp. ground cloves

2tsp. soda

2 tsp. allspice

2 lb. raisins

1 tsp. cinnamon

2 tinfuls buttermilk

1tsp. salt

RED BEET JELLY

SALMON CASSEROLE

SAUERKRAUT SALAD

PA. DUTCH GREEN BEANS

APPLE MEAT LOAF

FRANKFURTER CROWN CASSEROLE (KIDS FAVORITE)

TAFFY APPLE SALAD

CARROT CAULIFLOWER SALAD

COPPER CARROTS

4 c. cooked carrots

1 onion, sauteed in ¼ c.

1 c. grated sharp cheddar butter cheese

2 cans cream of celery

3 c. Pepperidge Farm soup

Alternate layers in greased casserole. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.

Sara L. Hoover

Siglerville

Pictured

Readers share some unusual food combinations

BY MATTHEW BOLICH

The Sentinel

Most families have at least one food combination that might be considered unusual by most other people. Growing up, I had a family friend who swore by peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwiches. Now I love both those things, but there is no way that I’m trying that combination. Per-ages and on a PB sandwich is not one of them in my opinion.

Some of our readers shared their unusual family food traditions via The Sentinel Facebook page. For example, Tessa Gross, Port Royal, mentioned a unique green tomato dish she grew up eating. She posted this on our Facebook page: Fried green tomatoes, but they are sweet instead of saof cornmeal, sugar sprinkled on top while being fried in a pan). Served with a white roux. Tastes a little like apple pie.

Tessa said they always thought they were eating fried green tomatoes the “normal” way until they had the typical southern-style preparation at a restaurant. She wasn’t sure where the recipe came from, but it was just how they always ate them.

Here are a few other reader comments:

Spaghetti dipped in applesauce – Becky Lucas Cramer Peanut butter on bread with spaghetti – Brenda Hutchinson Creamed Egg on Toast. My mother made hard boiled eggs, cut the white part up into small pieces. Set the yokes aside. Made a white

sauce and added the white egg pieces. Poured this over toast and if you wanted, take the center yoke and mash with a fork on your plate and then sprinkle on top of the creamed Egg on Toast. I hated it.- Donna Changstein, Lewistown

Within The Sentinel, one of our employees related that growing up, they ate Oreo cookies with fresh peaches and milk. Although it sounded really strange to me, a few of us decided to give it a go, and we tried this odd family dessert. I have to admit, it was better than I thought peaches mixed with chocolate sandwich cookies and milk would taste. Sometimes, you just need to embrace different cuisine with an open mind…as long as peanut butter and mayo isn’t involved.

Pictured above: Oreo cookies, peaches and milk are combined in a bowl to make a concoction that is beloved to a local family.

Pictured below are the ingredients for the dish. Sentinel

photos by S. Wolfe

Food is a part of family memories

BY TOM LAUB Lifestyles editor tlaub@lewistownsentinel.com

LEWISTOWN — Memories of good times usually include one or more of the big three — family, friends and food.

Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, Independence Day, birthdays, graduations, weddings, big-game parties or maybe just a family Sunday dinner all included food.

There were cultural and family traditions, from everyday main courses to special-time-ofyear favorites. Food was at the center.

The stories that accompanied the times (and the food) are passed down to each generation:

Sand tarts (see recipe), a family tradition, were hidden so they were not eaten before Christmas. The cookies were

hidden so well they were not found until well after Dec. 25.

A cooling meatloaf was left unattended on the stove and fell victim to the dog and cat team. The cat knocked it on the

the dog ate the entire meatloaf. Never trust a partner in crime, especially a food crime.

Family favorites including spaghetti with meatballs (and my Mom’s homemade sauce), meatloaf, roast beef or pot roast, salmon cakes, ham pot pie (see recipe) and maybe some banana cake always made the day better. The only thing better than the smell of dinner cooking was eating the dinner itself.

Two family recipes (sand tarts and ham pot pie) are included in this publication. Enjoy them. Hopefully, they will become part of your family memories, too.

Family, friends and food. It’s a party.

BEACHWAVES

SAND TARTS

A family tradition for over 50 in December.

Starting time 12 noon. Mothers, daughters and grandchildren required.

1 lb butter

2 cups sugar

3 T milk

3 eggs

1/2 t cream of tartar

1/2 t baking soda dash of vanilla

Mix all ingredients and refrigerate overnight. Will roll better if the dough is cold.

In small batches, roll dough very thin. Using cookie cutters, cut into desired shapes.

Place on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet. Brush with

egg wash (egg and water)

Sprinkle cookies with desired decorations. (cinnamon/sugar with a piece of chopped walnut is great) but also various colored sugars. Be creative.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for 4-5 minutes depending on the oven and the cookie sheet.

Do not under bake but watch the oven closely, as they can burn quickly.

There is an age learning curve. Mothers roll and cut (gradually easing daughters into this position). Daughters egg wash, monitor the ovens, and remove cookies from trays to cooling racks. Grandchildren decorate.

Will yield approximately 30 dozen, depending on size of cookie cutters and the thickness of the rolled dough.

We traditionally make three

Salon Works

by Michelle

batches of dough and yield 90 dozen.

Baking is followed by beef bar-b-q and potato salad.

Cathy Laub Searer

Original recipe of Kathleene Laub HAM POT

PIE

Some like it thick....some like it thin. The Laub family prefers it thin.

1 egg (beat well)

salt to taste

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup cool ham broth

Flour to roll (3 1/2 cups)

Roll dough on a large cutting board in small batches. Cut into squares. (I use a pizza cutter). Drop into previously prepared boiling ham broth. I also add peeled and cut potatoes to the broth, along with cut pieces of ham. Cook until desired tenderness.

A truly Dutch treat.

Cathy Laub Searer

Original recipe of Jay and Kay Laub

PEARS AND CHOCOLATE, AN UNEXPECTED PAIRING

Dessert is always a big hit during festive occasions, and the following recipe for "Pear and Chocolate Frangipane Tart"

vored cream. In this recipe from "Chocolate: Deliciously Indulgent Recipes for Chocolate Lovers" (Ryland, Peters & Small) by Maxine Clark, it is paired with decadent chocolate and sweet pears.

Pear and Chocolate Frangipane Tart

Serves 8-10

peeled

2/3 cup seedless raspberry jam

2 tablespoons Ruby Port

Toasted shredded or silvered almonds, to scatter (optional)

Pastry

1 teaspoon salt

1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened

1 large egg yolk

21/2 to 3 tablespoons chilled water

MOUNTAIN SIDE SHOE SHOP

Chocolate Frangipane Filling

61/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 eggs, beaten

1 to 2 tablespoons chocolate liqueur

2/3 cup ground almonds

2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa

To make the pastry, sift the waxed paper. Put the butter and egg yolk in a food processor and blend until smooth. Add the chilled water and blend again. Pour in the dry ingredients and blend until just combined. Turn

surface and knead gently until smooth. Form into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. Bring to room temperature before rolling out.

To make the chocolate frana large bowl and beat with an electric mixer until creamy. Gradually add the sugar andually beat in the eggs and the chocolate liqueur, then stir in the ground almonds and the cocoa. Cover and set aside.

Roll out the pastry on a lightly

line the tart pan. Prick the pastry all over with a fork and re-

Preheat the oven to 400 F, and put a heavy baking sheet on the middle shelf.

Spread the chocolate frangipane evenly over the chilled pastry crust.

Halve the pears and scoop out the cores. Cut each half into thirds and arrange them randomly over the chocolate frangipane.

Transfer the tart to the preheated baking sheet and bake for 10-15 minutes, or until the pastry starts to brown. Reduce the oven temperature to 350 F and bake for a further 15-20 minutes or until the pears are tender and the frangipane is set. Remove from the oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool.

About 20 minutes before serving, melt the jam with the port in a small pan and boil for 1 minute to make a glaze. Remove the tart from the pan, brush with the glaze, scatter with the almonds, if using, and serve at room temperature - never chilled - with cream, if using.