I've actually been back in California since Christmas, but the Holiday, including New Year's sort of slid by me.
My only brother, Lulu's Boy aka Stewart Lisle Sterling, Jr, who was an voracious reader, went to read with the angels on December 21, 2008. In his last days he was surrounded by family (wife, 3 sons, a daughter, her husband and G and I. He, along with all of us, were given tremendous support by the amazing angels of Hospice. Although not an easy experience for any of us, we managed to have some valuable family time of sharing and love. A few days ago on January 25th it would have been Stew's 79th birthday. Our 2 parents both lived to be older (84 and 91). That fact and his being gone so fast after the cancer diagnosis in October was a shock to all. He was "my rock" and not a day goes by still that I don't think of something to ask him or tell him. There's a huge hole in my heart and life. But in the past week I've been feeling him nudging me to get on with my life.
The pictures here to the left are of Stew, my only sibling, at age 2 (1932) and age 18 at graduation in 1948
The picture above was taken in mid October 2008 by G when we visited my brother and his wife in Arizona. We only learned of the cancer after we had been back home about 2 weeks.
When Stew first learned about me starting this blog and the purpose for it, I think it made him chuckle a lot. He is the one who provided the picture for the header. I'd never seen that picture; he found it in his baby book! He never thought our Mum was much of a cook; at least he said she didn't have much imagination. Mum's next oldest sister, Aunt Helen, was a professional cook, but I don't think Mum learned much about cooking except the basics from our grandmother who was, at one time, a cook in a hotel restaurant. There are some funny family stories about cooking disasters in our house like the time dinner ended up on the ceiling when Mum first tried to use her new pressure cooker. It scared her away from those for life and when I got one for a wedding present and used it one time when she was visiting, she wouldn't even come in the kitchen!
So, we all assume that Mum got most of her recipes from friends and maybe family too. True there are a lot of recipes in her handwritten book that have names next to them. And, a lot of her recipes I'm sure came from cooking under extreme conditions during the Great Depression and WW2 when my brother was small and I was as yet unborn. The simple things for her were never written down. I found that out recently when I wanted to make Roast Beef Hash. I'd never made it before, but it was something she made all the time. I muddled through and G said it was pretty good.
I will soon continue blogging Mum's recipes and any stories about them here as I have been since I began.
Stay tuned!
