The stylish beautiful lady in the photo is my Aunt Kat. Katholine Callahan Slusher to be exact, and she is my great aunt if I am to be technical. Today is her birthday.

When I spoke to her the other day, she said she didn’t want anyone to make a fuss. So if she sees this I will probably be in some hot water. I usually do exactly what she says to do, but this once I made a fuss for two reasons. She is the best cook I know, and I have new stories about her that I want to share. First we will share stories and then we get some of her amazing recipes…well the ones she would share.

The Stories:

Teal Masson:  I always remember all the candy she made for Christmas. It was everywhere you looked and so good. My personal favorite was her creamed corn casserole she made in the black skillet. I could eat just plates of that. Of course what I always remember is her chocolate pie. NO ONE makes chocolate pie as good as she does. She always made it for Dad. I think she only made it for him. Whenever he went to visit there was a pie sitting there for him. I think the joke was that Uncle Fossil (Aunt Kat’s husband) knew Dad was coming to visit when Aunt Kat made a chocolate pie.

Aine Malone:  I know my cousin Katy and I were named for her and I consider that quite an honor. When I was growing up Aunt Kat was unlike any woman I knew. She wasn’t like my mom or my grandmothers or anybody else. Aunt Kat was much cooler. She could ride a motorcycle. She loved sports from football to boxing. She loved to fish and she had traveled to all these amazing places. Plus she had been to a honky tonk or a few. My Uncle Charlie once said “Your Aunt Kat was a modern woman before there was such a thing.” I think that has always stuck in my mind as the perfect description of her.

A classic story about Aunt Kat involves my mom, Merle. My mom was raised conservative Southern Baptist so no drinking, dancing, etc. Once Aunt Kat was talking about pickled eggs. She said “every honky tonk had jars of pickled eggs on the bar to eat with your beer.” Then Aunt Kat paused and looked at my mom and said “Well Merle never mind because we all know you know nothing about honky tonks.” I never laughed so hard with my Mom.

Recently I found out why she is called Aunt Kat. She told me that when she was a child her mama said she was always under her papa’s feet. So he would come home from work and put a feed sack on the old horse and throw her up on it’s back. Her papa would say “Go Nellie and take Kat to the pea patch.” Off they would go and pick peas until her mama rang the dinner bell at dark. When my Uncle Charlie was born, her dad told my uncle “now this is your Aunt Kat.” The name stuck and my dad and all my aunts and uncles have called her that since.

Now about doing what she says. That is an understood. For example as long as I remember she told my Dad and thus us: “You had better send me flowers when I am alive. Don’t send them to me when I am dead and can’t enjoy them.” You just do what Aunt Kat says. SO this blog post doesn’t really go with her saying she didn’t want anyone to make a fuss but maybe I will slip by once.

Gayle Slusher Riley (her daughter):

Well you know Mother never gives up a recipe. Most of the things she makes she has no recipe for anyway. For example those hush puppies you love there is no recipe for that. Now for cakes and cookies she uses recipes cards. They will be right in front of her. She has so many recipes. For example, her Divinity candy recipe she has made her whole life. She can’t remember who gave her the recipe but I do know she always says the secret to making Divinity is “the sun has to be shining. If the sun isn’t shining the Divinity won’t make because the egg whites won’t fluff up.”

One of my favorite things to eat is her dressing. One year she turned making the dressing over to me for Thanksgiving. I made it and she said it wasn’t right and asked me how I had made it. When I told her I bought cornbread stuffing she informed me that for her dressing she made the cornbread. And then she made biscuits the week before and let them sit before she crumbled them into the cornbread. Store bought cornbread stuffing was like an outrage. I do know she never used eggs in her dressing so Daddy and I used to love to eat it “raw” (before it went into the oven). We could do that because it had no eggs. It was the cornbread, biscuits, a pound of sausage and broth from cooking down a hen plus the onions and whatever else she put in it. So good.

For my girls Katy and Stephany, she got them these recipe books and wrote down their favorite recipes. For example Stephany has her corn casserole recipe and her fruitcake cookie recipe. So if you have a recipe, you had better hang onto it. She doesn’t give them out to anyone and again lots of things she makes are ” a pinch of this and a dash of that.”

And I know I have told you before but yes she always made a chocolate pie for your Dad. In fact my Daddy would joke and say “David must be coming because you don’t make a chocolate pie for anyone but him.”

The hobo bread recipe she has made forever. It’s a good one. And the orange slice cake recipe. Well if you can’t get her chocolate pie recipe, that is a good one to have.

HOBO BREAD

Part One:

2 cup raisins

2 TBSP oleo

2 tsp baking soda

2 cups boiling water

Part Two:

2 eggs

2 c. sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

4 cups flour

1 1/2 cup chopped nuts

Mix  Part One together and placed in a covered bowl. Put in refrigerator overnight. Next day combine Part One with Part Two. Mix well. Pour mixture in 3 well-greased and floured one pound coffee cans. Bake for one hour and 10 minutes or until tested done at 350 degrees.

ORANGE SLICE CAKE

1 8 oz pkg orange slice candy

1 8 oz pkg dates

1 8oz can coconut

2 cups pecans

1 cup flour

2 sticks butter

2 cups sugar

4 eggs

1/2 tsp soda

1/2 cup buttermilk

2 1/2 cups flour

1/4 tsp salt

Grease and flour 10-12 cup Bundt pan. Heat oven to 300 degrees. Cut up first 4 ingredients and add 1 cup flour. Mix well. Cream together butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time. Add soda and salt with flour. Add buttermilk and flour alternately. Mix well. Remove from mixer. Add first 4 ingredients that were mixed with flour. Mix well. Put in pan. Bake for 90 minutes or until done.

Church cookbooks…I have a friend who seeks them out in used bookstores, and I have 5 or 6 myself. They are much more interesting than anything the Junior League could put together. I might be a little prejudice, but the ones from Baptist churches are especially great (it might be the corn flake casseroles that separate the Baptists from the Methodists or Presbyterians).

So when my cousin Maudine sent me some of my Grandmother Pauline Malone’s recipes from a church book, I was thrilled. The recipes come from a cookbook put together by the Gum Springs Christian Church near Longview, Texas. And since it is canning time of year, I’ll share one of my Grandmother’s pickle recipes from that cookbook and also a recipe I found tucked away in my mom’s recipe box that was marked “from a lady at Gum Springs Church. Given to Pauline Malone.”

I don’t ever remember seeing my grandmother Pauline Malone canning pickles. I do remember her and peaches…jars, more jars and freezer bags full of them. I didn’t eat peaches for the longest time after peeling and slicing bushels of peaches with her and my Aunt Millie.

So first here are two of my cousins sharing memories about my Grandmother Malone’s house, and then we’ll get to two amazing pickle recipes.

Eric Malone:  The Malones knew what family gatherings were all about. The food, more like a buffet, the awesome baseball games in the front yard. Let’s not forget about the cow patty fights Little Andy would start. I can remember the clay fort where we played to my dad chasing us at night playing some game that I can’t remember. I just remember that all my cousins begged to play it.

Anne Malone Abbott: I remember “IN OR OUT…DON’T LET THT SCREEN DOOR SLAM!” (hahahaha) Crawfishing in the springs or remember when we played games the bird bath was “safe.” Or what about cheese toast that grandmother made us for breakfast? Texas toast, slabs of cheddar cheese and then a tomato on top. Or all her Avon perfume bottles on that dresser in the bedroom?

PAULINE MALONE’S GREEN TOMATO PICKLES

Ingredients:

– 2 qt quartered green tomatoes

– 1 c. chopped onion

– 12 chopped green peppers

– 2 c. sugar

– 2 c. vinegar

– 1 tsp salt (to each qt)

Directions:

Heat sugar and vinegar to boiling. Pour in tomatoes, salt, onions and peppers. DO NOT BOIL.  Keep stirring until tomatoes turn lighter color. Put in jar and seal in hot water bath.

LIME CUCUMBER PICKLES FROM A LADY AT GUM SPRINGS CHURCH

Ingredients:

– 7 lbs sliced cucumbers

– 1 cup lime juice

– 3 pints vinegar

– 2 1/2 pints sugar

– 2 tbsp. salt

– 1 tbsp. pickling spices

Directions:

Soak cucumbers in lime water overnight (lime water is 1 cup lime juice to one gallon of water). Wash the cucumbers the next day in clear water. Soak the cucumbers for one hour in ice water. Cook cucumbers for one hour in vinegar, sugar, salt mixture. Put the pickling spices in a cloth bag and put it in the cucumber/vinegar mixture to cook. Put in hot jars. Seal and then they are ready to eat. No waiting period to eat.

 

After reading (and admittingly mocking) a New York Times article about the hipness of pickle making, I decided to make good on my word and give out some canning recipes from my maternal grandmother.  It is good to know my grandmother was ‘HIP’ 100 years before her time.

Elsie Mitchell’s Bread & Butter Pickles

These pickles are my favorite which is why I am sharing. But my grandmother would do pickles more than one way. The shelves in her kitchen would be packed with pickles.

When she was canning, we were told in no uncertain terms not to run in the house or slam the screen door, less the pressure cooker explode. As kids, we were so terrified of the pressure cookers, we would tiptoe through her house. For years, I really thought the house would explode if we slammed the screen door. Imagine my surprise when an older cousin explained that yes the pressure cooker could explode, but more than likely it would mean broken glass and hot pickle juice on the kitchen ceiling.

Ingredients:

– 6 qt clean thinly sliced cucumbers

– 6 medium size onions, sliced

– 3/4 cup salt

– 2 cups water

– 1 qt vinegar

– 4 cups sugar

– 2 tbsp. each celery and mustard seed

Directions:

– Alternate layers of cucumbers and onions in earthenware bowl

– Sprinkle with salt and cover

-Combine sugar, water, vinegar, celery and mustard seed and bring to boil

-Stirring the whole time, boil 3 minutes

-Add cucumber mixture and again bring to boiling point

-Pack immediately into hot sterilized jar. Seal at once.

Elsie’s Dill Pickles

These pickles are a close second in my favorite. My mom always made these but as everyone knows, no one (not even Mom) makes them like your grandmother. These are super easy to make…just like the New York Times promised pickle making should be!

Ingredients:

-20 to 25 4-inch cucumbers

– 1/8 tsp powdered alum

– 1 clove garlic

– 2 heads dill

– 1 red hot pepper

-grape leaves

– 1 qt vinegar

– 1 cup salt

– 3 qt water

Directions:

– Wash cucumbers

-Let cucumbers stand in cold water overnight

-Pack cucumbers into hot sterilized jars

-To each qt jar add the above amount (1/8 tsp) alum, garlic (1 clove), dill (2 heads), and 1 red pepper.

– Combine vinegar, salt and water and heat to boiling.

-Add this mixture to each jar and then seal and process jar immediately.