Showing posts with label meat. Show all posts
Showing posts with label meat. Show all posts

Thursday, November 24, 2016

Pork Chop/ Stir Up Sunday

24th Nov

More about food:


The Kidney

I just fancy one of those pork chops.  You know the ones,  
 thick meat on  bone-  juicy - with  kidney still attached. 
Of course, they don't sell them like that any more 
something to do with cross contamination.  
I loved that chop with kidney and generous helping of apple sauce.
 Didn't the meat taste better in those days? Or is it  the passing 
of years, as in "nothing is the same these days." Well, it isn't!
My mouth drools remembering -
 fat around fleshy pork-crispy, crunchy, crackling.
Served with mashed potatoes-

so full of butter - the taste as good as cream
        




Stir Up Sunday

It was that time of year again,
Lined up on kitchen worktop twenty pudding bowls,  empty, waiting.
 On the white, worn, pine table, holding years of family history, the tin bath,
the one passed down from mum’s grandma, that she had from her own grandmother,
the one that mum’s dad and  grandfather were  bathed in once a week -  father first, 
the one classed as vintage  now, which made mum laugh
Five eager, powdery, faces peered into the old bath filled with a mixture
of fruit, flour, tallow, eggs, breadcrumbs,  brandy and stout,
not forgetting the secret ingredient, which only mum knew and wouldn’t tell,
a delicious  treat for Christmas day - dad’s favourite.
A yeasty, musty, malt aroma filled the kitchen like a brewery.
Five little wooden spoons took turns to stir
always from east to west -  the way of the kings - each time making a wish.
Five little children asked questions - mum told them the story
of  Stir Up Sunday



Sunday, January 24, 2016

Early Risers

Something I found when trying to sort through my "stuff". The first a short piece about washing day
And then a bit of flash fiction - story in exactly 100 words. Hope you enjoy them...

Early Risers

5.0 a.m.- rise 
Fill copper  - Six buckets of water
 light fire under wash tub,
Add soap shavings- Sunlight Carbolic,
Breathe in fresh, clean scent,
Throw in a  bit of soda to prevent scum.
It's Monday - washing - the entire day.
New to me, being  used to the modern machine.
But mother-in-law's routine.
Whites in first - boil,
Open windows for steam to escape.
Next coloureds; 
Lastly work clothes - the grubbiest.
Wooden tub for hand scrubbing,
Washboard for more soiled items.
All laundry rinsed  - fed through rollers of mangle.
When all is finished,
A tired satisfaction...
No time for anything else.
Even dinner is cold meat from yesterday,
With bubble and squeak from Sunday leftovers.



Ironing

Keeping everything normal Sheila starts ironing. It is Tuesday, after all. She'd kept up the regimental routine her mother-in-law had instilled in her all those years ago. Each day had its particular job - Monday, washing day, Tuesday, Ironing, - a useful distraction on this significant day.
Automaton like, she picks up his shirt, the one she bought him last Christmas. She knew then that she would be here today. The iron sweeps backwards and forwards. Smiling, she plans how she will go to the the greenhouse later and dispose of his  body and his  mug containing the evidence.