Mountain Laurel & Coal

I’m certain all of my female ancestors owned some sort of sewing basket, box, or tin filled with buttons, pins, scissors, needles, and thread.   My mother, Roberta, a talented sewist, couldn’t contain her supplies to a sewing kit, and instead had boxes of patterns and an extensive stash of fabric that spilled into every room of her home. Her mother, Blanche, who made most of her own clothes, also had quite a few sewing supplies. And, I believe Blanche’s mom Annabelle, who tatted lace, must have kept her supplies in some sort of container. My paternal grandmother Ruth had a tin with buttons, some needles, and thread, but her skills we limited to basic mending. I don’t think she even owned a sharp pair of scissors.  I regret that I don’t have many of their sewing notions, but I do have a couple of my mom’s patterns; a 1977 McCall’s Raggedy Ann pattern that my Grandmother Blanche used to teach me how to sew; and my Grandmother Ruth’s buttons. Yesterday, Abby and I visited an anti...

My Aunt Janet sent me this photo and it’s just too precious not to share. I believe it was taken at an outdoor church service on Market Street in Clarksville. That’s my dad Wayne Ross (blocking the sun with his program), my mother Roberta Ross, and my grandfather Vance Ross, with my cousin Nikole Kiralis sitting on his lap. That’s Hackney’s Hardware store in the background. I think this was taken during the Bicentennial Celebration in 1976. 

Did anyone else’s mom make syrup out of coffee? When I was little my mom made it all the time. I can’t be sure, but I think she put it on pancakes and French toast. My little sister Kelly and I didn't care about those traditional uses, we loved the rock candy that formed in the bottom of the jar. In our opinion the sole purpose was to make rock candy. My dad would use a knife to scrape the hard sugar out of the bottom of the jar for us. For some reason, I started thinking about this coffee syrup. I did a Google search to see if there was such a thing or if I was remembering things wrong. To my surprise,  I found several recipes. The one that sounded like my mom’s consisted of three ingredients: instant coffee, sugar, and water.  One recipe that I found online from Robin Gagnon, who writes the Mom Foodie blog , provided a little background about how coffee syrup is used to make Coffee Milk. “If you have never heard of Coffee Milk before, you have never lived in Rhode Island. It...