Homemade noodle recipe

When I was first married I asked my mother for her recipe for homemade noodles that she always used whenever she made chicken-noodle soup. She laughed and went to retrieve her recipe. Thus I became part of a multi-generational joke. When she was first married, she asked her mother-in-law for a recipe for homemade noodles and was given the same piece of paper my mother handed me that day. She said Grandma Newlin laughed also when she gave Mom that recipe. The recipe was the same recipe that Grandma Newlin was given when she was a young girl. Mom didn't know whether it was Grandma Goff or Grandma White who first wrote down the recipe, but she thought it was Grandma Goff.

Make a pile of flour, as much as you want.

Make a hole in the flour and put an egg in it.

Fill up the small half of the shell with water and put it in the hole.

Mix with your hands.

This recipe was full of very quaintly spelled words. I kept it and all my other recipes from Mom in a gray department store shirt box. The last time I remember having my box of recipes was when I lived in Mountlake Terrace in Washington. Whatever happened to the box during my move I cannot say. The spelling was something this: "Mak a pil of flowr, az mutch az yu wunt." I had always intended to have that recipe framed to hang on my kitchen wall. Just one of the many things I intended to do and never got around to doing. The memory of it still brings a smile to my face.

Grandma Goff

I may mean Grandma White, but I am pretty sure it is Grandma Goff. Jenny has both of the marriage certificates for Grandma White and Grandma Goff so she can check on which is which for sure. Anyway, assuming I am remembering correctly, Grandma Goff is Grandma Newlin's mother and Grandma White is Grandma Goff's mother. I have pictures of all these people and wish I knew how to scan them and add them to these posts. If ever I figure it out, I will add the pictures to the appropriate posts. In the meantime, here is what I remember.

Grandma Goff stayed on the family farm in Iowa until her death when she was in her nineties. She came to visit us in Palm Springs when I was in high school. She took the train and we picked her up at the train depot in San Bernardino. She looked absolutely ancient to me dressed in her "good dress," overcoat, hat, gloves and 4 buckle galoshes over her sensible shoes. Galoshes are those black rubber boots that people used to wear to protect their shoes from the weather and keep their feet warm. It was winter in Iowa so they were necessary when she got on board the train. She was afraid to take her galoshes off during the journey because she was sure someone would steal them.

We lived on Indian Avenue in Palm Springs in a house that we rented. Grandma Goff used to lecture us kids about taking care of our teeth and not eating too much candy. She was proud that she still had her own teeth. I remember she did not have many of those teeth, but what she had were her own. Mom kept a clear glass, carved candy dish on the coffee table full of hard candy or fudge. Mom made the candy herself and we had that candy dish for all of my childhood. I don't know what eventually happened to it. I can see it clearly today in my mind's eye. And I remember Mom making her fudge or hard candy. Anyway, that dish had a lid and all the time Grandma Goff was visiting we could hear the clink of that lid as she helped herself to candy all day long. Mom made a lot of candy during that visit.

Grandma Goff was feisty. You can imagine what an adventure it was for her to take the train from Iowa to California at her age. She wanted to see her only child, Grandma Newlin, and her California grandchildren (my dad and Aunt Shirley) and her three California great grandchildren - me, my brother, Ron, and my sister, Patty. Aunt Shirley's two daughters had both died, one at age 7 of kidney disease and the other as a teenager from a fall off the mountains surrounding San Bernardino during a family outing. My cousin's name was Dolores and I am not remembering her sister's name who died before.

The story my mom told me about Grandma Goff was that she never left the family farm while she was married to Mr. Goff. Remember he was the one who would not allow Grandma Newlin to marry the man of her own choice. He was so jealous of his wife that he was sure if she ever went into town some man was going to steal her away from him. So he did all the shopping in town. He died when they were both old, I'm guessing in their seventies. Everyone thought Grandma Goff would die shortly after he did since she was so dependent upon him. Well, she didn't. Instead, she had electricity and indoor plumbing brought to the farm. She had always wanted to have electricity and indoor plumbing but Mr. Goff would not allow it because it meant bringing men to the farm. Did I say he was very jealous and controlling? She started driving the horse and buggy into town every Sunday to attend church - another thing he never allowed. People started visiting her at the farm. She became what my mother called a social butterfly, fluttering around town and her house always full of visitors.

Grandma Goff died not too long after her visit to California. Mom said she fell off the ladder while wallpapering her dining room, broke her hip and never recovered. I'm glad she had those years of freedom and finally living her own life after Mr. Goff died.

It is sobering to think about how women were so subjugated, even during my lifetime. Think about this: When Mandy was a baby, I had to have my husband's permission and signature to open a charge account at Sears (which he declined to allow) while he could and did use our home as collateral for a personal loan from his mother without my knowledge or signature, resulting in my ultimate eviction from our home after Alan was born when she foreclosed on the house. Of course, she ultimately returned the house to him and forgave the loan once the divorce was final. I'm just saying, we women were still legally under the control of men as late as the 60's. It makes me want to cry when I think about my great grandmother finally being able to be her true vivacious self only after her husband died. My grandmother on my mother's side, Baba, told me the last twelve years of her life after my grandfather died were the happiest of her life. But that is a story for another blog. I am inclined to forgive myself for all the really stupid things I have done in my life regarding men which I did not have to do. We have come a long way legally and the ingrained sense of being dependent on men will take a little longer for women of my generation and my daughters' generation to overcome.

To be fair, men were also trapped in these circumstances and a product of the times of their lives. Even though my father was a loving, hard-working man who took his responsibilities seriously and those responsibilities did not allow him to pursue his dreams either, still the world was a much better place for him than it was for my mother. His mother, his wife and I have been very affected by the control he exerted over our lives. (For example, he refused to allow me to accept a 4 year scholarship to Stanford because the student who came in second for that scholarship was a boy who would need that education to support his family. Luckily, I was offered another scholarship from the Univ. of Calif. where the next student in line was another girl so that was the one I took. Also, it was understood that the reason I was going to college was to "make a good marriage" to a college educated boy which I did during my freshman year. Mission Accomplished. End of school. Start of children and family. Mind you, I bought this whole plan and felt my life was proceeding as it was meant to be and as I wanted it to be. I do remember my mother being a little sad that I married so soon and did not finish college. She always felt that not being educated or able to work forced her into situations not of her choosing. She certainly felt that way about living at the ranch. Ah, the ranch. Now that is truly a blog topic all it own.

The Story of Grandma Newlin

This is what my mother told me about Grandma Newlin and what I remember about her. She graduated from high school, which was a rarity in those days. She was considered to be very smart. She was an only child and her immigrant parents relied on her for things requiring "book learning," like reading and doing figures. She fell in love with a neighboring farm boy. Her parents did not approve because he was not Irish. So they ran off to get married. The Justice of the Peace stalled them at his house and sent word to her father who promptly retrieved her and put her under "house arrest." They quickly married her off to Mr. Newlin who was from the old country and worked on their farm. He was much older than she. (I think my mother said he was 20 years older, but I'm not sure.) They had four children, 3 girls (Shirley, Mona and Lila) and my father, Grant, second born. When my father was 8 years old, Mr. Newlin had a stroke. He was downtown and people around him thought he was drunk. A friend of his said, "That is Mr. Newlin. He does not drink a drop. He must be sick." He was brought home in the back of a wagon, paralyzed from the neck down and unable to talk. He lived another 40 years in that condition. I remember visiting him as a child.

Once, my father told me what he remembered about that day. He said that he always worked along side his father on the farm. When the lunch or dinner bell rang, they would go to the pump and wash their hands along with the other farm hands. He saw that they worked the bar of soap back and forth to lather it up. He could not do that as his hands were too small, so he rolled it around and around in his hands so as not to drop it. He complained to his father that he wanted to be able to rub the soap back and forth in his hands like the men did. His father told him that he did not need to worry, that he would be able to do that when he became a man. When they brought his father home after his stroke, the doctor took my father aside and said very gravely, "You are the man of the house now, Grant, and it is your job to take care of your mother and sisters and this farm." After everyone left and it was time to get the children in bed, Grandma Newlin went looking for my father after dinner. She found him at the pump. He had been practicing working the soap back and forth for hours. His hands were red and raw. Soap was not gentle in those days. He refused to come indoors until he had mastered this skill. He had to be a man. My father was so somber when he told me that story. From that day forward, he worked on the farm and at paying jobs to bring in the cash his family needed. His mother insisted that he continue school as well. He never "played" again. He said that was when he became a man with responsibilities. My father was hard-working and responsible his whole life.

Grandma Newlin did sewing for paying customers. She taught me how to sew and do needlework. She taught me how to darn socks and do embroidery. She taught me how to tat and crochet. She had cancer of the larynx when I was a young girl. She lived the rest of her life with a tube in her throat that she had to put her finger on in order to speak. I always thought that was fascinating. She worked at Goodwill when I was in high school and she always brought us kids interesting stuff from work. (Mandy, that is where she got the old clock you have in a box upstairs.) She had that clock for years and as far as I can remember it used to work.

When I was in high school, Grandma Newlin would often drive to our house in Palm Springs from San Bernardino where she lived. Her car was always covered with dents and scratches. She often complained about what terrible drivers people in California were compared to drivers in Iowa and Nebraska. Once, when she was visiting, she took me to a friend's house to spend the night because my parents were gone somewhere in our car. When my father came to get me the next day I told him about my harrowing drive with Grandma. She thought that if you turned on your signal, that gave you the right-of-way to turn and oncoming traffic was supposed to stop. She pointed out to me all the terrible drivers in California who just had accidents all around her. My father took a ride with her that afternoon and that was the end of Grandma driving. I don't think she was as old as I am now, but she was very confused about the modern turn signals. She learned to drive with arm signals and attributed too much power to the new electric signals. Grandma protested that she would stop doing that now that she understood, but my father was still the man of that family and she had to do as he said. I don't think Grandma Newlin ever forgave him for that.

Eventually Grandma Newlin's cancer returned in her throat and she had to go to the hospital for an operation. She "died" on the operating table and the surgeons had to revive her heart. She was very angry when she finally awoke from the surgery. She described a very typical near death experience of peace and complete happiness, a white light she was drawn to and no wish to return to her body. She was ready to leave this life. Shortly she took her own life by an overdose of insulin that she injected daily. She was a woman of her time. Her father had control of her and who she married. Her husband had control of her until her son assumed that role and kept it for the rest of her life. Her last act on this Earth was to take control of her own death. I admire her for that.

Lima Bean and Ham Hock Soup

I got hungry for my mom's cooking yesterday and made her Lima Bean and Ham Hock soup with a few additions. Mom was a scratch cook (even canned her own tomatoes, etc.) She learned to cook from Grandma Newlin, my dad's mom, who was a farm girl and a great cook. Mom and Dad got married when they were 15 and 17 years old. Mom's parents disowned her for a long time and so it was up to Grandma Newlin to get the newlyweds off to a good start. My identical twin brothers were born 10 months into the marriage so they really needed her help. I don't know how Mom managed when they finally moved into their own apartment, a cold water flat on the third floor in downtown Omaha. By then she was 19 years old and the mother of three with another well on the way. At least the water was inside the apartment (they shared a hot water bathroom with everyone else on the third floor) unlike the farm where the water was outside at the well and the outhouse was some distance from the house. Those Nebraska winters could be very cold. They eventually moved from the apartment two years after one of my twin brothers died at age 3. My sister was 3, I was 4 and my remaining brother was 5 when we began our life of traveling around with a road paving crew in our little 16 foot Howard trailer, changing schools as much as 5 times a year. But, that is a story for another posting. This is about soup.

If you want to make my mother's lima bean and ham hock soup, really my Grandma Newlin's recipe, you will need 2 cups of dried lima beans (rinsed, sorted and soaked overnight); 3 ham hocks; 1 large, diced onion; 3 cloves garlic, smashed and peeled; 4 tomatoes, peeled and diced (or if you must, a 14.5 oz. can); 3 sliced carrots; 3 sliced celery stalks; pepper (the ham hocks usually are salty enough); and finally 1/4 C chopped parsley leaves. Put everything together in a pot, cover generously with water and cook all day. I added the zest and juice of one lemon; Herbs from Provence with Lavender (Morton & Bassett, San Francisco); and at least 1 C of a nice white wine. Add salt, if needed, at the end of cooking time. I never need to do that. If someone unexpected showed up at dinner time, my mother would throw in a few diced potatoes. Also, since Grandma Newlin came to America on the boat from Ireland and she had lots of people to feed every night, she always added the potatoes. I love potatoes so I do too.

I love this soup, or chowder, or stew, or whatever it is. When I shopped for the ingredients to make soup, I was using a recipe I got at Mandy's house this last visit. It had boneless, skinless turkey thighs instead of ham hocks. It also had the white wine and lemon zest and juice that I added to mom's recipe. I did make Mandy's healthy recipe and it was good but it only made me hungry for the real thing. I missed the tomatoes, carrots, potatoes, celery and mostly the ham hocks. So now I have healthy soup in the freezer and artery clogging, blood pressure raising, delicious soup in my tummy. And I feel like I spent an afternoon in my mom's kitchen.