When I stop and think about my life I realize that most of my best memories are from times when my family and friends gathered at the kitchen table.
While some families spend a great deal of time in the living room or game rooms, or what ever they are called nowdays, Ours always seemed to gather in the kitchen with a hot cup of coffee or a cold glass of tea depending on the season.
One of my earliest memories is of my Grandpa and Grandma Norenberg. They were a huge part of my life. Grandpa was about 5'5" and Gram was about 5'2'' or so. They were both of German decent and had lived thro the great depression so they never threw anything away and they put up or preserved or raised alot of their food.
I have so many memories of their house, it seems like back then the family gathered at their place for most holidays and get togethers and Gram was always cooking, her house was always cluttered but it always was filled with the smells of love, and most of them came from her kitchen. She must have had a huge amount of love and patience for if I recall there was always a housefull and she was always cookin something.
She shared and taught me so many things. When I was little I remember helping to make cookies ( I'm sure I was a GREAT help, now that I have grandchildren and we make cookies at my house), and when she made bread I got too make my own little loaves, however I dont remember eating those little loaves and they seem to have a grey color in my mind.
When they lived out on the "oil lease" near Kevin and Oilmont, Montana they had chickens. One day when I was there Gramp was going out to do something and as I was always his shadow I want to go too but Gram told me no that I had to stay in the house. But being as I was determined and not just a little spoiled, as soon as Gram turned her back I was out the door and headin for the garage, of which the chicken coop was next to, to find Gramp and see what adventure we would have, well I got an adventure all right.... about the time I rounded the corner of the garage.. of which the chicken coop was next tooo.. here comes this chicken flyin at me - WITH NO HEAD - and blood goin all over every which away. Naturally I screamed and screamed which brot Gramp around the side of the garage, still holdin the hatchet - which freaked me out even more, and gram flying out of the house. Gram saw me saw the chicken without its head floppin around, and grabbed me and marched me back to the house and told me thats what I got for sneaking out and then pulled me on her lap till I quit blubbering.
I still have nightmares about that dang chicken and it has been been the subject of more than one good laugh as the story's been told around kitchen tables thro the years.I remember walking into the house one day, and there my Gram was with this huge kettle of some kind on the stove with all 4 burners roaring and a strange smell emitting from it. So naturally I asked what she was cooking "while trying to imagine how many people were coming to eat whatever there was in that pot" So with a laugh she picked me up and said "I'll show you" as Gramp lifted the lid off. As the steam cleared, and I began to see what was in there I really Freaked Out - For looking back at me was a pigs head - eyes and all. So.. while my Gram was tring to catch her breath "from laughing" I wanted to know what in the world that pigs head was doing in that pot. IT was the most discusting thing I had ever seen. She proceeded to tell me that they were making headcheese "which is a lunchmeat". Well I guess you know that was the last time I ever ate any of that. Thro the years as I grew up and would visit she would ocassionally have Headcheese in the fridge and would pull some out amd ask if I wanted some for lunch and then laugh till the tears ran. So much for Headcheese.
My Gram always made her own sourkraut, which is an involved process. She always had a garden, which us kids always raided, and maybe thats one of the reasons she grew it. Theres nothin like warm peas right off the vine and they are even better when you have sneaked out to the garden to snitch them, I also remember gettin caught eatin the corn we had just picked raw and Gram laughin and tellin us we would have hair growin from outta ears from eatin it that way. (we ate alot of corn that way but every time we checked each others ears we never did find any hair). Anyhow- back to the kraut making Gram had an old kraut cutter which is this big flat board with a blade in the middle of it ( kind of like a meat slicer now - but flat) and us kids used to take turns pushing heads of cabbage over it and slicing them up - to us it was fun but for her it must have saved her hours of work. anyhow once the cabbage was cut up she put it in jars with all the stuff ya need to put in there to make kraut kraut and sealed the jars, and waited for the cabbage to become kraut. I remember at one point they lived in a trailer house which had heat vents in the floors, and one of those heat vents was in the kitchen next to the wall, so when we made kraut that year she decided that the only place warm enough to put the jars so the cabbage would "work" was along that wall - so we dutifully stacked all those jars one on top of the other like a pyramid and left them to work. well about a week or so later we had to go somewhere for the evening and it had turned off cool so Gramp kicked the heat up a little when we left. Several hours later when we returned that kraut had worked all right - so much so that the jars had exploded and set of a chain reaction I guess cuz there was kraut hanging all over that kitchen and the smell woulda knocked over a small army. Gram was madder than hopps and poor Gramp caught hell for weeks. It took us forever to clean up that mess, all the while Gram just a a cussin and a stewing and me and Gram looking at each other and bitin our lips trying to not bust out laughing for we woulda been in even deeper water with Gram for sure if we had. We found pieces of kraut for months after that. I still smile and think of them when I see a jar (nowdays mostly cans) of kraut or smell it cookin.