I loved Little House on the Prairie when I was little. I watched all 200+ episodes of the television show multiple times (they were played in syndication almost as much as Friends episodes are today, I swear). My mother read me the entire book series, and I read them over again to myself as soon as I learned how to read. I loved to pretend I was Laura Ingalls (before she she married Almonzo Wilder, of course). I was little, so I rode on a stick horse, wearing the prairie bonnet that I begged my parents to buy me. (Yeah, the fact that I grew up to be a dork is a surprise to absolutely no one, am I right?)
Thankfully, my days of riding stick horses and sporting historical head wear are over. But as I grew, one passion that Little House instilled was one I never grew out of: cooking/baking.
As a 7-year-old, I would use a spatula to stir the three ingredients into a brownie mix and think I was doing it the way Laura (or really Caroline) had. It wasn’t until after I got married and had a kid that I started to make things from scratch the way they really did on the prairie.
I quickly found that some from-scratch items rarely worked and weren’t worth it when they did. (Butter and cream cheese are the two that spring to mind.) Some, like baking bread or making pasta, are worth it when I’m in the mood, but only work if I have an entire afternoon. Neither is really difficult, but there’s time that has to elapse between steps, which means you’re stuck in your house for hours if you decide to make them.
I’ll also bake bread if I’m in need of stress relief/anger management, because kneading bread is oddly cathartic.
Ok, it’s not just me, is it? This guy is totally imagining these loaves of bread dough are boobs.
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My favorite eyebrow-raising item that I make from scratch is yogurt. We get raw milk from a farm nearby (this is legal where I live; it’s not in all states), and homemade yogurt from raw milk tastes SO much better than what you get at the store. Although this little girl isn’t quite as cute as my kid (no biases there), this is her basically her attitude toward homemade yogurt mixed with raw honey:
My daughter–like her mother before her–also loves any sort of historical dress-up clothes. And during this interminable Polar Vortex winter that seems to have seeped into our spring here in the Northeast, she also refuses to wear a winter coat. So while browsing the internet the other day, I came across a handmade, made-to-order fleece cloak on Etsy. If her current preferences last until September, I plan to buy it for her.
I’m hoping it’ll save me from being rude to the 2647328th grandma in public who asks me why my daughter isn’t wearing a coat in the 30-degree weather. Instead, I’ll explain why she’s wearing a turn-of-the-19th-century cloak, trying not to let them know that I secretly wish you didn’t have to be five to get away with wearing one.
Do any of you love to cook/bake? What are your favorite things to make from scratch? Is there anything you do because a TV show inspired you as a kid? Do you just think I’m crazy? (I don’t blame you. I already know I am!)
