Today is my Grandma’s birthday, and my parents’ anniversary. Grandma is no longer with us, but I can still remember her cooking. She loved to cook, but the funny thing was that she didn’t like to eat her cooking. I guess she nibbled enough while she cooked that she was no longer hungry. If you spent the night with Grandma, you would very likely be served donuts for breakfast, but the other meals were a full spread. I have the hardest time thinking past one or two vegetables, a starch (potatoes, sweet potatoes, or winter squashes), and a meat. Grandma on the other hand would fill the table with food. She never served just one or two vegetables—how about four or five. When you sat down to eat at her table you might find some yellow squash and onions cooked in butter, fresh green beans sautéed in butter and garlic, a glass jar full of water with green onions, and a plate of fresh, sliced juicy red tomatoes. Sometimes she would attempt to cook biscuits—but it never failed that she would burn them. Grandma never liked to cook with a timer.

Not only did Grandma like to cook—but she enjoyed gathering the food. Grandma grew up in a family of thirteen children. Their mother served the biscuits and potatoes at every meal, and they had their own garden, milked a cow, and raised their own meat. The children would harvest berries in the summer for their mother to turn into jelly. I guess you can say that cooking and preserving was bred into her. Years ago when she would come to visit she would stop at the vegetable market and pickup whatever vegetable was in season. It might be green beans in May or black-eyed peas in the fall. Then we would all sit on the porch shelling peas or snapping green beans. Then we would can them for future meals. In the summer she would go blackberry picking, and make jelly. While she never grew a garden, she always had friends that did and when they had more tomatoes than they needed they would call Grandma and she would go get those tomatoes and turn them into salsa.

One of the easiest desserts that Grandma liked to make was a peach cobbler. While she liked to use Jiffy cake mixes, we like to cook from scratch. During one of Grandma’s visits she helped us make a cobbler from scratch—and it is much easier than pie! You can use whatever fruit you have available.

Fruit Cobbler

1/2 cup butter
1 cup of sugar, or 3/4 cup maple syrup
1 cup flour
1 cup milk
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 cups of sliced fruit or berries

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees, and melt the butter in a 2 quart casserole dish. In a separate bowl mix together the sweetener, flour, milk, baking powder, and salt.