The Reindeer Keeper

I recently made a few Raspberry Pies following my grandmother's recipe that is included in a cookbook featuring her recipes. It was put together by her oldest daughter. One of six daughters. I love using her recipes. They are quite simple. Basic. Born out of an era of raising a family on a farm where meals were homemade, and work and chores were nonstop and produce came from the garden, some of that produce eventually canned or stored in a root cellar. In a few of my grandmother's recipes, her instructions include words such as a pinch, a dash, a sprinkle or a hint as ways of measurement of certain ingredients. In the Raspberry Pie recipe, her instruction was to add a pinch of salt. Before, when coming upon that particular instruction, I would put a little bit of salt in a bowl or on a plate and take a pinch of it. Then add the pinch to the other ingredients. But this time I was curious. For whatever the reason, I asked Mr. Google what the instruction for a Pinch of an ingredie...

I only remember one time when I saw my grandmother in anything but a house dress. It was later on in her life. She was going berry picking in a pair of jeans. That image was odd to say the least because growing up, she always wore a house dress; sort of like June Cleaver and Harriet Nelson but more down-to-earth like the Waltons. My grandmother worked from the minute she got up to the minute she went to bed. I guess you could say when she went downstairs in the morning, she was reporting in to work wearing her uniform. Functional, with pockets, her house dress with its lose fit freed her to move fast, cook fast, mend and sew and knit fast, bake bread and prepare meals and clean-up after fast, tend to six daughters fast, help her husband in the barn and fields and gardens fast and deal with everything else in between through four seasons, seven days a week even faster. She had a few house dresses. They were always clean and neat and complimented her as she moved about the old farmh...