Happy 88th Birthday Granny H!

This is a picture of my grandmother, Edna, taken in 1944 with her husband and 2 (of 3) pups. Just 25 years old with 3 kids and a husband in the war. Know what I was doing when I was 25? Sleeping till noon on Saturdays, eating dozens of blueberry muffins slathered with butter, catching up on a weeks worth of Days of Our Lives on the vcr. Yep. It was rough.

The other day we were sitting on her front porch, watching Little pup play with the kittens, when she started telling stories of what it was like growing up in the 1920's and 30's. I learned how they stored their meat in a smokehouse while the milk was lowered down into a well to keep cool. And although she enjoyed churning butter, making soap was her least favorite of all the chores. They raised cattle and hogs for meat, chickens for meat and eggs, grew all their vegetables and fruit. Occasionally, they would hitch up Jeff (their favorite horse) to the wagon and head to Bangert's store where they would trade or sell some of their goods for things like sugar or flour.

But my favorite story and Granny's favorite memory involved doughnuts. Every once in a while, Granny's mother would make a huge batch of yeast doughnuts that filled a dishpan right up to the top. Granny, her 4 brothers, and all the kids in the neighborhood got together and ate doughnuts, drank lemonade, and played games. And by the end of the day, the dishpan would be empty.

Mmmm...doughnuts. Yeast doughnuts. Light, airy, Krispy Kreme-like doughnuts. Which, by the way, was founded in 1937. But to hear Granny talk, Vernon Rudolph had nothing on her momma's doughnuts. And although I don't have her exact recipe (I believe it involved the use of hog lard), here's one that's a Krispy Kreme knock off that sounds pretty good. Someone needs to fix me up a dishpan full of these!