One of my most memorable excursions into the world of translation occurred when I was in high school and I had finished my third year of this Romance language. We were visiting the Quebec Province of Canada, in a little town where nobody spoke English. Now, if you are honest with yourself about this know-it-all age of 14-18, you will admit that you thought yourself far superior to any adult with a college education and/or work experience. You were in high school and what you were learning was new and different and more advanced than anything adults could have possibly gotten when they were in school! I could regurgitate French phrases to a teacher, and noone else in my family could! Therefore, I was special. I was the authority when it came to coping with menus and the poulet, the bœuf and the jambon. It was with this air of superiority that I announced to my mother, who was anxious about all of our dirty clothes, that I would speak with the motel clerk and get directions to a laundramat.

I want to add here that I distinctly remember the price that we paid for our rooms. We had gotten three motel rooms in this tiny town, to accommodate my father and mother and then two each of us four girls in each room. The grand total of the bill for one night was $18. Even then, in the early ‘70’s, that was pretty incredible. It must have been, to have made such an impression on me. Anyway, I left our suite of rooms to traipse across the lawn to the motel office, little sister in tow. I had already looked in my English to French dictionary to make sure that I knew the word for “laundry”. Since there was no word for “laundramat” I decided that laundry – blanchisserie - was the next best thing. I entered the office and spoke to the nice lady behind the counter. My little sister looked up at me adoringly. I gathered all 5’4” of my high school ignorance and said, in perfect pronunciation – I must say – “Où est une blanchisserie?”

The young woman looked at me quizzically. She said, “Blanchisserie?” I said, “Oui.” My little sister was all the more impressed. We were having a conversation! The woman studied for a moment and then said, “Ahhh!! Oui!” and disappeared into the back room. The next thing we knew, she was bringing me a tall stack of extra towels and sheets with the definitive statement, “Blanchisserie!” I grimmaced and said, “Non. Non. Blanchisserie!” and fell into my best pantomime of washing clothes on a washboard. An air guitar expert had nothing on me. I washed the pretend clothes, wrung the pretend clothes and then hung them on a pretend line. The woman watched my antics with a frown, trying to discern the French words that I was spelling out in theatrics. “Ahhhhhhhh!” she finally said, with the joy of having figured out the answer to a game show question. “Une laundramat!” She drew me a map and I sheepishly took it to my mother and father. I couldn’t gloss over the incident and pretend that I had intelligently conversed with a native so fluently as to have obtained the directions we needed. There were two young eyes who witnessed the whole thing. The good Lord knows how to take us down a knotch.

So, it was with a continuation of that lesson learning, that I have discovered in my research that one of my favorite dishes, Quiche, did not originate in France. All of these years, I have taught my children that Quiche was created in the Alsace-Lorraine region of France, although it could be argued that it is logical that it was named after some Lorraine lady who love to eat it. Not so, mon frère! How will I ever be the brilliant authority figure in my progeny’s lives again? According to foodreference.com, Quiche originated in Germany. I bet you didn’t know or care that the Alsace-Lorraine was actually part of Germany until the late 1500’s! That is one of those things that we all should know. At that time, the area was known as Lothringen. The word ‘quiche’ is based on the German word for an open pie filled with an egg/cream custard and smoked bacon, ‘Kuchen’. The crust of this pie was made from bread dough. The French changed it to a pie crust, added cheese and onions and voila, came up with Quiche Lorraine. It didn’t become popular here in America until the 1950’s, after WWII, when eggs were no longer $1000 a dozen.

With that enthralling bit of information under your belt, you’ll find my recipe for Quiche below. For the base, I use my pie crust recipe that you can also find on the blog. Quiche is great for any meal – breakfast, lunch or dinner – and is fast and easy. You can even make it the night before, leave it in the frig and bake it the next morning.

Now that you know the real history behind this tasty dish, we can no longer say that real men don’t eat Quiche. All men eat eggs and all men love pies, therefore, all men eat egg pies. See? I learned deductive reasoning in high school too!

OKIE QUICHE
That Won’t Clog Your Arteries

Note: If you want a creamy, amazing Quiche, you can use half and half instead of milk or 1 cup half and half + 1/2 cup heavy cream. However, don’t blame me if your doctor puts you on life support.

So, Herbert wrapped himself cozily among the peach branches and stared at me. That was when I named him Herbert. Don’t ask me why. I don’t even know a Herbert to say he looked like a Herbert. It just seemed right. I took portraits of him and then left him to determine how to unknot himself out of his predicament. He was gone when I checked a few hours later. Herbert is out there now, chasing all the field mice and boppin’ ‘em on the head – and then swallowing them. But they won’t be eating my strawberries!!

My aunt lives in Georgia and is a happy, talented and fun-loving woman of great faith and great humor. At 86, she writes for several sources and it will be a joy to share some of her memories, thoughts on life and brilliant observations on a regular basis here. Sit at her feet and learn!

~~~

Answer To A Question You Didn’t Think To Ask Written By Lois Wyrick The question surfaced as I was preparing a program to give to a group of women. The topic was all that women do or not do to attain happiness and yes, it was a “tongue in cheek” response to what we do. One of the topics had to do with how woman struggles with her hair and how important hair is to her happiness. I used my life as an example and told of my first hair permanent and all that I have gone through to have curly hair. Straight hair is in fashion now but that was not the case in my life. So, I went to Google to find out about the permanent machine that we used to get a long lasting wave and I was surprised with the answer. The article begins with the fact that Caucasian women have never been content with straight hair and have gone to many lengths to get the curl. I remember mother telling how she and her sisters slept in “rags.” My understanding was they wrapped sections of their hair around strips of cloth and wearing this overnight gave a curl to their hair.

Rags were used as rollers with the resulting cascade of curls

Did you know that the first permanent machine surfaced in 1872? I couldn’t believe how dangerous it sounded and wondered about the bravery or desperateness of the woman who tried it. Several machines were developed after that but it was in 1906 that a machine was developed that used rollers, solution and heat. The inventor tried it on his wife and it burned off her hair and gave painful scalp burns. The article didn’t say if the marriage survived the ordeal.

A Vintage Permanent Machine

Long hair was a woman’s crowning glory and it wasn’t until the beginning of the 20th century that woman began cutting her hair. This began with woman doing man’s work during WW1 and long hair got in the way of her work. Short hair became a fashion statement in the 1920s and the wave that women got with the cut came with a “curling iron.” The wave style was called a “marcel” named after the man who invented the method. I remember mother telling the story of when she had her first cut and wave. Mother’s hair was long enough for her to sit on and it was my dad’s pride and joy. All of the women in his family had long hair but none was as pretty as my mother’s hair. Mother’s younger sister, Susie, was the first to get her hair cut short and Dad’s mother told my mother that Aunt Susie would go to hell. Mother envied her sister’s sense of freedom with her short hair and decided to do likewise. She waited until Dad had to go out of town, took ,my piggy bank money and her grocery money and got her hair cut and “marcelled.” I never heard what anyone said about it, including Dad and his mother. Mother just smiled and shook her head, “no” when I would ask about it. As far as I know this was the most defiant act my mother ever did. Which says a lot about the relationship of woman and her hair.

Mother with her hair cut and “marcelled”.

The rest of the story: It wasn’t too many years later that Dad’s sisters followed mother with short hair and waves. It was about ten years later that my paternal grandmother had her hair cut and waved. However, she HAD to do it – Her explanation to everyone that the weight of her long hair gave her headaches and the doctor ordered her to cut her hair. I loved my grandmother but even I wondered about that. I do remember my first permanent. I was fourteen and I’m sure my dad wasn’t too pleased about it. I had short brown hair with bangs and I was so ready for wavy hair like movie stars had. The machine used for permanents in the 1930s looked like something from outer space. It was round and had electrical cords hanging down with clamps at the end. A horrible smelling solution was applied to each section of your hair and the hair was then placed around rollers. The hanging clamps were then attached to each roller and electricity was then turned on and, for what seemed forever, your hair received heat to cook your hair. And yes, it came out curly and every woman and young girl looked like an overgrown Shirley Temple. It took forever for the smell to leave your hair. The “cold wave” method that we use today came into our life in 1938 and I’m not sure when it replaced the heat method. A lot of men worked on developing a way for women to have curly hair. They would be surprised at today’s hair fashion. Straight hair is “in” and it causes women to use a machine to press their curly hair straight. And so it goes with life.

Thanks, Aunt Lois, for reminding us just how far we women have come! Or have we?!

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It appears that I am running a bit late on my contributions this month to the blog. I really do have a good excuse. Really. Creating Concepts, Ent. participated, for the first time, with the Taste of Home Cooking School show and we had so much fun. However, it meant that all of my time was spent in preparation and the thought of sitting down to the computer was last on my mind. We had an absolute blast, met tons of nice people and enjoyed it immensely. Thanks to all who came by the booth! We had a drawing at the booth and the winner was from Seminole, Oklahoma. She won a Breadbasket Gift Set. Here is a picture of the booth and my trusty helpers. Oh! And we introduced the new line of aprons made from vintage patterns. The aprons will be up on the shopping page by the weekend!

And now I’ll move on to a real post!

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