Spending some time with my grammas

I have a cookbook my grandparents sent me long ago. It is a group project their ward Relief Society in Iowa published back in 1989. While making my grocery list and menu for the week, I perused through this book, choosing a few dishes for upcoming dinners.  Several entries in the cookbook are from my great-gramma Hazel Herker, and most of them contain sauerkraut. You can tell she was a real German :)

After finishing my lists, I get out my bread-making ingredients and tools, and start loading up my bread machine to make a loaf. As I do this, I think about all of my grandmothers who have now gone on to the blessed world of spirits. They were all women who grew up on farms or in rural areas, and many of them were well taught in the science of homemaking-- more specifically, in growing, storing and preparing your own food. I wonder if they would be pleased with my efforts of trying to make my own bread, grinding my own flour, and making my own jam.

Granted, I definitely don't do these things the same way my grammas did. I have an electric wheat grinder. My grammas, if they didn't just buy flour from the store, may have had to take their wheat to a mill. That would have taken ALL day, whereas I can grind 5 or 10 lbs of wheat within a half hour or less. And when I make jam, I use a packet of pectin specially made for freezer jam, along with some frozen fruit. My grammas probably used fresh fruit, and cooked and bottled their jam.

Somewhere out there is a picture of 5 yr old me standing at my gramma Alice Herker's kitchen counter, kneading dough. I remember the smell of the yeast, the warmth and elasticity of the dough, and how it stuck to my fingers. So as I'm loading up my bread machine, thinking of all this, I suddenly wonder, What would my gramma think of my bread machine?

Instantly I could picture my gramma Alice standing beside me, and my insides felt warm and fluttery, like she was really there. And we talked together.

"This is my bread machine. It makes bread all by itself."
"It DOES?" (her eyes are wide) "It can make bread?"
"Yes, it does. I admit it doesn't make bread as good as yours. And it can be a little fickle, but it does make bread."
And she watches me put all the ingredients in.
"Now press this button."
She presses the button, and is surprised to hear the machine jump to life, mixing all the ingredients inside. She opens the lid just a little and peeks inside. "Oh, my." Then she looks at me. "It's mixing everything up!"

As the machine continues its program, I look at it and picture all of my grammas each going over to it, and stealthily peeking inside, marveling at this amazing machine. And when the bread is done, and they each take a bite, I'm sure they will all agree. Their bread was better.