Keiser - grace grits and gardening

there’s no place like home

February 12, 2016 By Talya Tate Boerner 17 Comments

There’s no place like home, that’s for sure. And oh my goodness, so far my week back home in Mississippi County has been so much fun and a whirlwind of activity. I was invited to speak at the Osceola Rotary Club on Tuesday and they fed me very well. They made me promise to return each time I publish a book, so I best get busy with my next one. Books = Rotary Spaghetti with a side of homemade blackberry cobbler, and that’s a yummy thing.

I met lots of people and saw a few folks I hadn’t seen in years, like my high school guidance counselor, Mr. Rogers Ford.

And speaking of high school, I returned to mine (Rivercrest High School, go Colts!!!) to present a book to the library. That was very cool because I spent so much time in that library.Continue Reading

Salmon Croquettes (for Project STIR)

October 20, 2015 By Talya Tate Boerner 4 Comments

I hadn’t eaten homemade salmon croquettes in a hundred years, not since I left home for college. When we were kids, Momma made salmon croquettes for my sister and me nearly every week—it was one of our favorites. (But we called them salmon patties.) Last weekend I made them using the recipe in Momma’s copy of the Keiser’s Kitchen vintage cookbook. And I’m dedicating this recipe to Project STIR, storytelling through international recipes. Continue Reading

Keiser’s Kitchen – a foodie blast from the past

October 3, 2014 By Talya Tate Boerner 16 Comments

Fall in the part of the Delta where I grew up meant harvest, football and countdown to the Keiser Halloween Carnival. Friends, it was THE big event in our little town. I’ve written about my reign as Halloween Queen HERE if you’d like to get background information. The thing to know for purposes of this post is that the PTA mothers raised money for the school primarily so their kid and class representative could wear the coveted cardboard glittery crown.

A.BIG.DEAL.

Way back in Nineteen Hundred and Sixty-Nine (gasp), the year I was nominated Queen of the second grade class, our most successful fundraiser was the Keiser cookbook, aptly named Keiser’s Kitchen.

This cookbook belongs in a museum showcasing middle twentieth century PTA Mom handiwork.

Way before computers and high speed copy machines and your choice of cool fonts, regular construction paper covers were cut to size, manually stapled and hand lettered using a Bic marker. Someone (probably Momma) collected and typed the recipes on a clunky manual typewriter before running them off on the mimeograph machine in the teacher’s lounge. And I’m sure there was sniffing. Sniffing the mimeograph paper was the reward at the end… (if you don’t know what I mean, you are showing your young age.)

What a labor intensive project compared to today’s technology.

Our copy of Keiser’s Kitchen is priceless.

During the upcoming fall weeks, I plan to recreate these dishes as presented (along with maybe a little story about the Keiser mom who originally submitted the recipe). There are over thirty recipes, so I won’t do all of them because really, how many Jell-o salads does one need? But I plan to make lots of them. I think we need to remember these recipes, taste this simple, basic food lovingly made by our mothers who saw to it that we gathered around the supper table every night for a family meal.

I’ll warn you now, there will be no salted caramel frosting or balsamic anything. But sometimes maybe that’s what we need.

Stay tuned!

Grace Grits and Gardening

Farm. Food. Garden. Life.