Bowled Over

Dear Diary,

I have no idea where my passion of china comes from but besides the transfer ware I love, there is also bowls.  This is a small collection of them in my kitchen.

Some bowls have designated functions, like the small purple and red on the bottom shelf which I use for my yogurt and fruit for breakfast.  The green bowl is my potato salad bowl and the yellow one with chickens on the top shelf is my pancake batter bowl.  I also have a huge bowl that is for making Thanksgiving stuffing in and a green sponge ware bowl for summer cookouts to hold the salad.

I think I get this idea from my grandmother who also had favorite bowls for certain functions.  Some of my bowls are antique ones, some are gifts from people who know my passion for bowls, and some I just acquired because I liked their shape or design.  Like my transfer ware, I’ve stopped buying bowls as I’m out of space to display them.  I thought I would include my grandmother’s “excellent old hermit receipt”. (Receipt is an old term for a recipe.)  It was a lunch box favorite for me and was always mixed up in a big old bowl with a wooden spoon, it had to be a wooden spoon.  No order was given to the ingredients, I guess she thought you should know that!  My grandmother rarely measured things precisely.  She had a natural understanding that frankly escapes me but these are excellent.

½ cup butter       2 ½ cup flour        1 ½ cup sugar         2 tsp baking powder        ½ cup milk        1 tsp cinnamon    2 eggs    a pinch of nutmeg   1 cup raisins

Spread on greased pan, bake at 350 degrees F until done, guess you should just know that too.  Cut when cool.  Wrap individually in wax paper so they stay fresh longer.  They were always stored in a tin with a tight fitting lid and they didn’t last too long, trust me!