Every Sunday morning, Mom would pull her huge granite bowl out of the cupboard and start her weekly bread making marathon. She made 7 loaves of bread every single Sunday for 20 years until I was a junior in high school. My parents divorced that year and we kids couldn’t wait to have store bought bread, that’s what all of our friends ate. Silly, silly kids!
Though I was active in the kitchen and made meals almost every day, I was never part of the bread making marathon. I think this was her de-stressing time – imagine the kneading that goes into 7 loaves of bread at once!
This is her sifter. Even though I have it, it’s not mine; I just borrowed it about 15 years ago 😉
She didn’t use it as a sifter – it was her flour measure for making bread.
That’s all it was used for. She would dip the sifter into the old cherry can, where the flour was stored, a few times and go on with her recipe — she knew just how much water to use with these few scoops of the sifter.
It’s been almost 2 years now that we started our new way of living – doing more for ourselves. One morning I was making toast with the store bought bread I had been living on for 21 years and realized I’d had enough of this store bought bread! I talked with Mom – she could not remember the measurements for her bread recipe that she had made for 20 years. It took a few tries with Google to come up with something that didn’t have milk, eggs or anything else unnecessary. The search “basic homemade bread” finally brought me to Suzanne and her Grandmother Bread at the very top of the search page. THIS had to be Mom’s recipe. I could finally use the sifter for what it always been used for!
I have finally learned how much to dip out of the new age cherry can, where I store my flour.
This makes a 2-loaf recipe of Grandmother Bread.
Or 1 loaf of bread and 8 hot dog buns!
Cindy blogs at Chippewa Creek ~ Our Life Simplified.
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Nancy Lipgens says:
Cindy, you brought back memories of my grandmother teaching me to make bread. I remember how proud I was of my first loaf, and how Grandma and my Mom praised me! And there’s nothing like the smell of baking bread….
Nancy in Iowa
On September 17, 2010 at 1:58 am
Patrice says:
Isn’t it funny how good we have it sometimes and we don’t even know? I’m sure I’d have been right there with you wanting store bread because that’s what other kids had. I grew up on store bread, you know, the white stuff that is sooo full of nutrition!lol I learned to cook when I was quite young,out of desperation!
On September 17, 2010 at 4:09 am
Cathy Jones (catray44) says:
Neat post, Cindy! I use an old flour sifter to do the same thing and is sits in my bin as we speak! I love it for making bread or sifting out a little flour when rolling out pies, cookies, etc. They are handy to have, aren’t they?
On September 17, 2010 at 6:06 am
kellyb says:
Great post Cindy. Your flour bin is just like my flour bin. Isn’t it strange how we return to our roots? Keep baking.
On September 17, 2010 at 7:58 am
NorthCountryGirl says:
Cindy, what a neat story. My little flour sifter hangs under the cupboard, rarely used. I mostly use it to sift powdered sugar over cakes or doughnuts.
My mom was into store bought. Both she and dad worked from the time I could remember. She was one of those “independent” women who had their own career outside the home back in the 50s when most moms stayed home. All of my “from scratch” and “homemade” recipes came after I married and started my own home. I got into “natural” back in the 70s. I made bread, canned, froze, dehydrated, and even made all my kid’s baby food. No food additives or colors for them!
It’s interesting how people come from such different backgrounds but find a common love in the make-it-yourself style of cooking. Thanks for bringing back the memories!
On September 17, 2010 at 8:49 am
CindyP says:
It may just be a flour sifter, but it all plays into the appreciation of the way I was raised — NOW.
I’m not old (well, when I was a teenager 40 was old..LOL!) so many of my friends had no idea what hoeing the garden, canning, homemade bread, fixing supper was all about. I thought it was pure child abuse at the time, no one else had to do all that stuff!
My dad had the strangest look on his face when I was listing everything I do on my own now. He thought someone had taken his bull-headed child from him. 🙂 No, I’m just now getting it, years later, but I’m getting it.
On September 17, 2010 at 9:14 am
LauraP says:
Cindy – I love this. My sifter from Great Aunt Anne looks just like yours. She passed it to me when I was first married, along with big boxes of other kitchen things she swore she’d never use again after retiring to her little beach house in Florida where she intended to wallow in her idea of retirement. I use the sifter for dusting an even coat of flour before rolling out pie crusts or noodles, and I smile every time I look at it. To me, it’s so much more than an old kitchen tool because it connects me with so many memories and stories from before my time.
On September 17, 2010 at 9:37 am
kim @ marmee's pantry says:
What a sweet, sweet post. I don’t know how, as I am the ‘baby’ of 52 grandchildren, but I have ended up w/many of my gr-ma’s kitchen utensils. I cherrish them. I use her sifter & shredder the most. I enjoy cooking & using the same thing my Bigmom used helps to keep her in my heart.
Great post!
On September 17, 2010 at 11:56 am
rileysmom says:
CindyP, I, too have my mom’s sifter that looks just like that! It’s a little dented, a little tarnished and broken in!
On September 17, 2010 at 1:20 pm