Quantity Servings - Coffee

I have snobbish tendencies, I suppose.  My beer should be made by a craft brewery.  My preferred vegetables come from sustainable, local, organic, and biodiverse farms.  My tea should not come in a bag and needs to be brewed at the right temperature for the right amount of time.  My coffee needs to not suck.  With few exceptions, I'd rather have no coffee than bad coffee.  Those exceptions include breakfast with greasy eggs and hashbrowns at a cafe, gas station coffee when I'm on the road and can't find a coffee shop near a freeway exit.  Call me crazy, but I just want my food and drink to be enjoyable.

Unfortunately, for far too many years, the only coffee available was bad coffee.  Thank goodness for the coffee revolution of the 90s where coffee shops with decent coffee sprouted up all over the country.  But there is still no shortage of bad coffee around.

Burnt, cheap, bad coffee at each and every gas station everywhere

Advertising section

Obligatory apologetic statement about infrequency of posts.

The cookbook that the Ladies of Zion assembled was no small undertaking.  Yes, there are some little quirks, but in the end, I don't think the cook book could be called anything but a success.  Doing a little simple research, it looks like a similar book printed online, would cost nearly $20 per book, and if you're doing a production of 100 books, it's a pretty serious order.  I have yet to get my butt in gear and contact the one living member of the Ladies Guild that I have an address for to find out, but I imagine that the cook book was produced as a fund raiser for the Guild.  I can't imagine how production costs would compare between a local brick and mortar print shop in 1951 versus an online shop 63 years later.  Regardless, if the Ladies were using the book as a fund raiser, wanted to keep the book affordable, yet still make some money, they needed to find a way to increase their margin.  Advertising was one of the ways they did this.

Of all of the advertisements in the cook book, I found ten of the businesses still exist and a few dozen that I couldn't find any evidence of.  It is easy to get sentimental about what once was.  There are certainly things and places that I am sentimental about, but it is only natural that things, places, and institutions come and go.  But when a place has family or community connections, the feeling of nostalgia isn't so easily dismissed.  I can only hope however, that the businesses in the cook book that did close weren't forced to close because of the opening of large national chains and big box stores.  I'd much rather go to a store owned and operated by the family down the street, than a giant corporation in another state that only pays its workers minimum wage (I'm lookin' at you, Wal Mart).

Anyway, I thought I'd highlight the businesses that are still around, and post a few old pictures I coud find of some of the others.

Businesses that still exist

Farmers' Union Oil Company looks to now be a part of Cenex.  

Purdy's Shoe Store is still around.

Northern Woodwork Company is clearly proud of their nearly 100 years of existence in Thief River Falls.  

I think it is great that the radio KTRF is still around.  It is a local station that is part of a Minnesota news and farm network of stations.  It is also the local affiliate of the Minnesota Twins.  Go Twins!  Don't suck as much next year!

Northern State Bank has also not been gobbled up by some other large bank, which is nice.  Hooray for keeping your money local, where your savings go to help the growth of the local economy.  Too bad their website is boring though.

One of my first stops in Thief River Falls would likely be the Rainbow Pastry Shop, now called Gary's Rainbow Bakery.  I do love my donuts.

Model Laundry is still in business too.

Northland Seed and Produce still seems to be around, but has no website.  Seeing as how it is along the railroad tracks, I'm guessing it's a big old feed mill.  I have only ever been into a couple feed mills in the past, but I've got pretty warm feelings about grain elevators in small towns.  I can't say why though.

Lee Plumbing and Heating is also proud of their long history in Thief River Falls.

Though it doesn't appear that they sell pianos any longer, Poppler Piano and Furniture is still around, now known as Poppler's Home Furnishings.  

Sadly, that's all of the businesses that are still around.  As I mentioned though, I did find some pictures of some of the businesses that are no longer open.  

No longer open, but not forgotten

1959 edition of the Thief River Falls Times

Fancy Cookies - Powdered Sugar Cookies

I'm pretty overdue in cooking and posting.  Taking classes, doing homework, raising children, and attempting to get enough sleep at night often means that other things get pushed to the side.  But fear not, the cookbook is never far from my mind.  With this post, we've reached the last of the cookbook sections that I'll be covering in the book.  There are a few sections and parts of the book that I may talk about next time, but now that I'm done with these cookies, I'll be going back to to the start of the book and working through again.  Once my classes are done in mid December, I'm hoping to do a few posts in pretty quick succession.

I do want to mention again, since I didn't publicize my last post so much, that I'd love a guest cook/writer for the canning section of the cook book.  If you're interested, please let me know.

If you'll recall, I've done a cookie recipe before and wondered what the difference is between the cookies  in the Cookies versus the Fancy Cookies section of the cook book.  I don't know that this recipe will shed any light on the matter.  I suppose that in the end it doesn't matter because more cookies are more cookies, and rarely is that a bad thing.

No I can't.

I was initially going to do one of the sugar cookie recipes on the front page of the section, but when I finally got around to making cookies, I found that I didn't have the ingredients needed for either of those recipes.  The next page had the following recipe, and had the added bonus of needing cherries, which we had in the refrigerator from when I made fruit salad, that have just been taking up space ever since.  There was also a check next to the recipe, which means that Aunt Marlys probably made and liked the recipe.  Oh, and by the way, don't knock over your jar of maraschino cherries without noticing.  The red liquid that leaks out of the bottle is a pain to clean up.

So here's our recipe for today:

A recipe that assumes cookie making knowledge.