Off sick today, but here is a favorite blog post of mine. I hope you enjoy it again.

“The Stir Stick”

By

Gerry Niskern

There used to be a running joke in our family about who will inherit the “stir stick”. Which offspring will be deemed worthy of the old pine stick that my grandmother, my dad’s mother,  used to stir her clothes in the big tubs hold the laundry rinse water?   That piece of pine was bleached white and worn smooth as satin as she stirred the clothes round and round the old tubs till they were rinsed clean. She raised six children all alone by taking in boarders and laundry, with the help of that one small stir stick.

My own mother inherited the stick from her mother-in-law and used it many years. However, somewhere along the way the stick was retired, pushed to the back of a cupboard.  That probably happened when she purchased her first automatic washer.

She didn’t get a dryer though. Mom insisted on having the fresh breath of wind and sun on her towels and sheets. Actually, she didn’t take quickly to any new gadgets for the home. I wonder what she would have thought about the new cooking parties that the young homemakers are giving?

I can imagine Mom’s running commentary on the latest cooking tools.

As the hostess carefully demonstrates how the new colanders can be used to drain not only pasta, but also canned peaches; I can just hear Mom saying, “What’s wrong with using the can lid like always?”

The innovative measuring cups have a cup on either end, so if one’s messy, you can use the other end. Mom’s comment would be “Ever hear of measuring the dry first, then the wet?”

The new baking stones are touted to bake every cookie perfectly even. “But what if you have one kid like his cookies real soft, while another wants his dark and crisp. And then there’s dad who likes the date bars cut from the edge of the pan because they’re crunchier?”

The exhibition of the special onion chopper and handy tomato slicer would have brought the retort,  “use a knife.” When the hostess explains that the new garlic press can be used in a real emergency to crush bullion cubs.  Mom would say, “Make your own chicken broth, it’s better for you.”

Don’t even mention the improved spatulas that sell for thirteen dollars!  “Nonsense. Cake batter tastes just as good licked off a ninety-eight cent spoon.”

Something tells me those women, like Mom, of years ago who melted down their soap pieces on Sunday evening to get ready for Monday’s wash and saved their potato water to make gravy, wouldn’t be good ones to invite to today’s cooking parties.

But actually, if you look closely, some of  the old customs are new again.  Nostalgia is back in a big way. Young couples are snapping up the old Victorian homes. They’re hanging lace curtains and searching for handmade quilts.  Spinning wheels and butter churns are sought after items to place in the entry hall and Grandpa’s wicker rocking chair is sought for the front porch.

The latest trend is to knit your own afghans; some women’s magazines are now carrying complete instructions.  The sewing pattern industry is reporting a big comeback as stay- at- home Mom’s are buying sewing machines.

Cooking is back.  On kitchen stoves the size of small Volkswagens, today’s homemakers are simmering Thai stews and soups with Eastern-European flavors as they celebrate their ethnic backgrounds.

Everyone is embracing the “rootedness” of the home. They’re very keen on traditions. Parents desire a way of life they can pass on to their children.

The other day I saw some antique, hand decorated wash tubs hanging on a back patio. Since I’ve been hanging on to that old piece of bleached pine, I’ve been wondering, is it possible that we might see the return of the “stir stick?”

Nah.