Who Cares What Nansi Thinks?

Today Mom came over to bake Christmas cookies. Half the fun of the day was going through the cookbook that Temple Baptist Church put together in 1976. That's the church I grew up in. We read all the old recipes and reminisced about the people who submitted them. We remembered times good and bad.

Mom had the big eyes as far as baking went. "We should make these and these and these and these...." She had grandiose plans on all the items she was going to make without needing my help. In reality, all she could manage today was crushing some graham crackers and greasing a baking dish. But she enjoyed being in the hubbub and interacting with my kids and their friends. We made chocolate fudge, peanut butter fudge, seven layer cookies, raspberry cookie bars, sugar cookies, kiss cookies and rice krispie treats. I'm exhausted and jazzy from the sugar high!

Mike's favorite is peanut butter fudge. One of his employees used to give him a pound every Christmas. Like so many of us, she was just too overwhelmed to do it this year. Mike's such a good egg, I didn't want him to do without his favorite Christmas treat, so I figured I'd brave it and make it myself. Can I tell you how intimidated I was????

Mom and I poured through the cookbooks looking for the perfect peanut butter fudge. Mike doesn't like the sugary, gritty kind. He likes the fluffy kind--made with marshmallow creme. None of my books had the latter recipe.

So we plopped the laptop up on the counter and googled it! I had my daughter read me the ingredients and the instructions. Suddenly I was whisked back in time....

My parents worked at Disney World when I was a kid. General Electric had this neat "ride" that showed the progress of technology and electricity. I think it was called "Carousel of Progress" or something like that. In this attraction the people moved. The entire audience advanced around the track to each phase of our country's history with electronics. They all took place at Christmastime. There was the gay 90's (18), the flappers of the 20's, the June Cleaver 50's, etc.

The very last segment of the G.E. attraction was a speculation of how the future of electricity would be. The family is well coiffed and snappy. The mother is standing at the stove cooking and she remarks over her shoulder, "Amanda, check my computer for the best fudge recipe!"

I remember as a kid thinking how stupid it would be to have a computer in the KITCHEN! Having my own daughter reading me cooking instructions from a computer in my kitchen was a surreal moment indeed. The future is now, it seems.