The Flowering Vine: Baking with Ma Allie

On By Lady GIn The Flowering Vine, Uncategorized, Whimsy and Fun

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Since it’s ‘Birthday season’ around these parts, I’ve decided it might be fun to ask Ma Allie (Mother’s mother) to assist me with baking a cake.

Does it matter that she died several years before I was born?

Not to me 😉

I love a challenge!

You game?

Let’s call her and see what happens…

Here goes…

Ma Allie, come forth!

Ma Allie, come forth!

Ma Allie, come forth!

(I once saw someone conjure a ghost using similar phrasing on an old episode of Bewitched.)

 

MA ALLIE:  I’m Allie!  Who are you?

GWIN:  Hey!  My name is Gwin, I’m one of your great- granddaughters…one of Annie Maude’s grandchildren.

MA ALLIE:  Which one o’ her chiren you belong to?

GWIN: I belong to Jimmie.

MA ALLIE:  Well sir!  You shole favor him too!

MA ALLIE:  Now, what ‘choo want wit’ me?

GWIN: Well, I wanted to bake a cake so I decided to ask you to help instead of me looking it up on the web.  

MA ALLIE: (Confounded) Looking’ on a web?  Y’all done started lookin’ at webs to find out what ‘choo wanna know?

Lawd ha’mercy!

GWIN: It’s a long story and I can’t tell it.

Can you PLEASE help me?

MA ALLIE:  Okay baby…

Now, I use my special green cup when I bake.

GWIN: Is it a measuring cup?  I mean… is it 8 ounces?

MA ALLIE: (Kinda irritated) Baby I don’t know nothin’ ’bout no ounces… It’s just a cup. That’s all I know to tell ya.

I bake wit’ it and sometimes I drank my coffee from it.

Now go get your flour, baking powder, and sugar…then get some butter, milk, eggs and some vanilla.

GWIN: Do I need a tablespoon or a teaspoon for the vanilla?

MA ALLIE: (A bit more irritated)  What?

MA ALLIE:  All you need is a kitchen spoon….when it’s time, put in a li’l…not too much.

Now get a bowl and mix up all your wet thangs and then add yo’ dry things in with the wet.

After you done that, get ‘choo a good wooden spoon and stir it up real nice.

Once you got it all mix up good, pour it into your cake pans ….you ought’a have enough for two layers.

GWIN: How long do I bake it?

MA ALLIE:  (Slightly annoyed) Jus’ watch it and use your senses baby….look at it…smell of it…when you can smell it from anywhere in the house it’s ’bout ready.

You’ll know when to take it out.

Jesus!

Baby, I’m sorry, I got to go on back now.

GWIN: (Highly stressed) Wait, Ma Allie!  What temperature do I need to set the oven for?

MA ALLIE:  (Confused) Temperature?  Honey, I don’t know what ‘choo talkin’ ’bout!

GWIN:  (Even more confused) You know… the oven temperature.

Come look at my stove…right here… this is where you set the oven temperature.

MA ALLIE:  (Dumbfounded) Baby I ain’t never baked in no oven like that before in my life!

GWIN: (Stumped) What do I do now?

MA ALLIE:  (Chuckling Sarcastically) You better go check wit’ that magic web you was tellin’ me ’bout before.

Ask IT to tell ya !  

‘Bye now!

GWIN: (Stuck with raw cake batter in pans) Oh good grief!

MOTHER, COME FORTH!!!

 

old-stove

 

 

 

55 thoughts on “The Flowering Vine: Baking with Ma Allie”

  1. Pingback: Happy Birthday! | Never A Dull Bling

  8. One of Ma Allie's Great-Granddaughers: A.L.S. via Lady G

    Too funny! Gwin you had me for a min I actually thought you had gotten into “calling the dead to come alive.” Great imagination! I could almost visualize how that situation went.

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  10. and now conjuring’ the folks upstairs, my you have awesome talents I tell you! You could ask my gramma, she owned a restaurant and knew how to cook up a storm, my favorite was silver dollar buttermilk pancakes with bacon and fresh juice, now that was some yummy kitchen smells to wake up to. Love this Lady G, keep up the awesomeness ❤

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    1. LOL!!! They say Ma Allie was an excellent cook… so I thought, “Why not go to one of the best?” LOL!
      I imagine that she and your granny are swapping food ideas as we speak!
      Isn’t it fun to think that’s so?
      And yes, those buttermilk silver dollar pancakes would be AWESOME to wake up to! 💞

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  11. Very inventive, Lady G. I hope you figured out what to do after Ma Allie had to leave. All I can tell you is the kitchen would have been a mess if I had decided to bake a cake. I wouldn’t be surprised if my Grandmother wouldn’t pay me a visit to smack me upside the head. She was a chef & didn’t like people messing in her kitchen. LOL.

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    1. Thank you Susan 🙂
      Ok, so now you’re the another person who has mentioned having a grandma that was an excellent cook.
      Just imagine if we could get all those grannies together to prepare us an awesome Sunday Brunch! That would be celestial huh?
      LOL!!

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      2. Many of those grannies got together and “published” their recipes in church cookbooks – to be sold at fund-raisers. You can still find some of them in thrift stores, etc. – sometimes at estate sales. Tattered pages with stained covers; they rarely cost much and are worth their weight in gold for their glimpses into lives gone by.

        The names of the recipes are wonderful: Mamaw’s Company Stew (which made me wonder what she put in the stew she served the family!), Uncle Bart’s White Christmas Cake (snow-covered with coconut flakes – grated, btw), Poor Pudding (which turned out to be a dessert you “poured” into what we would call custard cups and baked in a water bath).

        I love the various notes in the margins in differing hands, pen and pencil both: “easy & tasty!” – “don’t burn this” – “like Aunt Freddies only not as good” – and my favorite ever “Pop swears to leave if anybody ever makes this again.”

        Always make me wonder what we will have to pass down if technology changes and our blog are no longer available. I hope you are keeping printed copies in a binder. I always mean to, but that time thing always seems to get in the way.
        xx,
        mgh
        (Madelyn Griffith-Haynie – ADDandSoMuchMore dot com)
        – ADD Coach Training Field founder; ADD Coaching co-founder –
        “It takes a village to transform a world!”

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        1. YES!!!
          I’ve seen those ‘self published’ cook books from days gone by.
          I love your point about the notes in the margin!
          THIS: “Pop swears to leave if anybody ever makes this again.”
          That was hilarious! I laughed out loud when I read that! LOL!
          Also, my friend, you’ve made an excellent point about keeping hardcopies of blog entries—very sound advice!
          Much of what is written here is for posterity so that makes a great deal of sense.
          But, alas, as you’ve said, we never seem to have enough time.
          Thanks for commenting Madelyn. I enjoyed it 🙂

          Liked by 1 person

        2. My pleasure. The thing I love best about blogging is the dialogue – the development of virtual communities. Otherwise it would be like we’re all sending out messages in bottles, alone on our little islands.

          But don’t you sorta’ want to make that dish just to see for yourself what Pop hated about it? (Alas – that was in the margin of one of the cookbooks I did not purchase – must have been pricey. Regret it to this day.)
          xx,
          mgh

          Liked by 1 person

        3. So true 🙂 I enjoy checking in with my blogging friends. You called it perfectly…it is a virtual community 🙂
          BTW, I shudder to think about what that dish was that Pop hated! LOL!
          Thanks again for stopping by and commenting 🙂

          Liked by 1 person

  12. 😂😂😂 Ma Allie said “yall done started lookin at your webs” lol that was too real!!!

    This is a great piece! I love this. I like how you retained the knowledge and mentality from her time frame and applied it so that yours looked funny lol. “Temperature?” Lol. And I liked the beginning where you had to introduce who you was, that was fire.. We can always have relationships with loved ones. Death prevents a physical one but not a spiritual one. Good work! ☺

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    1. Thank you D! I’m so glad you like it!
      They say Ma Allie didn’t play.
      In fact, when you think about it, that is the case of so many of our ancestors.
      They didn’t suffer fools!
      I guarantee there are several ‘Ma Allie’ equivalents on your family tree too 😂
      LOL!!!
      Thanks so much for stopping by 🙂

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        3. Darryl, if you do nothing else, scan those pictures and take down the histories. I used to sit with my grandparents and talk for hours. I thought I would remember all the things they said but I find that I am starting to forget. Write it all down while it’s still fresh in your mind and while they are still alive. You will be so glad that you did.

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  13. Woebegone but Hopeful

    That was great Gwin!
    Us in our mathematical, precise eras; how different it was in days of yore.
    Thanks for the highlighting of how we have become just a tad cossetted.

    Liked by 4 people

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  14. Tareau Barron

    Man you was annoying me too. Go on Ma Allie. You tell her. Smdh question the wise MA Allie. Only lady g would. Hahahahahahaha. I love this story because it felt so authentic. Like I picture your Ma Allie laughing at the technology and getting frustrated with all your questions. Lmfao @ “Well ya Shole favor him” classic.

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  15. ronbrownx

    I loved it Cuzz. You’re so imaginative and creative with the various ways you tell the stories. I like how you took a cake recipe, then poured in a couple of dollops of history, a pinch of “back in the day”, a handful of humor, a dash of genius, some “family information”, and a whole lot of love to “bake” this week’s cake!

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