Can you parallel park? I did once, only once. I quit while I was ahead. It is hard to do. I need a forty acre field on a good day. How I ever got through life without bumping fenders trying to park, I'll never know. Yes, I do. I always looked for a diagonal parking space or a parking garage where the attendant parked my car.

My favorite kind of chocolate to work with is cocoa. However, that doesn't work for making dipping chocolate. At least I don't know how to do that. I have several candy recipes I make every Christmas, but Anne's favorite is my Chocolate Bon Bons.

I came across this candy recipe a few years ago. It certainly didn't look like a candy recipe. What candy lists flour among its ingredients? This is the only one I know of.

There are handsome gingerbread men. This is not that recipe. This is an, oh, so soft, ginger flavored work of art. The aroma lingers in the air long after you bake a batch. Your kids coming in the door from school will head straight for the cookie jar. This is a cookie to make when a cold west wind is swirling snow around the yard and you hope the kids get the mail from the mailbox when they get off the bus so you won't have to go out in it. It is that kind of cookie.

Not everyone likes liver. It is safe to say that most people dislike liver. I love liver. My daughter Anne hates it. We live together, so I can only fix it if she is not going to be home that day. That out of the way, let me tell you why I like liver. Well, I don't know why, I just do.

I remember growing up on the farm. It was a boring time for me. That is until I discovered my escape in reading. I read most anything that had words I could understand, and I especially liked to read funny stories. When I heard the song, “The Twelve Days of Christmas”, the gears of my bored mind began spinning. What fun I could have with that scenario:

Why does fruitcake get such a bad rap? They aren't all hard and tasteless. I like mince pie and I like fruitcake. To me they are in the same class of food. To prove it, I have a recipe to share with you for a Mincemeat Fruitcake.

We sold my dad's farm to some folks from Chicago. I shouldn't say that these Chicago people were different, but they were. They had never farmed before. This was to be an adventure. Yeah right, adventure! It was hilarious watching those city dudes adjust to country living. They stood out on a goat farm in a county that didn't do goats. We couldn't give them any advice on how to raise goats. We recognized a picture of a goat when we saw one. That was about it. Fortunately, for the goats, their enterprise thrived.

We all have our own recipe for Fried Green Tomatoes. I have mine and will share it with you. Green tomatoes fresh from the garden are best, but nowadays, you can buy them at the grocery store. I buy a couple whenever I see them, even though they cost the same as the ripe ones. Do you think, like I do, that they should be cheaper, since they're not ripe? Oh well.

To eliminate the need for frosting and/or to have the cake ready to eat as soon as it is cool enough, some cakes can be made with a topping spread on the batter before baking. They are quick and easy to make and eliminate the necessity of frosting the cake after baking. Baked toppings are best on cakes baked in square or oblong pans. The following recipes will make enough topping to frost them. If you are making a cake in a large jelly roll pan, double the recipes.

BAKED CHOCOLATE - NUT TOPPING
1 cup grated semisweet or sweet chocolate
½ cup chopped pecans or walnuts

Have you ever eaten goose for Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner? It was an old timey delicacy. Back in the day, many farmers raised ducks and geese. What about the wild Canadian geese we see on the Fountain City Pond in wintertime? I know someone who caught and roasted one, but that is another story. I am talking about the domesticated kind of geese.