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Made From Scratch
(Playing ~ "Dizzy Fingers")

My mother never let me do much in the kitchen except things like making vegetable salad or stirring the gravy so
it wouldn’t be lumpy. As a result, my cooking knowledge and ability was practically non-existent when I got married.
But I did remember Mother mentioning to her many friends that she’d made certain cakes, pies and such from scratch.
So, my first priority after the honeymoon was to locate some scratch.

With Mother’s delicious cakes in mind, my first trip to the supermarket was to buy some scratch. I found the aisle
that read "baking items" and spent a good 15 minutes looking at everything from Mazola oil to cornstarch,
sugar, flour and chocolate, but no signs of scratch could I see. I was sure it couldn’t be with pickles and
mayonnaise or in the meat department.

I asked a clerk if they carried scratch. He looked at me rather oddly and finally said, "Oh, you’ll have to go
to the store at the corner of Colfax and Wadsworth." When I got there, it turned out to be a feed store.
I thought this rather odd, but I guess cakes are food, so I went in and said, "I’d like to buy some scratch." When the
clerk asked me how much I wanted, I suggested a pound or two. His reply was "How many chickens do you have;
it only comes in 20 pound bags." I really didn’t understand why he mentioned chickens, but I had heard my mother say
that she’d made some chicken casserole from scratch, so I bought 20 pounds and hurried on home.

My next problem was to find a recipe calling for scratch. I went through every single page of my lovely
Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook given me as a wedding present, but didn’t find even one recipe
requiring scratch. Subsequently, I spent hours in the nearby library trying to end my search. No luck.
There I was with 20 pounds of scratch and no recipe.

When I had opened the bag of scratch, I had some doubts that a beautiful, fluffy, moist cake
could ever result from such hard-looking ingredients, but then I was sure that with the addition of liquids
and the use of heat, the results would be successful. I had no need or desire to mention my problems to
my husband as he had suggested very early in our marriage that he liked to cook and would gladly take over
that department. One day when I was raving about his chocolate pie, he proudly acknowledged that he had made it
from scratch, so I was assured that it could be done.

Now, as many of you know, being a new bride is pretty scary, especially when three meals a day are on your mind
all the time. During the first week I learned that our muffins, waffles, pancakes, pies, cakes, and even lemon pudding,
he had made from scratch. Well, if he’d made all those things from scratch, I was sure he’d bought 20 pounds of it, too,
but couldn’t find where he stored it. I checked my own supply, which I kept hidden in the bedroom closet
behind all my clothes, but it was still full.

The mystery continued, but I was never one to give up or reveal my problems. The biggest jolt came one day
when I heard a friend bragging to my husband that he’d built his house, himself, from scratch. In quick succession
I heard via numerous acquaintances that they’d made dresses, Halloween costumes, even jackets from scratch,
in addition to their numerous desserts and pastries.

At this point, I was almost ready to give up because the entire world seemed to know everything about scratch
except me. But pride kept me silent. If paper can be made from wood and glue from horses’ hoofs, maybe wood
or cloth could be made from scratch.

By now, the detective in me was getting weary, so I decided to try a different approach.
One day when my husband was doing nothing in particular, I said, "Honey, I wish you’d teach me how
to bake a cake." He got out the flour, sugar, eggs, milk, shortening, chocolate and baking soda but there was
no sign of scratch. I watched him carefully blend it all together, pour it into a pan, then put it in the oven
to bake. An hour later, when we were eating the cake, h

"Honey, why don’t we raise a few chickens?"

~ author unknown

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