the story of the fudge...

My mom was very ill at the time and I was looking for her fudge recipe. Not looking really as much as frantically searching. I had called my aunts and uncles that I thought might have it but nothing came up.  Could I have gone throughout my life without writing this one down? It was no where to be found in my mom's recipe files. Believe me...I had repeatedly flipped through the cards in  those little boxes!

You see, my mom had a knack for making fudge and I was responsible for passing it along so that generation after generation would know it's dreaminess. Why hadn't I paid closer attention when it counted?? Now I was desperate and felt I had let her down.

Nobody could copy my mom's fudge. It was her trademark and if you were lucky enough to receive some as a gift, usually during the holidays, it meant she loved you.

A lot.

She learned from her dad.  My grandpa.  I sure loved my grandpa.  He was a master at many things.  One of them being fudge, another being a gardener of flowers and vegetables, another being a raiser of mighty fine pigs, another being an artist with oils, or wood or what have you, another being good with a gun and another being so wonderful to my grandma. And the list goes on.


But I remember standing beside my mom many a time and watching the process unfold and being told that the tradition of this fudge would fall to me to learn and carry on.  She may have told my brothers the same thing but the importance rang in my ears and heart.  It was special and made with great care. The sugars were cooked to the perfect softball stage. Not determined by a candy thermometer, mind you, but detected by dropping a spoonful of the molten liquid into a cup of cold water and then manipulating it into a chocolate drop of melting fudge. Mom would set the cooled soft candy on my tongue and ask if I could taste the exact depth of chocolate and feel that the sugars had dissolved. I don't think I was paying attention to any of that stuff. I was just in it for the yummy gooey drop of warm chocolate in my mouth! ( I think I took turns with my brothers but I might have been selfish : ) It was no easy task but my mom was perfect at it and then she would take the boiling confection off the stove and pour it onto a perfectly chilled marble slab that had been sitting out on the back porch so as to stay cool until the moment she needed it. She would then beat it with a wooden spatula that my grandpa had made especially for the job of beating warm, soft chocloate into smooth and dreamy fudge. When the shine was gone from the surface it was ready to be shaped into long rolls that she stretched with the ease of an expert fudge maker along a piece of wax paper. While the fudge set, she would give me and my brothers a table knife to scrap the leftovers off the marble slab.
Mmmmm...that was so good!  Maybe the memory now, more so than the fudge itself.

Nah...it was definately the fudge.

I have the tools that my mom used.  Her slab and spatula.  Now I just need to learn the trade.

I've tried once.  It didn't work.  It was a disaster actually.


I'll try again.

Somehow I think no matter how proficient I become at fudge on a marble slab it will fail to compare to the delicious bite of chocolate that was made by her.

But to have her recipe, found by my sweet Aunt Karleen, really takes the cake!

Going about doing good...

"God knows that some of the greatest souls who have ever lived are those who will never appear in the chronicles of history. They are the blessed, humble souls who emulate the Savior’s example and spend the days of their lives doing good."   ~Dieter F. Uchtdorf 

My Aunt Karleen was one of these blessed, humble souls.  She was just a tiny lady but full of warm kindness and genuine love for all those that crossed her way.
I was lucky enough to spend a couple of my young summers in her home.  Being the only girl in my family, it was always a great adventure to join my aunt and uncle's family where I instantly gained two sisters; Melanie and Maree.  Melanie, just younger than me and Maree young enough that I remember carrying her around on my hip.  I remember spending summer days soaking in the Dixie sun, playing on the back balcony for hours, watching fireworks from the top of the red rocks and getting my first stitches in my elbow from a fall in the back of Uncle Val's pickup truck.  I remember Aunt Karleen caring for me like one of her own seven.  Eventually she brought eight beautiful babies into this world and I thought her to be an elect woman for all she embodied.  I remember whole wheat pancakes with a yummy apple topping and homemade granola that beat everything else.  Eating healthy and seeing that her children did as well was a speciality of hers but I remember Uncle Val sneaking us out for a chocolate shake on a few occasions too!  I remember the matching dresses she sewed for Melanie and I ~ kelly green fabric with white ric rac sewn down the front.  I have a picture...I must find it : )  Thinking of it now fills my heart with tender memories of a such a lovely lady.  Even as I grew and became a wife a mother myself, it wasn't uncommon for the phone to ring and then hear her sweet voice on the other end just to check in and see how the family was doing.  Inevitably, she would put me on speaker phone so both she and Uncle Val could chat together and mention of a chocolate shake would somehow become part of the conversation.  I always hung up the phone smiling and being extremely grateful.

About two and half years ago, June of 2009 to be exact, I got an email from my Aunt Karleen.  She had found something I had been seeking.  Something of a treasure.  Her email was a follows...

Dearest Andrea,

Please read this all before screaming.  Now I know you will love me forever.  I was looking for a recipe ( my recipes are as disorganized as my mothers were and maybe someday I will do something about that!)
Guess what I found?
I'm sending the attachment so you can't see it right now.
I changed my mind.
Here it is:

(a recipe followed here)

The recipe title on my card is Aunt Joan's Fudge.

Love,
Aunt Karleen

The story of the fudge is a story of it's own but to have the recipe was a miracle.  It was an emotional time for me.  I knew I was losing my mom and trying to hang onto anything about her, of her or by her was important to me.  Aunt Karleen found the recipe I had been searching for just five months before my mom passed away.  That will always mean so much to me.

Aunt Karleen and I shared an email just the day before her own passing.  I'll be forever grateful that we were able to share that last expression of our love for each other, without knowing what the following day would bring.  And understanding my mom was waiting with open arms to welcome her home was a joyful moment to ponder.

I love you Aunt Karleen.  Now you and mom get busy going about doing good, after all, you are both so good at it : ) 

Colors of a new year...

Growing up in Utah brought the changes of the seasons and I looked forward to seeing the world, at least my little piece of the world, take on a new face.

The first fluttering snowflakes of winter.

The courageous little crocus flowers peeking up through the late March snowfall meant spring was on it's way.

Feeling the warm sprinkle of sun on my face meant a beautiful summer and

then the evenings would turn crisp and the leaves would color my backyard with shades of red, orange and yellow.

I love the seasons.  I miss them.

Living here in Arizona has meant giving up some of that.

Seasons exist it's just that it isn't happening right outside my front door.

We have to drive a couple hours north to find the snow or the really significant fall colors.

And identifying spring and summer as separate seasons really doesn't happen.  They melt together.

On my little street there a very few trees that actually change colors.  I think I can count two.

But one of them IS right out my front door.

I like to think it was meant to be.

And it makes me smile.  Especially when the sky is so beautifully blue behind it.

Every January for the past 11 1/2 years, this yellow beauty reminds me of a couple things...

1. Time to let go of yesterday's sorrows but hold close the joys that blessed my days.

2. Heavenly Father has a truly beautiful painter's palette.