Our Mom in the kitchen

When I think of my Mom I think of her in the kitchen even though she did other things too, but she spent a lot of her time in her kitchen. She was a good baker and we had decent but fairly plain meals. She made a lot of baking goods and think that is why I am a such a sweet aholic. During the 2nd world war I think it was a big challenge for her since so much was rationed, but we never went without eating, and sometime I would have liked something else. I think the one dish I could have done without was spanish rice, as there wasn't much to it except rice and tomao sauce. We always had rolls with it that I did like with honey on them. There was probably a veggie with it but can't remember. Meat was rationed so had to make do in a big family with stretching things, so we could have a special meal from time to time.
She was of the generation that if she had company she made all the meals for them, not like me letting my guest get their own quite often for breakfast and lunch. Times were different then, or I am just plain lazy.
Our meals were always sit down at the table meals also when we were growing up. She also got my dad his snack when he came home from the second job or playing music, so you can see she did spend a bit of time in the kitchen.
As we got old enough she escaped the clean up, which was left to us girls. For some reason I don't remember the boys having to do scullery duty. That was before womens lib. LOL
During the war we had a fairly large veggie garden in the lot behind us. I thought that was really neat, and mom tended that along with us doing the weeding. She had planted golden bantom corn and that was soooooo good among other things, but that is tops in my memory.
Dad and mom had a couple of what they called block parties, and the ones who came gave her ration stamps, so she could get enough of what ever food was needed for everyone. They were fun and Dad would play music so people could dance in the driveway. There were held outside in the yard. At one of those was my first experience of having ice coffee which was terrible compared to what you can get now. It was just plain old weak coffee with ice cubes.
Those block prties were fun even for us kids.
One summer Mom took off from making the meals and I had to do it. Guess it was partly to teach me to cook, and as you can imagine I was sick of it by the time she took back the cooking.