Sunday 15 May 2011

Like Grandma Use To Make

I'm having a retro day....

One of those days when you yearn for the warmth and rose tinted days of your childhood, and want scones, instead of mini muffins with fancy ganache.

I'm very lucky to come from a family of women who bake, and even luckier to have so many generations of recipes stored away in my own recipe book. Coffee kisses, cheese rusks, "wireless biscuits" (because Great Grandma heard the recipe on the wireless and never got the name!), pasties, nutty anzacs, jubilee cake.... the list goes on and on....

I've been breaking out my old recipes, and my mother's set of balance scales, and bringing some of my childhood to my children. 

I can remember cooking with my great aunt, asnd watching my grandmother bake bread in her wood stove (I desperately want a home with a wood stove....) using their balance scales with the stack of silver weights, and different tea cups for different recipes, instead of the standard metric plastic stacker cups we have now.  

We all wore aprons, which seem to be a foreign concept nowadays, unless you are trying to be one of those anal-foody-mastercheffy-can't-cook-without-messing-about-with-a-decent-recipe people.

 I still wear an apron... and can often be seen sitting in my car at the supermarket doing a twisty, mental dance type thingo designed to get the damn thing off before anyone realises I'm such an old fuddy duddy I actually went out the door and forgot I had it on. I don't wear old clothes to clean in.... I wear my nice clothes and an apron. 

I'm going to break out the paper and coloured pencils, and play "Bug" with the kids the old fashioned way this afternoon. For those of you who have never seen it (except for the plastic fantastic costs the earth version that gets chucked in the corner of the cupboard very quickly and never sees daylight again) instructions are below.

YOU NEED:
Paper
Coloured pencils
Dice

TO PLAY
Youngest player starts.

Roll the dice and draw bits of your bug as follows:
6 = Body
5 = Head
4 = Tail
3 = Feeler
2 = Eye
1 = Leg

You must have a head or body to start drawing.

To complete your bug you need:
1 body
1 head
1 tail
2 feelers
2 eyes
6 legs
  
Each player takes one turn and passes the dice to the left. The first person to complete their bug wins.

The best part of this version is having all the lovely bug pictures to display!

 Do you have a retro game you play with your family?

6 comments:

  1. Love "wireless biscuits" ... sounds like something my nan would have written too.

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  2. I will post a recipe later in the week Sammy :) They are simple and delicious... and I couldn't imagine them called anything else! :D

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  3. Oh! You reminded me of a super fun version of this game I played as an only child with my parents. There are no winners, just fabulous creations to display:
    Each person has one piece of paper, portrait way up, folded in to six sections. Each section is for Head to neck, shoulders to tummy, hips to thighs,knees to ankles,feet and a name.
    You start with your own piece of paper and draw a head, whatever kind of human/animal robot or otherwise type of head you like! Then you fold that piece down and pass the papers to the left. You only need a little bit of each section's drawing peeking out, so that the next person knows where the neck ends, so they can draw the shoulders etc. You continue on in this way, drawing fabulously strange body parts, and lastly you come up with a name. It could be a celebrity, a family member or something completely made up!
    Pass the paper once more and everybody opens their drawing up! Have fun seeing what strange Crocodile headed, bossomy, potbellied, hairy legged, rollerskating 'Dad' you've all come up with! It's super fun, and I like that there isn't a 'Winner', just a lot of laughs :o)

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  4. Wow Cassie! I remember playing that one too! And pictionary without the fancy cards.... Mum just made up four categories, and we used an egg timer to see how many we could get for each letter!

    Thanks for your feedback :)

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  5. I so loved this post and the comments. Very inspiring! My kids will love these!

    I do need to confess I played that game in high school and got suspended. We did the folding down thing with stories, in religion class, which had to be 'rude' and involve priests and nuns.....BUSTED! apparently the parents and teachers thought the stories were hilarious, the principal didn't!

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  6. @Gemma - You cracked me up! Seems to me like a fun way to get through class ;) Thanks for sharing xx

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