What? No plastic wrap? I thought when I was looking over the store shelf display of foil, freezer bags and storage solutions. Well, there was wax paper, something I hadn't bought in years, so I grabbed a roll of that.
Later, cutting off a length to cover a bowl of leftovers, a wave of nostalgia surfaced as I stared at the thin, waxy sheet. Growing up, wax paper was a staple at our house. As a fifth grader, it was my morning chore to pack five brown-bag lunches for me and the four of my brothers who attended our country school. Three little brothers were still at home.
Assembly line style, I carefully wrapped, folded and tucked the ends of the waxed paper under the sandwiches, which might be fried egg, bologna, or PBJ. After a hungrily bolted lunch and after the paper bags had been carefully creased, folded and stuck in a desk or back pocket for use the next day, we hit the playground, often carrying a left-over from lunch: a sheet of wax paper. It came in handy to sit on for a super-slick ride down the tall, humped slide! Quite a thrill unless your feet didn't catch you in time and you had a hard landing!
Then there were the craft projects in school, when we gathered fall leaves and preserved them between sheets of waxed paper sealed with a warm iron that our craftsy teacher magically produced. The word, re-cycling, hadn't come into our vocabulary then, but we were experts at it.
The frigid temperatures and crunchy snow outside yesterday put me in a baking mode again. I had everything I needed for a cake, except frosting. With a yen for the fluffy sweetness of a divinity-type icing, I looked up 7-minute icing on the internet. (I may be nostalgic, but I still like the modern conveniences.)
The procedure sounded too complicated with double-boilers and mixing over the stove for seven minutes, then I remembered Mama just pouring boiling sugar-syrup into the egg whites and beating them. I could do that! Down-sizing the ingredients a bit and accommodating the recipe to my needs, I was feeling a bit iffy about the whole thing. But the frosting materialized beautifully in the whirring beaters as I poured in the boiling syrup, and it was delicious! Thank you, Mama! And thanks for the memories! (But how am I going to cover the sticky cake with wax paper?)
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