Sunday Snacks

My grandfather has been gone a long time now but that does not mean he has been forgotten.  We saw my grandparents on my mother’s side of the family every week on Sunday afternoon.  I feel lucky to have so many nice memories of those times and although I am sure that there were weeks where I had other Sunday plans, I do not recall ever resenting spending time with family.

One of the traditions of those Sunday visits was an afternoon snack that always finished the visit around 4 o’clock.  It was always something sweet and homemade by my mother and there were favorites that we could count on repeating.  One dessert we had fairly often was Hot Fudge Sundae Cake that I always thought was a bit of magic.  For this cake you assemble all of the ingredients in the cake pan and when it bakes it forms a top layer of chocolate cake and a bottom layer that is like a rich fudge pudding.  Scooped out and flipped upside down into a bowl it was usually topped with Cool Whip.  We never had real whipped cream when I was a kid.

But my grandfather’s favorite was homemade donuts.  I was always happy when I saw my mother pull out the fryer in preparation for making the donuts but not because I was a huge donut fan.  I liked what came after the donuts.  For the donuts, my mother made the dough and patted it out to rest on the counter top while the fryer was heated.  Donuts and donut holes would get cut out and dropped into the fryer a few at a time and I always had to beg my mom not to re-roll too many of the holes back into the dough when she patted the dough out for a second time.  Not all of the holes made it to the fryer but enough.

If you have never had an old-fashioned donut made at home, you would see no resemblance to the kind you get at your local Dunkin Donuts.  Their texture was very crisp and crunchy on the outside and a little dense in the center.  They were best dunked in coffee or hot chocolate and we usually had them in the fall and winter since they were perfect when you had just come in from the cold.  They were such a favorite of my grandfather’s that my mother made sure to stash a batch in his freezer when he was ill so he could enjoy one every day toward the end of his life.

I liked the donuts okay but the reason my eyes got big when I saw the fryer coming out of the cabinet was because after my mom got done frying the donuts she would always let me make homemade French fries.  This all happened after we got home from church and by the time the donuts were done it was just in time for lunch.  I would peel the potatoes and them feed them through an antique French fry cutter that made nice uniform sticks.  They were then dropped in the fryer and when they were golden brown we drained them on paper towels on top of a paper bag.  Salted and eaten with copious amounts of ketchup, they were then and still are a favorite food indulgence of mine.  French fries for lunch, a visit with my grandparents, donuts with hot chocolate in the afternoon and most likely a hot dog cooked in the wood stove for dinner; how could a Sunday afternoon have been any better.