At least once a month, we visited the Ploof family in Hayward. Dad and Pete were good friends who fished and hunted together and Mom and Hilda also shared many of the same interests. One of those interests was card games, and the wives made sure that their husbands joined them for a night of serious card play at least a couple times a month.
Their favorite game on those nights was Smear. I have never played the game, but it is said to be related to Pitch, the card game of choice with Jerri’s parents. While our parents played cards, we kids, including Pete and Hilda’s daughter, Maureen, were treated to a movie or a root beer.
In the winter, we would go to a movie at the Park Theater. As I recall, kid’s tickets were a dime to start with, though they gradually increased to a quarter. Dad and Pete would give us money for our tickets and popcorn, and when they were feeling generous, we even got enough extra for some candy to share. The theater was about four blocks from Pete and Hilda’s. That may not sound like very far, but they were long blocks along highway 63, and when the wind was from the north with snow falling, it felt like we were polar explorers.
In the summer, we played Hide-and-Seek and Anti-I-Over outside and then went to the A&W Root Beer stand, which was only a block away. Our parents gave each of us a nickel for a small mug of root beer, and I was made custodian of the jug and money to buy a gallon of root beer to take back to the card players. Of course, we kids got our share from the jug as well, and sometimes we made root beer floats during a recess at the card table.
In one of my mother’s recipe boxes I found Hilda’s recipe for cole slaw dressing. It makes enough dressing for a really large cabbage, but it keeps well. Having a batch of dressing in the refrigerator makes it easy to put a bowl of cole slaw on the table in just a couple of minutes.
We like Jerri’s recipe for cole slaw, which is made with sour cream and mayonnaise, but Hilda’s recipe includes horseradish, which adds a little spice to the dressing. It also has a tiny bit more sugar which makes it slightly sweet. My sister Patsy says that this is one of her favorite cole slaw dressings, and Jerri likes it nearly as well as her own.
INGREDIENTS:
1 1/2 cups mayonnaise
1 T cider vinegar
1 T regular mustard
1 T minced onion
1 T grated horseradish
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. white pepper
1/2 tsp. celery seed
PROCEDURE:
Stir all the ingredients together until well mixed and smooth.
To make cole slaw, wash the head of cabbage and discard any damaged outer leaves. With a sharp knife, cut the head in half and then one half into quarters. Remove the core and slice one quarter very thinly. Then cut the slices into pieces that are no more than a half inch long. Do the same with another quarter until you have as much finely chopped cabbage as you need.
Blend dressing with the shredded cabbage to the consistency you want. Store any extra dressing in an airtight container in the refrigerator.
NOTE: You may also peel or scrape a carrot, grate it with a kitchen grater and mix it with the cabbage. We nearly always do this to give some color to the slaw.
Courage in the Kitchen 