Hello and welcome back to The Stone Soup Cook–so glad you’re here!
Today, I’m pondering the differences between “house-keeping” and “home-keeping.”
Both are an expression of love, but there is a difference between the two: I think of house-keeping as the nuts and bolts of keeping a home clean and hygienic. I think of home-keeping as doing those things that make a “house” a “home.”
Martha Stewart made an empire out of this concept.
I love Martha Stewart. Back in the 1990’s, she became a household name, and shared her calendar that included everything from jam-making days, to sheet ironing days, to a day devoted to climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro. She made home-keeping an enticing lifestyle choice; but let’s face it–she also made it an unattainable, aspirational lifestyle that intimidated most folks–after all, after all that home-keeping, most of us still had to swab the toilets when we got home from work.
But I still love her ideas of making a house into a home, and I believe that the act of “home-keeping” is an act of love for all those who live in the home, as well as for those who enter it. And I believe that there’s a way to take the idea of home-keeping and make it accessible to everyone.
It will come as no surprise that my method of home-keeping revolves around cooking for the people I love. But how do you fit it in when you’ve got limited time (and energy!) and everyone has a different and demanding schedule? Good question.
Let’s take a quick step back, though, and look at some of the ways folks eat today: Delivery has become a thriving industry–just look at Uber Eats, Door Dash and the like. At large companies, employees can dash into the cafeteria and grab some food on-the-go. Still other folks drive through for fast food. And in the category of the epitome of irony–you can get McDonald’s delivered. In fact, you can order food to be delivered to anyone from any time zone anywhere in the world. Wow.
These technological advancements have kept a lot of folks employed and made a handful of them very rich. But I’d like to suggest a word of caution about making this convenience a lifestyle choice: ordering food for delivery once in a while is a great way to keep sane and make time to sort the socks. But ordering food from an outside entity every day as a way to keep from having to do dishes is another altogether: it’s expensive, not very good for you and leads to a disconnection from appreciating the food we eat, the people we eat it with, and, ultimately, making a home.
Not to mention the fact that I have never had a good meal delivered–it all, without exception, arrives STONE COLD.
But let’s get back to the question of how a person with very little down-time can achieve a goal of home keeping?
Over the next few weeks, I’m going to feature some recipes that will help make your house a home, without making you crazy. We’re going to start with the first meal of the day: breakfast.
The first recipe I’m sharing is one for bran muffins.
This recipe has been in my family for, literally, generations. My paternal grandmother handed it off to my mom back in the 1960’s. And since the cereal “All Bran” came out in 1916, it’s quite possible that my Granny got this recipe from her mother. This recipe doesn’t match either of the recipes I found on-line claiming to be the “original All-Bran bran muffin” recipes (both different from each other, by the way–ha!), so I can neither confirm, nor deny, that it came from the good folks at Kellogg’s.
What I can tell you is that these muffins are absolutely delicious, easy to put together and super convenient because you can make a batch of the batter, keep it in the fridge and bake muffins on-demand in the morning, thus giving a home-keeper the flexibility to respond to different schedules and different needs. The batter will keep in your fridge for about a week, allowing you to bake up a few muffins at a time in the morning in the time it takes you to get ready to leave for work or walk the dog. I love to keep this batter on-hand for when I have out-of-town guests staying with me who have an early morning flight. I get up, pop some of the batter into muffin tins, and whisk my guests off to the airport with warm muffins in their hands for the road.
Now that’s what I call attainable home-keeping: muffin batter that can be made into fast food!
Tune in tomorrow for more home-keeping ideas for breakfast!
Until then,
Peace, love and good food,
Keri
