Driving out to the highway daily to pick up our Independence Reporter, we have always picked up and delivered the Gansel House residents’ papers to them, taking them directly to the kitchen where, at that time of the day, the staff would be preparing the evening meal. So, it was quite a surprise recently when I walked into the kitchen to find four of the residents cooking the meal. What fun they were having! They were preparing fried green tomatoes that had been grown in their own backyard garden.
With aprons on, one would wash the tomatoes, the next would slice them (only 1/4 inch thick); the next would dip them in egg and then flour them with a flour-cornmeal mix, and then send them on to the next one to be fried. Quite an assembly line!
It was a picture right out of an old Betty Crocker Cookbook… Flour on their aprons, smiles on their faces, goodwill and laughter. Our own Minnie was right in the middle of it and loving it! Watching them at work, I could not help but feel the joy that was in the kitchen of that assisted living home.
Home is where your heart is!
Submitted by Ernie Cain