Lehman’s Country Life

It’s been said that a great cookbook is more than just a book - it’s a lifetime investment. As cheesy as that may sound, isn’t it true?

Think about your favorite cookbook. Maybe you even got it from your mother or grandmother. The pages start to curl at the edges, you get fingerprints on the cover, you spill all kinds of stuff  - vanilla, Worcestershire sauce, various cake batters - on it as you lovingly cook for your family.

If you’re like me, you make extremely vital notes all over the pages. (In fact, my cookbooks are getting to be more like family history books, as my scribbles tell me that I made this dish for Christmas morning brunch in 2000, tried this new recipe in May and hubby liked it, and experimented with adding extra ingredients to this or that recipe).

And many times, those well-used cookbooks get handed down to the next young cook.

I am lucky enough to have my great-grandmother’s recipe binder, filled with her handwritten recipes (and even one in her mother’s handwriting - my great-great-grandmother!) plus those she clipped out of various publications over the years. Even though it basically contains dessert recipes (she had a real sweet tooth) and about 128 different variations of meatloaf (which my great-grandfather apparently loved), I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
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In response to high gas prices this summer, we’re going local! Lehman’s wants to provide fun, educational events for families who may be staying closer to home this year and are looking for intriguing road trips and short getaways. So, we’ve got several great (free!) events lined up for Saturdays this summer and even into fall. We hope you’ll join us at our retail store in Kidron for some amazing musical performances and interactive demonstrations that let you take a step back into the past - if only for a day!

NOTE: All events are FREE (with ample free parking available), require NO advance reservations and take place at Lehman’s, on the square in Kidron (get driving directions to Kidron).
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Bill Cosby once said, “Fatherhood is pretending the present you love most is soap-on-a-rope.” (For the majority of fathers, we could add neckties and cologne to that phrase, too.) So this year, make sure Dad doesn’t have to pretend. Give him a gift he can really use, and we guarantee his smile and “Wow!” will be 100% heartfelt.
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Once in a while here at Lehman’s we get a chuckle out of the mainstream media’s “breaking news” reports about new, improved, healthier and “greener” ways of living.

We chuckle because many times the products they’re celebrating are the same ones we’ve been quietly offering for years. Many are some of our customers’ favorites, and some we’ve been selling for over 50 years (so they’re most definitely not “new.”)
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A handful of motherwit is worth a bushel of learning. -Spanish Proverb

Thank you, Mom, for teaching me.

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Ask anyone in my office, and they’ll tell you that my grandmother is one of the best bakers around. This greatly endears her to my co-workers, since I often bring in the goodies she so nicely shares with me. (The fact that she taught half of our employees - or their kids - in the 3rd grade is also a large part of the endearment.) This moist, nutty bread went over BIG, and several people asked for the recipe, so here it is, straight from the farmhouse kitchen of Grandma Ruth:

1 1/4 cups sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup margarine or butter, softened

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 eggs

l teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 cups mashed ripe bananas (3-4 )

l teaspoon salt

1/2 cup buttermilk

1/2 cup cashews, chopped

1/2 cup dried apricots, chopped

Preheat oven to 350. Grease bottom of loaf pan. Mix sugar and butter in large bowl. Stir in eggs until well blended. Add bananas, buttermilk, and vanilla. Beat until smooth. Stir in remaining ingredients (except nuts and apricots) just until moistened. Stir in nuts and apricots. Pour into pan. Bake 1 1/4 hours or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool five minutes. Loosen sides of loaf from pan. Remove from pan and cool completely before slicing.

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We thought we would post some pictures of what it looks like here today (at left is the horse barn and field next to our building). Northeast Ohio’s getting some pretty white stuff, and most of the schools were closed today in anticipation of the late morning storm. But here at Lehman’s offices, we’re warm and cozy beside our blazing fireplace. I just made myself a cup of garden mint tea, grown and processed just a few miles from here by an Amish farmer and another local grower.

Despite the view out the window, we’re thinking spring. Our spring catalogs are now out (watch for one in your mailbox or call us to request one!), and we’ve just added a bunch of new, exciting spring products to our website. Here are some of our favorites:

Plastic Bag Dryer - OK, this one is MY personal favorite. I tested this product for Lehman’s and my husband and I absolutely loved it. In fact, since I brought the sample back to the office he has been complaining every day and asking me when I’m going to buy one. Reusing plastic bags is so easy and we have no idea how much money we have saved doing this - a LOT, I’m sure! If you already reuse your bags or want to start, you need this thing either way. Otherwise, every possible surface of your kitchen could be taken up with dripping bags!

Oak Wall Tree - One of our “head honchos” has this in his office. Performs the same function as a “hall tree” but takes up NO floor space. And, it’s handmade of solid oak by our local Amish woodworkers. Can’t beat the quality - it’s absolutely beautiful.

The Transpotter- A wonderful little transplanting trowel, tested and approved by our own certified Master Gardener. She has decades of experience and we rely on her when the opinion really counts. Enough said.

Let it snow!

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It’s the dead of winter in many locales, and if you’re weary of meat-and-potato casseroles, now’s the perfect time to spice up your cooking with a touch of the exotic. For a limited time only, Lehman’s is offering Hawaii-grown macadamia nuts in the shell ($12 for 2 lb) shipped direct from sunny Hawaii to your doorstep.

Now when we say “limited time only,” we mean it. The harvesting season in Hawaii will only last another few weeks (give or take, depending upon the weather) and after that, we won’t be able to get these nuts again until next winter. We purchase the nuts from a small grower in Hawaii – not a big middleman – and he ships them right to you.

Why buy these nuts in the shell, you ask? Freshly dried and cracked macadamia nuts have an even creamier, more buttery flavor than the store-bought jarred ones. With a good nutcracker, a great novel and a wood fire, they could just make for the perfect winter evening.

And when it comes to cooking with them, a little extra effort can translate into a LOT of extra taste. Here are a couple great new recipes to try:
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Those of you who burn wood, please read:

This morning when I dropped my daughter off at my parents’ house for the day, my father (standing on the frosty lawn) pulled off his gloves to show me his left hand, swollen painfully to nearly twice its normal size. Yesterday morning when he was bringing in wood to start the fire, he inadvertently grabbed a log that happened to be the napping place of a large hornet which, when brought inside and sufficiently jostled, became “lively” and bit him on the hand.

Now, I’m sure many of you are seasoned woodburners (like my Dad, who’s been doing it more than 30 years), but this can happen to anyone, so I felt at least a little reminder was in order. Consider yourselves warned, and do be careful when bringing in your wood that you’re not bringing in feisty critters, too!

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