I grew up in a fairly small town. When I graduated high school the population was around 20,000. Yes, I am aware there are towns much, much smaller.. but there are also towns / cities much, much larger. And honestly the small townness of my hometown had more to do with attitude than numbers. It felt like a small town. Everyone knew everyone else and all their business! There were no secrets (or very few) in my hometown.
My hometown is located an hour and a half from any larger city. There are a zillion little communities all around... mostly rural, country communities. To do serious shopping in the big city, we had to drive 90 minutes or more. I grew up in the 60s and 70s, so there were very few chain stores or restaurants etc. and we had none. We were off the beaten path.. so no reason to be there.
I grew up going to locally owned businesses... many had been in the same family for generations... and I knew the owners. I bought shoes from Mr. Case at Case Shoes.. he went to market with his customers in mind. I remember hearing him say to a lady once “I found the perfect shoes at market to fit your narrow heel”... the ladies at my favorite clothing store would call every so often and say “We just got in a shipment of dresses and I put several back in your size that will be perfect for you!” I would then run by the store and pick up those dresses.. without paying.. take them home and try them on. Keep what I wanted.. return the rest.. all went on my parent’s charge account. No Visa.. No MasterCard.. no Credit Check. This was true with pretty much every business in town.. including restaurants.
I remember when we got our first fast food chain.. Burger King. Kids were overjoyed! Before that we had to make do with the local burger joints.. the Homochitto Malt Shoppe and the Belmont Shake Shoppe (don’t you love the names!).. or Kathy’s Dairy Bar! Restaurants were the same.. we ate catfish at Jughead's... elegant fare at The Side Track.. homemade croutons and peanut butter at the Rendezvous...
Great memories..
Recently we celebrated my husband’s birthday. I decided to take us back to my hometown.. at least in our minds.. and relive one of those yummy memories. My husband did not grow up in my town, but moved there for work after college. We courted there and lived there the first 4 years of our marriage. One of our favorite places was owned by a local doctor’s wife... The Annex Tea Room. The Annex was located in a sort of warehouse... not a super large one. It had housed a heating and cooling supplier once and had brick walls, concrete floors and the high ceiling was covered with exposed pipes. By today’s standards it would be considered industrial. Mrs. Amacker, the owner, filled it with oak pedestal tables she bought at estate sales, antique shops, flea markets etc. And oak chairs. It was not matchy at all! She added white table cloths and flowers every where. It was wonderful! The recipes were her own.. the best chicken salad ever, fruit plates with poppyseeed dressing, homemade bread with butter, broccoli soup, roast beef sandwiches, ham sandwiches, and the desserts.. oh my!
One of our favorites was her Chocolate Chip Cake... and that is what I made for Hubby’s birthday. I did alter it a slight bit.
Here is the original recipe with my changes noted below.
Annex Tea Room Chocolate Chip Cake
1 box Duncan Hines Yellow Butter Cake Mix
1 small box milk chocolate instant pudding
1 8 oz carton sour cream
1/4 c water
1 c oil
4 eggs
Beat all together. Add 6 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips and 1 cup chopped pecans. Grease and flour a large sheet cake pan. Bake at 350-degrees F for 35-40 minutes. Spread icing over cake and cut into squares.
Icing
1 stick margarine
2 Tbsp cocoa
5-6 Tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla
Bring to a roiling boil. Add 1 box powdered sugar. Beat until ready.
NOTES: I made the cake as instructed except I baked it in a Bundt Pan. And then instead of icing, I made a chocolate glaze and drizzled over the cake (found a recipe online). I then added some sprinkles since we were celebrating.. how can you have a birthday without sprinkles! It was YUM!!!!! A Huge Hit that was gobbled up quickly. No doubt it will show up here again to provide another trip down memory lane.
Oh yes... Mac and Mia did not get to sample the birthday cake but they did celebrate. They ran a wild wiener dog race around and around the house until they both collapsed with exhaustion!
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