In the August Flyer, we asked readers to “Tell us about the first meal you ever cooked.” The winning entry came from Ferne in Tallahassee, FL. Here is Ferne’s story, in her own words…
The first meal I cooked on my own was meatloaf. I was newly married and didn’t know how to cook. I didn’t learn much about food preparation growing up. I was an only child and my mother was not much of a cook. She cooked steak or pork chops and boiled potatoes, and we had a can vegetable green beans or corn. That was all! 365 days a year. Even on Thanksgiving and Christmas.
I really wanted to make meatloaf for dinner, and I had to learn on my own. I got the phone book out and called someone I didn’t know. A woman answered, and I asked her how to cook meatloaf.
The lady I called was so nice. She told me to have a good pound or more of ground beef. Put it in a big bowl with one or two eggs and mustard (around a forth of a cup), ketchup, bread crumbs, pickle relish, (also around a forth of a cup), onions (a small one diced up). Then milk, but she couldn’t tell me how much. She said to put some in and get in there with clean hands and mix it all up and that I would know if I had enough or too much milk. If I didn’t put a little more in, if I had too much put some more bread crumbs in until it felt like a good consistency. Not to hard not to soft. OH! I forgot to tell you, salt and pepper.
I am 76 years old, soon to be 77, and I have fixed my meatloaf that way for 50 years! I have only changed it by putting some hot pepper in it.
***Side note: Ferne’s story inspired us here at the Earth Fare Home Office, so we grabbed a phone book and dialed up a random person with a nice sounding name. Unfortunately that lady wasn’t in the mood to give us a meatloaf recipe. At first this bummed us out, but then we realized that in these modern times Facebook is the new phone book. When we asked how to make meatloaf out of nowhere, we got 68 comments including some good meatless meatloaf recipes. Thanks guys!
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Ferne won a $100 Earth Fare gift card for being the winning entry! To find out how to enter this month’s “You tell us…” contest, pick up a copy of the September’s sales flyer at your local Earth Fare.
