There Is Always Room For One More

Let’s Have a Picnic I have a very large family. My dad was one of seven and my mother was one of eight siblings. Her father, my Grandpa Bauer was one of 12. When a family picnic was planned, it really couldn’t just be at someone’s home. We had to pick a city park! We would go to the Torrington City Park, Mitchell, NE City Park, or Scottsbluff, NE City Park. There would be between 75 and one hundred family members, and it was all about Grandma Nab. She loved picnics. She would sit, facing outward at a picnic table or in a folding chair, and when one of the families arrived, all the family members must first go and say hello to Grandma Nab. She would hug all the children and comment on how big they were all getting. Before the picnic, one of the family members had to go to the park on the designated Sunday and save a shelter with tables under it. Everyone else would arrive after changing clothes after church. Every family would bring between two and four items, plus drinks, like big jars of ice tea or lemonade. The tables would groan with German dishes such as cucumber salad, kraut birok, dena kuchen, grebbles, and German chocolate cakes. Of course, there would also be fried chicken, pies, salads galore, and watermelon. My family loved watermelon. Most of my aunts had a specialty food that no one else made because no one else could make it as well. Aunt Esther Wagner made the best grebble and no one else could even come close. Once in awhile, someone else would also bring grebble, but it was always heavy or greasy. We would all try to be polite and eat the “bad” grebble so that the person who made them wouldn’t be embarrassed by having them all left in the pan at the end of the picnic. Grebbles are like light doughnuts that are twisted into a figure eight and deep fried, and then rolled in sugar. I could eat six at least! Aunt Esther always made dozens of grebble for the picnics. We would have picnics for Mother’s Day or the Fourth of July or Grandma or Grandpa’s birthday—any excuse to get together. The men would play horseshoes. The children would play volleyball or badmitten, or just chase one another and have water fights. Everyone pretty much stayed for lunch and dinner. It would be dark when things were gathered up, dragged to cars, and taken home. There were sunburns, tummy aches, sprained wrists, and great times. I had more cousins to play with than some children had in a class in school. Here is Aunt Esther Wagner’s grebble (doughnut) recipe. It will take practice to become good at this dish. I’m also including cucumber salad, which is my favorite summer salad. GREBBLE Serving Size: 4 ounce Total Servings: 36 1 cup buttermilk 1 cup sour cream 3 beaten eggs 3 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon soda 1⁄4 cup sugar 1 teaspoon salt 41⁄2 cups unsifted flour Mix all the ingredients in the order given. The flour will be added last, and 1 cup at a time. The dough mixes together very easily and is soft and pliable. Chill several hours or overnight. Roll the chilled dough out on a floured board to 1⁄8-inch thickness. Cut the rolled out dough into 5” squares. Cut a slit in the middle of each piece, pick it up, twist once, and fry in fat until golden brown. Turn only once. It is best to use a deep fryer such as a Fry Baby so that you can set the temperature at 375 degrees. Shortening such as Crisco is the best choice for frying these doughnuts and the shortening when heated should be 3 or 4 inches deep. Let the grebble cool on paper towels to absorb any excess grease after they have been removed from the fryer. Roll in sugar and watch them disappear. Mother’s Tip Vegetable oil or shortening are good choices for this recipe. Do not overheat the oil or the grebble will fry too fast and burn. Cooking at 375 degrees is just right. If you do not have a deep fryer with a temperature knob, you can use a heavy kettle. When heated on a medium temperature the shortening or oil will start a slow rolling simmer when it has reached 375 degrees. CUCUMBER SALAD Serving Size: 6 to 8 ounce Total Servings: 8 6 medium cucumbers 6 hard-boiled eggs 1 medium onion 1 pint buttermilk 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon pepper Wash the cucumbers, peel them, and thinly slice them crosswise into a large salad bowl. Coarse chop the hard boiled eggs and add them to the cucumbers. Coarse chop the onion and add it to the eggs and cucumbers. Add the salt and pepper. Pour the buttermilk over the salad and stir. Refrigerate for 30 minutes. Serve in salad bowls as a side dish.