24.Describe a typical family dinner. Did you all eat together as a family? Who did the cooking? What were your favorite foods?

Daddy was a logger/truck driver/heavy equipment operator.  So often he worked late. Mama would usually make a casserole and keep some warm for him in the oven. Mama , Donna and I ate together at the table. No TV on in those days.

We ate fresh venison year 'round. Mama and my Grandma Gilmore had a big garden at Grandma's place, actually two big gardens and fruit trees. So they would  can fruits and vegetables .   

After Grandma passed away in 1979-

 we found canned fruit in the cellar from the 1940's

Mama did most of the cooking - but taught us how to cook as soon as we were able. I remember doing a fair amount of cooking as a teenager.

She makes the world's best fried chicken and gravy- a special meal for Sunday dinner. She also made the best fried venison. It was so good cold that I'd rather eat that than candy!

Mama baked bread, and I made most of the cookies from about the time I was 10 years old.

On the weekends dad would cook bacon and eggs sometimes. He made the best bacon. He also worked in a restaurant as a kid and he learned how to make  mashed potatoes - so every holiday dinner, he made the mashed potatoes.  And he taught both Donna and I how to fry bacon and how to make mashed potatoes.