When Taffy Pulling Parties were Popular

Have you ever pulled taffy by hand? I must confess I have not. To be honest, the task sounds difficult and tedious to me. However, I also understand how the task might become much more enjoyable when doing it in the company of others. Taffy pulling became all the rage back in Victorian times, especially during the winter when the weather turned bitterly cold and most activities came to a screeching halt. Both men and women (or young men and young women) attended these events, which also provided a wholesome way for members of the opposite sex to get to know each other better. I wonder how many matches were made from these parties!

If you look up a pioneer recipe for taffy (or toffee, as it was called in Britain), you will find molasses or sorghum to be the main ingredient. That is because sugar became scarce during the Civil War, and the other two were readily available. The molasses or sorghum had to be boiled with water until it formed a soft ball stage, about 250 degrees Fahrenheit. In some recipes, you will find that glycerin is used. In others, cornstarch and corn syrup. Whichever ingredients you use, however, be sure to pour it out onto a buttered surface and butter your hands as well.

After it cools a bit, the taffy can be scraped together and then pulled and folded over. The pulling and folding allows for aeration within the fibers of the candy. As the candy is pulled and folded over, again and again, it hardens until it is almost impossible to do so any longer. At that point, it gets rolled into a rope and then individual pieces of candy are cut and wrapped in wax paper.

Even though taffy now can be made by machine and turned into all sorts of delicious flavors, I still like the thought of joining a set of peers for one of those old-fashioned parties. Can you imagine what fun conversations might have occurred at a party like this? Or who would have been eyeing whom, hoping to get paired up with that person? I enjoyed imaging this very scenario while writing A Lumberjack for Christmas, a mail-order bride story that released earlier this month as part of the Spinster Mail-Order Brides multi-author series. Not only did Molly, my female protagonist, who married Brandt Troonedale dream up and then organize this fun activity, showing her new husband that she’s the kind of person who goes after what she wants, but several younger characters paired up. It was fun to put different characters together and see how they would interact. I imagine that I will someday revisit this small town of Pine Ridge, Arizona, and create more stories that take place there!

For this one, though, Molly Crismon has decided to leave her home in New York without her father’s knowledge and marry a lumberjack with two small children. However, when she arrives in Pine Ridge, she discovers that the man she was supposed to marry is at death’s door after a horrendous accident. Good thing his best friend, Brandt, is able to step in and take his place, even if that isn’t exactly what Brandt wants to do. He had hopes of following the next logging job down in South America. However, neither Molly nor Brandt expect Molly's father and former beau to suddenly show up and make demands of their own. Will Molly and Brandt be able to provide a wonderful Christmas for these two orphans? Will their hearts knit together in love by then?

 

You can find out the answers to those questions by reading A Lumberjack for Christmas, available here. Which then leaves only one more question to be answered:  what is your favorite flavor of taffy?

A Magical Time for Magical Reads — and Giveaways

When I was a child, nary a Christmas passed without my father reading aloud Clement Clarke Moore’s A Visit from St. Nicholas, Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, and How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss. The Grinch was on TV, too, but somehow it wasn’t Christmas unless Daddy read us the story. He always played all the parts in each tale, making the characters come alive in a very special way.

Have you ever noticed that parents who read to their children raise children who love to read? All four of us kids — my two brothers, sister, and I — became avid readers. We still are.

Ask authors “Why did you become a writer?” and many will tell you they’ve always written, from the time they could pick up a pencil. Me? I trace my joy in creating fantastical worlds to escaping with Daddy into the stories he read to us throughout the year. Those were magical days.

Daddy’s been gone for twenty years, and I always miss him — and Momma, too — something fierce at Christmas. Though my parents gave their children many precious gifts, I think the gift of reading is among the best gifts of all.

I’ve got a lot of reading to do this year just to catch up with new Christmas stories set in the Wild West. Here are the ones in my teetering to-be-read pile:

A Cowboy Under the Mistletoe
Rediscovered feelings and unexpected new love bring six couples together during the holidays.

Kissing Until Christmas
A mail-order bride isn’t exactly who she seems — but her unwilling groom hides a dangerous secret of his own.

I Heard the Brides on Christmas Day
Hec Murdock orders up two brides — one for himself and one for his brother, Zeke. But somehow, Hec neglects to let Zeke know what he’s done.




 

The Gift of Forgiveness
A reformed gunman takes up his guns one more time to help a widow find her kidnapped son. In the bargain, he receives the gift of love.

Holiday Hoax
Widow Vera Sanders agrees to switch places with younger and prettier Adele MacIntyre, another mail-order bride. They’re both in for rude surprises, however, after trying to pull a holiday hoax on two very different grooms

A Marriage of Convenience
A debutante on the run from a monster finds her salvation in a jaded Indian Territory lawman. The marshal can protect her with a Christmas wedding … but can he protect his heart?

Her Holiday Husband
Secrets and surprises are in store when families meddle with a beautiful single mother and an outlaw-turned-respectable. Phoebe Pierce may have too many secrets of her own to keep her holiday husband.

Store Bought Ornaments
Ella’s cryptic letter brings her husband’s brother, Caleb, home for Christmas. Can they finally claim the love they’ve been denied for so long?

The Keepers of Camelot
An unusual twist on the King Arthur legend finds Arthur, Guinevere, and Lancelot embroiled in an Apache attack at a stage station. Only a homeless boy recognizes the three, reminding Arthur The Once and Future King will return when the world needs him most.

 Dance with Destiny
A half-Ojibwa drifter sees a fair-haired woman in a vision. An abandoned army wife with four young children needs help to survive the harsh Ohio winter. Will the love that grows between them endure, or is it doomed from the start?




My stack also contains a few medieval Christmas books. Medieval stories are something new for me, but whoever coined the phrase “variety is the spice of life” knew what he or she was talking about.

One Winter Knight
Eight Yuletide tales of love lost and found, laced with holiday traditions and the excitement of a bold, dangerous era.

Canticle
To save her family’s fortunes, Lady Alisoun must wed an elderly earl the day after Christmas. But in the chapel on Christmas Eve, her heart collides with that of an elegant, mysterious stranger. Is he her salvation … or an enemy spy?

An Unexpected Gift
An outlaw vows to protect a homeless woman from the men who want to kill her unborn son. In the struggle against the cold and would-be kings, Meryk and Ada discover love is the most unexpected gift of all, but will they survive long enough to claim it?

Sir Baldwin and the Christmas Ghosts
An arrogant young knight and a woman with the gift of sight must work together to make a true Christmas for the survivors of a plague — and the spirits of those who did not survive.

Keepsake
On a stormy Christmas Eve night filled with danger, fate makes unexpected allies of a bitter man and an angry woman. Will passion ignite as a result ... or will they even survive to find out?





And because we all enjoy becoming children again once in a while, I always have one or two young adult Christmas reads in my stack this time of year.

The Christmas Spider
Christmas should be a happy time, but this year will be bittersweet for Samantha McCaslin. Following the death of her mother, the thirteen-year-old tomboy must grow up quickly, especially when a bully targets her American Indian friends. Thanks to the magic of Christmas and the power of love, Sam learns what family really means.

The Donkey that Carried Mary
A warm and funny story about Mary, the mother of Jesus, as told by her donkey, Sarah. This one won’t be out until Dec. 20, but I’m so looking forward to such a sweet-sounding read.

 

 

To help make your holidays merry and bright, I'll give away four anthologies in e-book form: A Cowboy Under the Mistletoe, A Mail-Order Christmas Bride, One Winter Knight, and One Christmas Knight. To be eligible, tell me what holiday tradition is most special to you.

One more thing before I forget: Prairie Rose Publications is looking for reviewers. If you enjoy reading and telling people about good books you've read, email prairierosepublications@aol.com for more information. (Click the graphic below to make it larger.)

A Texan to the bone, Kathleen Rice Adams spends her days chasing news stories and her nights and weekends shooting it out with Wild West desperadoes. Leave the upstanding, law-abiding heroes to other folks. In Kathleen’s stories, even the good guys wear black hats.

Her short story “The Second-Best Ranger in Texas” won the Peacemaker Award for Best Western Short Fiction. Her novel Prodigal Gun won the EPIC Award for Historical Romance and is the only western historical romance ever to final for a Peacemaker in a book-length category.

Visit her hideout on the web at KathleenRiceAdams.com.

The 19th Century Table: Parker House Rolls (Recipe)

Harvey D. Parker (sculptor John D. Perry, 1874)
Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

When 20-year-old farm boy Harvey D. Parker arrived in Boston from Maine in 1825, the young man had only $1 in his pocket. Even in those days, the sum wasn’t enough to sustain him for more than a day, so Parker took the first job he could find: caring for a horse and cow at a salary of $8 per month. A series of other subsistence jobs followed, until he found one that set him on a career path from which he’d earn a fortune.

While working as a coachman for a wealthy socialite, he frequently ate his noon meal in a dingy basement tavern. In 1832, he bought the tavern for $432 and renamed it Parker’s Restaurant. Excellent food served by an attentive staff soon made the place a popular dining spot for the city’s newspapermen, lawyers, and businessmen.

Parker's hotel, ca. 1900

By 1847, the restaurant was one of the busiest and most well-regarded in the city. In 1854, Parker and a partner bought a boarding house that once had been a grand mansion. They razed the structure and built an ornate, five-story brick-and-stone hotel on the site. The elegant hotel, named simply Parker’s, opened with great fanfare on April 22, 1854, and quickly became the establishment for upper-crust travelers. Notable guests included Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., and Charles Dickens. John Wilkes Booth stayed at Parker’s only days before he assassinated President Abraham Lincoln.

Parker's dining room, ca. 1910

At the time, the few existing hotels (most travelers took lodging in taverns or boarding houses) operated on “the European plan,” which included meals in the cost of a room. Meals were served family-style at given hours; if a lodger missed the hour, he went without food.

Parker’s hotel introduced a new concept: Rooms and meals were priced separately. Guests were offered menus appropriate to the time of day and ate virtually anytime they pleased. The upscale food was prepared by a kitchen staff and served in a grand dining room, where members of the public were invited to dine at their convenience, too.

Parker House rolls, courtesy King Arthur Flour.

The restaurant also introduced dishes that remain popular today, including Parker House rolls and Massachusetts’s state dessert, Boston cream pie. According to legend, the rolls resulted when an angry chef tossed unfinished dough into the oven, accidentally creating a bread diners demanded ever after.

Today, the Parker House is part of the Omni Hotels chain of high-end lodging establishments. Omni chose to maintain the original property’s lux décor, for the most part. The walls remain burnished American oak; lobbies, bars, and the restaurant resonate with the deep colors of yesteryear; massive crystal chandeliers sparkle in the public areas, and elevator doors are overlaid with a patina of burnished bronze.

My most recent batch of Parker House rolls. I was in a hurry,
so I didn't fold them. They were delicious, nonetheless.

Recipes for the hotel’s signature dishes remain unchanged, as well. Understandably, the Parker House doesn’t reveal its culinary secrets, but reportedly the recipes haven’t changed. Recipes for Parker House rolls began appearing in cookbooks in the 1880s; Fanny Farmer revealed what she claimed to be the original in her 1896 Boston Cooking-School Cook Book.

Here it is, with baking instructions for modern kitchens:

Parker House Rolls

1¾ cup scalded milk
¼ cup lukewarm water
2 Tbsps. active dry yeast
1 cup butter, melted and cooled to room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons salt
1 large egg
6 cups all-purpose flour

1. Dissolve yeast in water.

2. In large bowl, combine 1/2 cup butter, sugar, and salt.

3. Stir in water/yeast mixture, milk, and egg.

4. Add 3 cups flour and beat thoroughly. The mixture should resemble a thick batter. Cover and let rise until at least double.

5. Stir down sponge, then stir in enough flour to make a soft dough (about another 2½ cups).

6. Turn dough onto lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes, working in more flour (about ½ cup) while kneading.

7. Shape dough into a ball and place in large, lightly greased bowl, turning so that top of dough is greased. Cover with towel; let rise in warm place (80 to 85 degrees F.) until doubled, about 1½ hours. (Dough is doubled when 2 fingers pressed into dough leave a dent.)

8. Punch down dough by pushing the center of dough with fist, then pushing edges of dough into center. Turn dough onto lightly floured surface; knead lightly to make smooth ball, cover with bowl for 15 minutes to let dough rest.

9. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

10. In 17¼-inch by 11½-inch roasting pan, melt remaining ½ cup butter over low heat; tilt pan so melted butter coats entire bottom.

11. On lightly floured surface with floured rolling pin, roll dough ½ inch thick.

12. Cut dough into circles with floured 2¾-inch round cutter. (Note: The dough may be cut into rectangles instead of circles.) Holding dough circle by the edge, dip both sides into melted butter pan; fold in half.

13. Arrange folded dough in rows in pan used to melt the butter. Each roll should nearly touch its neighbors. Cover pan with towel; let dough rise in warm place until doubled, about 40 minutes.

14. Bake rolls for 15 to 18 minutes until browned.

The heroine in my latest story briefly works in a dingy cafe on the wrong side of the tracks in Fort Worth, Texas. That's a big step down from her previous life as a pampered socialite. “A Long Way from St. Louis” appears with stories from seven other authors in Prairie Rose Publications’ new holiday anthology, A Mail-Order Christmas Bride.

A Long Way from St. Louis
Cast out by St. Louis society after her husband leaves her for another, Elizabeth Adair goes west to marry a wealthy Texas rancher. Burning with anger over the deceit of a groom who is neither wealthy nor Texan, she refuses to wed and ends up on the backstreets of Fort Worth.

Ten years after Elizabeth’s father ran him out of St. Louis, Brendan Sheppard’s memory still sizzles with the rich man’s contempt. Riffraff. Alley trash. Son of an Irish drunkard. Yet, desire for a beautiful, unattainable girl continues to blaze in his heart.

When the debutante and the ne’er-do-well collide a long way from St. Louis, they’ll either douse an old flame…or forge a new love.

A Texan to the bone, Kathleen Rice Adams spends her days chasing news stories and her nights and weekends shooting it out with Wild West desperados. Leave the upstanding, law-abiding heroes to other folks. In Kathleen’s stories, even the good guys wear black hats.

Her short story “The Second-Best Ranger in Texas” won the coveted 2015 Peacemaker Award for Best Western Short Fiction. Her novel Prodigal Gun is the only novel-length western historical romance ever nominated for a Peacemaker.

Visit Kathleen’s hideout on the web at KathleenRiceAdams.com.

Merry Christmas to y'all! I wish you peace, goodwill, and lots of love and laughter. May the holiday spirit live in your heart all year long.

In the spirit of the season, I'll give an ebook version of A Mail-Order Christmas Bride to one commenter who answers this question: What's your favorite holiday food?