Dash had to do an "ancestor project" in school. As part of his project he had to call and interview one of his ancestors. He chose to call and interview great granny Carter. It was a really fun interview and one that I learned a lot in. I never knew that her house burned down when she was a little girl and they lived in a big "box" that was an box for an airplane til their house was ready. Dash thought that was SUPER cool. She had some other cool tid bits but that was one I didn't know. Another part of his project was that he was that a few weeks later into the project they were going to taste food from around the world and from where their ancestors were from. We decided we would make Lebkuchen (pronounced lepkoogen). It's a german cookie that my great granny would make at Christmas and now granny Carter makes. I was going to attempt to make it. It is a cookie that you make early and you let it age so that it softens. Great granny Sharp used to use an Ace of Spades card to cut out her lebkuchen. Never a cookie cutter. My mom remembers that. Her daughters had the card laminated for her later but for a while it was a dusty floured ace of spades. Granny Carter is a pro at Lebkuchen and we LOVE getting hers a Christmas. We told her of our plan of me making it or even finding a German bakery if I couldn't figure out how to make it and getting some for the kids to try. I was excited because this was truly something from our heritage that had been passed down. The next day my granny called me and said that she had made lebkuchen for Dash's class and had sent it in the mail.....
......This showed up a couple days later. 30+ individually wrapped lebkuchens for the "tastes around the world" day. Lovingly made by my granny, Dash's Great Granny. I cried. Then I ate one.
He also had to send in an artifact basket of his ancestors. We sent in one of Grandpa Carter's belt buckles and a picture of him and told about how he dug the tunnels in the mountains so we could drive through them and when they finished the jobs they gave them a belt buckle. We sent in an uno card with a picture of Grandma Carter and some lebkuchen and told about her kindness and example and how she made the cookies for the class and how her mom used to make that cookie with an ace of spades, we send in a bingo chip and told about how we have played bingo on Thanksgiving for over 25 years and how we love traditions in our family and we sent in a a book of genealogy and told about how genealogy ties us together and we are grateful for the family that has done our genealogy for us. At least that is how the report was supposed to go. When I held up each artifact and asked Dash to talk about them he said, and I quote.... "This is my grandpa' (I am holding a picture of Grandpa Carter and his belt buckle) He wore a belt..... This is my grandma (now I'm holding the picture of granny C with the cookie and the card ) she made these cookies a few weeks ago with this card (now doesn't this aged cookie sound delicious (now I hold up the bingo chip) we like BINGO (hold up genealogy book) mom what's that?"
At least Granny's cookies were delicious. That is really all the kids cared about. Right?
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