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Celebrating Smilestones

It is April 16, 2023, and ten years ago today, I sent out the introduction to From the Cookie Jar. This blog started in 2013 on the Get a Bigger Wagon website. Initially, the blog featured three topics: ideas, memories, and vintage recipes. My ideas covered topics from perfume to pantyhose, and my memories varied from dealing with a bully to collecting hankies and autographs. There have been many changes over the past ten years.

The Get a Bigger Wagon website was developed as an extension of the books Get a Bigger Wagon and Get an Even Bigger Wagon. It became more focused on entrepreneurship as our involvement at Edwards School of Business grew. In 2020, I decided to launch Glamour for Grandmothers providing a new home for my more personal writing.

Thanks to two exceptional Saskatchewan magazines, I frequently focus on vintage recipes and home cooking. Sharing recipes in these magazines and occasionally in From the Cookie Jar has kept me smiling. Today, I congratulate Amanda and Rob Soulodre on their special publishing milestones. Prairies North is celebrating its 25^th anniversary this spring, and Saskatoon HOME Magazine is celebrating its 15th. That is something to smile about for the Soulodres and Saskatchewan. 

Thank you, dear readers, for hanging out with me at either site or contacting me via the magazines. My life keeps evolving, and I smile when I think of all the readers I have kept in touch with over this decade. I randomly send gifts to my involved readers, which I plan to do today. Donna, in Alberta, will receive a silk scarf with a story. Donna has some treasured vintage cookbooks, and we have occasionally shared recipes. Today she is outdoors helping calves come into this world. Isn’t life wonderful? 

Happy Spring!  

News: Five Years of Get a Bigger Wagon Young Entrepreneur Awards

Our 5^th annual Get a Bigger Wagon Young Entrepreneur Awards (GABWYEA) presentation took place in affiliation with our 16^th annual Haddock Entrepreneurial Speaker Series (HESS) and the Edwards School of Business on January 9, 2023. This year, we presented 9 awards, rather than 5, partly because our applicants were unusually well prepared. Many of these winners had applied previously and spent time improving their businesses. Others watched past presentations and tailored their applications accordingly. We were impressed by all of them. 

Our guest speaker, Cindy Lowe, was engaging, inspiring, and humorous. She spoke to a capacity crowd; many tuned in to watch the live stream when they couldn’t find a seat. 

The 3rd Get a Bigger Wagon comic book will be released in the Spring of 2023 and features photos of all past GABWYEA winners. Our 2nd comic features photos of 15 years of HESS presenters. 

Here are some links to important videos and articles:

The YouTube video of our 16th presenter, Ms Cindy Lowe, can be viewed HERE.

The Saskatchewan Business Teachers Association was awarded the 2022 Sailing the Entrepreneur Ship award for its work with students, inside and outside the classroom. 

Click HERE to view the application videos prepared by our 2022 GABWYEAs winners and the award presentation.  

Don’t miss the 7-page article in the Spring 2023 issue of Prairies North Magazine. This magazine is available by subscription, or you can buy a copy by contacting the magazine HERE or visiting stores like McNally Robinson in Saskatoon. 

Read the excellent article in the Green and White newsletter about our young entrepreneurs. You can read that article HERE. 

We are excited to inform you that youngsters can now register for the Edwards School of Business Entrepreneurship Exploration Summer Camp by clicking HERE. This camp is for young people 9 to 14 years of age and begins on July 10, 2023. This is an opportunity for the exploration and discovery of entrepreneurship. 

Camp sale day is open for friends, family, and guests to attend.   

Our 2023 GABWYEA competition opens on September 1, 2023, and closes on November 30, 2023. Young entrepreneurs must have an active business and should be keeping a record of expenses and profits for several months before applying. We look forward to meeting you. 

Mary Kinder, GABWYEA winner ages 10 to 12, counts her cash, as her mom helps her fan the money for a photo. 

I Need Your Help

Dear Get a Bigger Wagon family,

I need your help. Please take 3 seconds to read this. 

Some of you are entrepreneurs and visit www.getabiggerwagon.com for information about The Haddock Entrepreneurial Speakers Series or the Get a Bigger Wagon Young Entrepreneur competition.

Others visit here for recipes; some like to keep up with the recipes related to my columns in Prairies North Magazine or Saskatoon HOME magazine. 

If you use Safari and have updated to version 15 you won’t be able to access my home page until Safari and Facebook make some tweaks. I have tried everything. However, if you search with Google Chrome my HOME page works just fine. It also works fine on most phones. 

 We are half way through our 2021 young entrepreneur competition. At this crutial time I don't want to miss a young entrepreneur who might be considering an entry. 

PLEASE tell everyone about our 4^th Get a Bigger Wagon Young Entrepreneurs Competition, which is underway now. Entries must be in by November 30, 2021. Enter early. Youngsters from 7 to 18 are eligible. Email maureenhaddock@sasktel.net for information. Don’t use Facebook message or chat. 

Yours with appreciation,

Maureen

News From Gord and Maureen

Our latest news update about Saskatchewan entrepreneurs is actually meant for our Get a Bigger Wagon Young Entrepreneur Awards alumni and future applicants. We are excited to share the YouTube link to the 14^thpresentation in the Haddock Entrepreneurial Speaker series. The Edwards School of Business and Get a Bigger Wagon have received an unprecedented amount of positive feedback about Mr. Percy Hoff's wise words, and we hope you will listen to his talk and share it. 

Our third annual Get a Bigger Wagon Young Entrepreneur Awards presentation took place at Prairieland Park in a socially distanced, responsible way. We couldn't be on campus this year but the Dean of Edwards School of Business, Mr. Keith Willoughby, and Megan Cantwell, Director of College Advancement, were in attendance. We delivered cash in a delightfully squeaky, antique wagon to our young entrepreneurs. Once again, the quality of our entries was excellent. We hope you can take the time to watch the presentation on YouTube. 

The 2021 GABWYEA competition opens on September 1st, 6 months from today. We hope by January 2022, we will be able to celebrate the 15^th Haddock Entrepreneurial Speaker Series in the Edwards School of Business, where it all began. Please read our news item HERE. 

Check out Get a Bigger Wagon on Pinterest and Facebook and enjoy some of our favourite recipes HERE.          

News From Maureen

At the beginning of March, Prairies North Magazine and Saskatoon HOME Magazine's Spring issues arrived in subscribers’ mailboxes and on news stands. Each season when the magazines arrive, I make sure to post several new but well-tested recipes to supplement the columns I have written for the magazines. 

In “Maureen’s Kitchen” in Saskatoon HOME Magazine, I write about angel food cakes and eggs. I have added a variety of angel-food-inspired desserts to From the Cookie Jar. If you click on the following titles, you can go directly to the recipe and print, pin, or share it for later use. 

Lemon Angel Food Slice is an easy, make-ahead, refreshing dessert. I have been making this treat since the mid-1970s.

Chocolate Angel Food Cake with Coffee Whipped Cream is a favourite dessert memory from my teen years. 

Recently, I have made a gluten-free Spiced Autumn Angel Food Dessert, and my family loves it. One recipe fits all guests. It tastes like pumpkin pie but is lower in calories, very pretty, and also gluten-free. 

If you make my Vintage Angel Food Cake as featured in “Maureen’s Kitchen” in Saskatoon HOME Magazine you will have 12 yolks left, and there are lots of ways to put them to good use. Try this recipe for Golden Angel Food Cake and top it with sauce, fruit, or maple syrup. It is also great layered into a trifle.

In “Eats and Treats” in Prairies North Magazine, I write about the history of Bundt pans and share my favourite spring Bundt cake. In From the Cookie Jar, I share my recipe for Raspberry Bundt Cake, which can be decorated for any season.

You will also love my recipe for Be-Anything Pumpkin Bread, which I received years ago from my friend Marion. You can ice it, serve it with cheese, or top it with whipped cream. Bake it in a Bundt pan as I did, or make muffins, loaves, or layer cakes. 

With each recipe, I share a little personal history and I look forward to hearing your comments. 

Welcome to From the Cookie Jar at Get a Bigger Wagon

In 2020, we launched a new design for our Get a Bigger Wagon website. On the redesigned site's home page, visitors can watch a seven-minute introduction video where Gord and I explain how the Get a Bigger Wagon project evolved. 

What to Expect on Our Site: 

A Section Dedicated to Our Young Entrepreneur Competition:  

We started the Get a Bigger Wagon Young Entrepreneur Awards competition in 2018 in affiliation with The Edwards School of Business. Each year a current poster will be displayed and downloadable from our homepage from August through November. The rest of the year, a map of Saskatchewan will list winners’ names and their hometowns. Our goal is to attract contestants from the entire province of Saskatchewan. 

A Specialized News Section:

The news section will be about the young entrepreneurs who enter our competition, the experienced entrepreneurs who speak at our annual speaker series, and friends of Get a Bigger Wagon.

A Designated Section for Subscribers of Prairies North and Saskatoon Home Magazines:

Along with my books and blogs, I write food columns for Prairies North and Saskatoon HOME magazines. To help my readers follow up on the extra recipes mentioned in each magazine, we have added a space listing the recipe links, conveniently, on the home page. These lists will change quarterly when each new issue arrives in your mailbox or digitally if you are not from Canada. 

A Change in Focus for From the Cookie Jar Blog:

From the Cookie Jar remains on the Get a Bigger Wagon website, but focuses on recipes and food stories, only. I have shifted my other personal passions to a new website called Glamour for Grandmothers.  

New Attraction: Glamour for Grandmothers

To embrace my personal stories and projects, I launched a new website called Glamour for Grandmothers. I write about family, fashion, food, fun, romance, and stories about grandchildren. Everyone is welcome to sign up for the blog, Glamour for Grandmothers, which will also evolve. It is a meeting place for all generations. For more fun, like us, on Facebook and Instagram. 

A Blue Ribbon for My Ancestors

At our house, we celebrate with cake! Often, our cake of choice is Most Memorable Marguerite Cake. Recently, I received a Blue Ribbon for this recipe. The ribbon came in the mail from a wonderful Internet site called Just a Pinch®. The idea of someone else trying this recipe, loving it, awarding it a ribbon of merit, and actually taking time to put the ribbon in the mail was exhilarating for me. I raised my hand in a heavenward high-five congratulating my mom, my aunt, and the neighbour who originally shared the recipe.   

One by one, my mom, her sisters, and her sisters-in-law made this cake, and one by one, their husbands fell helplessly in love with the recipe. This all happened before I was born, so the recipe is definitely vintage. It is fabulously unique in its flavours and that makes it ribbon-worthy. Until you make the recipe, you can’t possibly understand the magic it brings to a party. 

Just a Pinch® is an Internet recipe club, but like Marguerite Cake, it is so much more than it seems, at first glance. Receiving the ribbon sent me back to the Just a Pinch® site, and, as usual, there had been improvements. Janet Tharpe hosts the site, and, in the test kitchen, Janet works with her daughter-in-law to prepare and sample hundreds of down-home recipes, submitted by Just A Pinch® members. Janet says, “Blue Ribbons are our way of giving little extra kudos to outstanding home cooks and their recipes.”

You can’t go wrong with a Blue Ribbon Recipe from Just a Pinch® because one of three things has happened to such a winning recipe. Janet might have been drawn to it and tested it in her kitchen. She and her daughter-in-law spend hours reading new submissions and watching the recipe trends on their site. The Honorary Kitchen Crew might have tested the recipe, in their home kitchens, based on their interest in the recipe. Or, at least three Just a Pinch® members might have nominated the recipe, which will elevate it to Janet’s kitchen for immediate testing.  

Just a Pinch® is a home cook’s paradise. I stumbled upon it by accident and joined out of curiosity. Their slogan is, “The largest collection of real recipes from real home cooks.” The interest groups become little sub-sites, where you can ask questions, get to know your favourite cooks, and draw the members’ attention to recipes they might want to try. There are 169 pages of groups, with 8 groups listed per page. I have joined nine groups so far.

Anyone can start an interest group, but, if you start a group, you need to have time to manage it. I haven’t yet started a group, but I would like to be part of a group focusing on recipes from the 50s and 60s. Bonnie D has a group called, Tried and True, and as the name implies, you don’t post recipes there unless you have made them, many times, for your family. She has 4.7 thousand members. Heather S. manages Gluten-Free Living with 258 members, who are really serious about their specific family needs.

I have a very organized approach to storing my recipes, but also having a virtual recipe box on the Just a Pinch® site allows me to link friends to a recipe, easily and quickly. Once a recipe is on the site, you can print it, rate it, pinch it for your own files, post it on Facebook and Pinterest, or contact the cook who submitted the recipe to ask questions. Just a Pinch® is extremely easy to use, because they prompt you every step of the way. You can even build a recipe book and have it published.

Of course, nothing can replace sitting down with a glossy photo-filled cookbook and enjoying the slow turning of the pages. However, being in touch with thousands of home cooks on the Internet has its charm too. My aunts won blue ribbons for recipes at their local fairs. One was known for her angel food cupcakes and another was known for her date square. Now, I have brought home a ribbon for a cake they used to make, and I am proud to share it with them. Click here to visit Just a Pinch®. 

Introduction

Most of us remember, from childhood, a container made of ceramic, glass, or tin, where our favourite cookies could be found. Admit it; thinking of that vessel can create a sense of comfort and anticipation even decades later.

In the past, a spare cookie jar might have kept the egg money safe for emergencies, hidden a key to the liquor cabinet, or sheltered some romantic reading.

To me, the cookie jar represents a safe place for our secret feelings. I have always kept a journal and filed away bits of history and interesting trivia. In From the Cookie Jar, I will be sharing recipes, ideas, and memories gathered over decades.

I met my husband over fifty years ago, and I wrote two books about his misadventures growing up in the fifties and sixties. In the Get a Bigger Wagon books he is known only as the boy. In From the Cookie Jar, I will occasionally share a story about “the girl.” She dealt with a bully, survived a house fire, and was an expert at riding a motor cycle sidesaddle.

Today, if you’d like to contribute to my cookie jar, tell me about the items your mother or grandmothers hid in theirs?