Mom's Tomato Soup recipe

It's cold, and spring is nowhere in sight here in Iowa City, Iowa. In an effort to keep us a little warmer, here's a great tomato soup recipe from Lawrence L. Rettig, author of Gardening the Amana Way.

Mom's Tomato Soup
1 quart tomatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
1/2 green bell pepper, chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
2 small onions, chopped
1 large sprig parsley
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 tablespoon flour, dissolved in tomato juice

Combine first five ingredients and simmer, stirring occasionally, until all vegetables are soft. Transfer to ricer and rice. Pour riced vegetables and tomato juice into saucepan. Add flour–tomato juice mixture. Add sugar and salt to taste. Heat, stirring occasionally.

Gardening the Amana Way, by Lawrence L. Rettig

Fourteen Wild Turkeys—from A WOODLAND COUNTING BOOK

A Woodland Counting Book, by Claudia McGehee

"One Dress"—excerpt from OTHERS HAD IT WORSE

We girls had one dress most of the time to wear to School all Winter. Some one would give Mom some things and Mom and Barbara would make it over for the rest. The small boys would get made over too.

Others Had It Worse: Sour Dock, Moonshine, and Hard Times in Davis County, Iowa, by Vetra Melrose Padget Covert and Chris D. Baker

January Gardening Tip—from GARDENING IN IOWA AND SURROUNDING AREAS

When cleaning your fireplace, save the ashes to spread on your garden. Potatoes, especially, will benefit from nutrients in the ashes. You can also put the ashes in your compost heap.
—Ester Dockstader, Des Moines Garden Club

Gardening in Iowa and Other Surrounding Areas, by Veronica Lorson Fowler with the Federated Garden Clubs of Iowa

Andrea M. Jones: reading & interview

Andrea M. Jones, author of Between Urban and Wild: Reflections from Colorado, will be reading from her new book tomorrow night in Salida, Colorado! Stop by to meet her and get a signed copy. For more information, visit our Facebook event page.

Reading & Signing
Date: Tuesday, January 14
Time: 6:30 P.M.
Location: The Book Haven, 128 F Street, Salida, CO 81201-2102

Andrea Jones recently did an interview with Trafalgar Square Books Blog. Check out her thoughts on indexing, horses, and her new book by clicking here!

Praise for Between Urban and Wild
"Andrea Jones's Between Urban and Wild is a touching account of her intimate connection with the natural world of central Colorado, a land that is, like her book, simultaneously severe and beautiful. Through a combination of flashbacks and present-day musings, she invites the reader to appreciate the joys, challenges, and sublimity of this landscape. She offers up a deeply personal, deeply affecting narrative of a life inseparable from the land."—Matthew Wynn Sivils

Between Urban and Wild: Reflections from Colorado, by Andrea M. Jones

February 15, 1906, Tennant, Iowa—excerpt from AN IOWA SCHOOLMA'AM

An Iowa Schoolma'am: Letters of Elizabeth "Bess" Corey, 1904–1908, contains the letters Bess wrote home to her family during the years she was living with various rural Iowa families while teaching at nearby one-room schoolhouses.

February 15, 1906, Tennant, Iowa

     "Monday when I wrote to you. . .  I told you it was raining well Monday evening it turned colder and we had a blizard all day Tues. . . . They wouldn't let Gertie [the school-age child of the family she was living with] go to school but I went anyway—had to follow the fence and then it wasn't any too safe. I went early and had the stove red hot before half past eight. The three Miller boys came and that is all the [students] I had. They had taken some of their books home the evening before and had learned their reading and spelling so we hurried through and got out about eleven. I got to Wevers about half after eleven and I couldn't have gone a quarter of a mile farther to have saved my life and if I had attempted to cross the ploughing I wouldn't be writing to you now I don't think. When I got here my clothes from my legging tops to my waist were wet through and getting stiff so I had to change every dud I had on."

An Iowa Schoolma'am: Letters of Elizabeth "Bess" Corey, 1904–1908, edited by Philip L. Gerber and Charlotte Wright

January Gardening Tip—from GARDENING IN IOWA AND SURROUNDING AREAS

Make a winter suet feeder for birds by melting together one cup crunchy peanut butter and one cup lard. Stir in one cup flour, two cups cornmeal, one-fourth cup sugar, one cup sunflower seeds, and two cups oatmeal. Pack into a milk carton and freeze. When completely frozen, put in an empty mesh bag in which you bought onions or potatoes. Hang on a pole outdoors.
—Marian McNabb, Linn Grove

Gardening in Iowa and Surrounding Areas, by Veronica Lorson Fowler with the Federated Garden Clubs of Iowa