I used to do a lot of things following in the footsteps of my 2 grannies (best in the world) but I made a lot of german chocolate cakes with the original coconut type frosting (YUM) - and that's the ONLY WAY I'll eat coconut, otherwise it seems rubbery to me.  I have a niece who used to call it rubbidy when she was about 4 or 5 years old, now she's 58!   I agree with her assessment! 

There was ALWAYS some homemade wine or booze around, too, thanks to my grampa; and my farm grandparents used to have huge barn dances in the early 1900's.  They would spread fresh straw on the floor, set up hay bales for the musicians to use as chairs and dance the night away.  No wonder they only held those dances once or twice a year, it was as much work as the hard daily life! Lots of food, beverages from booze to ice cold milk, and desserts galore.  I think it would have been glorious.  I have one living brother who is now 83 and he and I both think we were born about 50 years too late because we both never tire of studying the family history.  I joined Ancestry but absolutely everything there is all wrong and I have no idea who PUT all of that information there.  It really pissed me off, I tried to correct it, but in order to make corrections you have to join and pay a monthly fee and I'm not gonna do it.  What a SCAM.  But I hate having incorrect information out there about my family.  Oh well.

I also used to make corned beef and cabbage a lot because my husband loved it especially with lots of potatoes. I loved the cabbage so it worked out fine, and I always added lots of freshly peeled carrots to mine (some cooks only use the potatoes and the cabbage and that's fine, too, but my DH loved carrots).  You can buy corned beef in the meat section of your grocery store any time of the year, not just around St. Patrick's Day which is a falsehood - it's available year round and if your store doesn't carry it ask your meat man to get it and they will usually at least TRY to get it for you. 

We made a lot of things using berries because my gramma farm had a chokecherry grove and some plum bushes, but we also made a lot of things with apples because both she and my mom had tons of apples, from smaller crabapples to the big kind of baking apples.  Lots of cobblers, lots of jelly and jam.  We loved baked whole apples stuffed with raisins and brown sugar and butter with cinnamon, we also liked fried apple slices with fried onions.  It was a regional thing I guess.  Fried onions are just the best!  We ate a lot of ham and chicken with slices of melted swiss cheese over the top, and I invented a pounded chicken breast dish where each pounded breast had a slice or two of black forest ham and then a couple slices of cheese and then were pan fried to perfection. I also used to hold those together with a toothpick and put them in a small roaster and bake them, that worked, too.  Pounded chix breasts cook up much faster than the thicker heavier version. 

My father in law was a huge fan of my cooking, imagine that, and my mother in law was a wonderful cook herself. She made the absolute BEST kuchen in the world. When she died my FIL used to come and spend a lot of time with us and after his brain surgery (he fell and bumped his noggin on the icy pavement getting into his pickup after church and had to have surgery within a week, but thank god we have one of the best brain bumper guys right here where I live!!) so it worked out fine all around.  I was glad to have my FIL for company during the daytime, my DH changed his head bandages when he came home from work at night, and then we'd settle in and watch tv for an hour or two and play cards or whatever.  It was great fun NOT to be alone all day!!  We taught him to play Mexican Dominoes and he loved that as much as playing cards.  Me too!  We played farkle, too, that was always fun.