Won't Eat Out: Brides Tackle Holiday Feast

Won't Eat Out

Brides Tackle Holiday Feast

By Marcia Wood

Thursday may be a day of reckoning for last summer’s brides. For, more than likely, this will be their first attempt at preparing a Thanksgiving feast.

Trying to locate such gals was a task in itself, because most are taking hubby to eat mama’s fare, or, if mom lives too far away, perhaps to eat with his mother.

One bride who will be staying home Thursday is Mrs. Stuart Feldman of East Hoover Street. Sue is a senior working toward a bachelor’s degree in the University’s School of Business Administration. Her husband, Stuart, received his master’s degree in business at the U-M last year and is employed in Detroit as a commercial billing manager for Michigan Bell Telephone Company.

Sue, whose wedding day was May 27 in Miami Beach, said that she’d never cooked a thing before she was married.

She spent two years at Northwestern University in Evanston, 111., and transferred to the University here last year.

“Although I lived in an apartment here for one semester, my roommate did all of the cooking. All I ever made was salads.”

However, she now loves cooking and confides that she looks forward to fixing dinner every night, just to get a break from studying.

The Feldman’s spent last Thanksgiving in Washington, D.C., where Sue met Stuart’s parents for the first time.

This Thanksgiving Sue will be cooking for Stuart.

She’s planned a menu of turkey, dressing, cranberry salad, sweet potato pudding and hot rolls.

When I talked to her she was still pondering over what to serve for dessert, explaining that “Stuart likes pumpkin pie, but it’s not one of my favorites.”

Sue doesn’t anticipate any problems roasting the turkey, although she’s never cooked one before. “I did buy a chicken and practice stuffing it,” she admitted. “I figure if I can just get it stuffed I won’t have any trouble.”

Sue’s taste for fortune cookies, not her cooking talents brought her and Stuart together.

She used to stop by a local grocery store almost every night last year to buy a fortune cookie. Stuart worked there as a cashier. “He recognized me from school and that’s how we met — over a fortune cookie.”

Since the Feldmans will be eating Christmas dinner in Ann Arbor, too, in a sense Thanksgiving will be a test run. But over New Year’s Sue will get a holiday when she and Stuart visit in Miami.

When asked for a favorite holiday recipe, Sue agreed to share her mother’s recipe for Cranberry Jello Salad.

CRANBERRY JELLO SALAD

1 pkg. raspberry jello

1 cup hot water

1/2 cup cold water

1 small orange, washed and cut into 1” cubes (not peeled)

% cup pineapple chunks (canned)

1 lb. can whole cranberry sauce

1/4 cup chopped walnuts

Dissolve jello in hot water; add cold water and chill until almost firm. Drain orange, pineapple chunks and cranberry sauce and add, along with nuts, to jello. Pour in a one-quart mold which has been lightly greased with oil. Chill.

To unmold, dip bottom of mold into hot water for a second, run knife around the edge, lay on flat plate. Return the unmolded jello to refrigerator and it will firm up again.

Another bride who will be demonstrating her culinary skills Thursday is Mrs. Thomas Schriber of East University Avenue. Although she has been married about a month less than Sue, Ann Schriber has quite a bit more cooking experience.

In fact she literally won Tom’s heart through his stomach.

“We were married June 24 in Norman, Okla., my hometown. I’d known Tom for more than three years before we were married. In fact, I’d lined him up with lots of my girlfriends.

Ann explained that being a confirmed bachelor, Tom owed lots of friends dinners. After he started dating her and found out she could cook, he set her to “catering” parties to pay back his dinner debts.

This is Ann’s fourth year living in Ann Arbor. She originally came here to school after attending Bradford Junior College in Bradford, Mass. She returned to Oklahoma, however, and received her bachelor’s degree from Oklahoma University. She then came back to Michigan to earn a master’s degree and a teaching certificate. She received the certificate and is teaching English at Tappan Junior High School. At present she has a few hours toward a master’s.

Her husband, who earned a master’s and doctorate from the University’s Department of Chemical Engineering, is an assistant professor in the U-M’s Graduate School of Business Administration.

“We’re having a Sneed type Thanksgiving dinner,” Ann said, explaining that Sneed was her maiden name.

“I’ll be serving Mom’s traditional meal of turkey, dressing, creamed onions, peas, grapefruit gelatin salad, rolls and pumpkin chiffon pie.

Ann will be hostess to Tom’s parents and sisters, the Francis C. Schribers and Ann of Kalamazoo and Mary Sue, a teacher from DeKalb, Ill.

Ann isn’t daunted by the prospect of cooking a turkey, though, because she’s done it before. She prepared both a turkey and ham for her engagement party.

Most of the recipes she will be using Thursday are her mother’s. Her unique stuffing recipe which she agreed to share, however, was copied from Mrs. William Gronemeyer of Grosse Pointe with whom she ate Thanksgiving dinner in 1964.

HAZELNUT STUFFING

8 hamburger buns—break in pieces, dry out

1 cup of shelled hazelnuts

3/4 to 1 cup white seedless raisins

3/4 to 1 cup dark raisins

2 tbsp. sugar

2 eggs slightly beaten with 1/4 cup milk

4 tablespoons softened butter

2 apples peeled, chopped in small pieces

Salt and pepper to taste

After the bread has dried slightly, add other ingredients. Mix all well with fork, let stand for several hours; keep stirring occasionally. Refrigerate. Make day before; keep in refrigerator and stuff turkey just before putting into oven.

Ann Unpacks Wine In Her Kitchen

Sue Checks Her Table Setting