My Favorite Family Food

My family (the Harmons) have a special dish that we make occasionaly. It is a Norwegian dish called Crub or Krub.

Not too long ago my mom was here visiting and I was teaching my son how to make it. We were discussing why it is called crub. No one knew so I decided to look it up on the internet. Well I found out the name could possibly be a regional variation. Our dish is also called coumpa (koompa) or klub (cloob) depending on where you are from.

What is this dish you ask? It is potato dumplings. They are oh so yummy. It is basically ground potatoes, flour, and salt, made into balls and then boiled. Some people add a piece of ham, bacon, or side pork to the middle. My family leaves the meat out. We make the potato dumplings and serve them with bacon or side pork grease with the meat on the side. We always make enough for leftovers because they are great the next day sliced and fried and then buttered. I will not add the recipe here as I don't have a written one. This has been passed down for generations by just teaching how to make it to the next generation. However, I found a really neat blog that has a recipe...http://troublealwayshasadoor.blogspot.com/2006/07/coumpa-recipe-norwegian-potato.html. This site also has some other recipes that look good and are gluten free.

I hope someone is brave enough to try this very delicious recipe. If you do please post a comment and let me know how you liked it. I would also like to hear from other crub or potato dumpling lovers out there.

Compliments

I don't usually receive to many compliments about anything so it is very uplifting to be complimented at work. I have only been at this job for three months and I seem to be picking it up quickly. Just about every afternoon when I leave my boss tells me, "don't get into any trouble I need you tomorrow." He also tells his clients and friends (in front of me and when I am not there) how he could not run the office without me. I appreciate what he says very much. Maybe there are times I am not so average.

A Proud Heritage

I have always been proud of my heritage, especially on my dad's side of the family. We are descendents of Ijakalaka a Souix woman. It is interesting to be able to track my family back several generations. It is like getting to know them.

Clara Russell Trenk

Ijkalaka and David Russell's Daughter

My great grandmother

Grace Ethel Trenk Elmore

Daughter of Clara Russell Trenk

My grandmother

My grandmother and her brothers and sisters


Romaine Russell Spicer on the far left. Myself and my son David on the back right.

John Russell, Ijkalaka's son

Allen Elmore son of Grace Ethel Elmore

My dad

My grandmother and me.

Me

So this is at least part of my family. There are no good pictures of Ijkalaka that is why I did not add any. She worked hard all her life and had a small town named after her, Ekalaka, Montana.

Average

I have never been really good at anything. I dabble in all kinds of crafts like cross stitch, knitting, crocheting, sewing, quilting, beading, and more, but I have never truly mastered any of them. Even in my cooking-I can cook and bake-but it is nothing spectacular, just average.

All my life I have been just average. Average height, weight (not now, that is above average), plain brown hair, not really pretty but not ugly, not rich, not poor, an average husband, two kids, a dog or 2. I was always pretty average in school as well.

Sometimes I really want to be someone special. Someone who can do something that makes people say WOW. I would love to amaze people with my cooking or baking, be such a great seamstress people are begging me to do some sewing for me.

I often look over my life and think it has not been so bad. At other times I feel so very average, maybe a little below average. I want to accomplish so much but I don't have what it takes.

I know I should not look at other people's lives and compare to mine but I do, we all do. I see people hanging out with their friends and I feel lonely. My friend is done with me. She has moved on. I have acquaintances at church but have not become really close to anyone. Some ladies just went on a camping trip-sad to say I was jealous. I don't even really know these women but I want to be a part of something like that. I want to have friends who want to get together for lunch or do a camping trip or go shopping or have tea. I guess this is where I fall below average because of the lack of friends.

Summers in Ekalaka part 1

My favorite time of year growing up was always summer. Summer meant that we would travel across Montana to see my dad's parents, my grandparents. They lived on a ranch near Ekalaka, a quaint historic town in SE Montana.

First ranch my grandparents lived (that I remember)

I think this is where my love for the country came from. The wide open spaces, the animals, the smells of summer. There is nothing like the smell of sweetclover on a hot day or the smell of rain in the air and then how clean and fresh the air smells after it rains, even a little.

View from hill behind my grandparents house

The first ranch I truly remember is the one my dad and aunt currently own. When they first moved on this ranch they lived in the house that was there. It was being renovated when they bought the ranch and was never finished so there was no running water in the house. That means no bathroom facilities either. it was always quite exciting to go to the outhouse, except at night. Outhouses at night are scary places, you never know what is lurking on the way to the outhouse or in the outhouse. My grandmother never let not having running water slow her down though.

The Elmores ready to head home

My grandma was an amazing woman. She had a strong personality and was strong physically as well. She worked on the ranch right alongside the men, keeping up, and sometimes outworking them. She would get up, fix breakfast (sometimes just cereal depending if they had hired hands or not), milk the cow, and then head out to the hayfield. About an 45 minutes to an hour before lunch (dinner in SE Montana) she would be home and fix an excellent lunch, simple, but very filling and good tasting. Then, back out to the hayfield. She was a very hard worker all her life.

My grandma, Ethel Elmore, and her horse

My grandma, Ethel Elmore, was a big part of why I loved going to Ekalaka for vacation every year. She has been an inspiration to me and one of my heroes.

My grandma in 1985 in the Centenial Days of 85 Parade

Prologue

This blog is about my life, my average life. I am not writing it to be noticed, I just want to write my life as I see it and have a record for me and my family.

Sometimes this may seem random but I am a random kind of girl. I will tell tales of my history and the present in no particular order.

To start, let me introduce myself. I am just the average person who possibly lives next door to you. I have never done anything exciting or special. For most of my life I have just survived, like most Americans, doing what needs to be done day by day. I have had ancestors who were special, at least we think so now. They probably didn't think so at the time, they were just doing what needed to be done. My great, great grandfather David Russell did a lot in his life. He was an Indian fighter, buffalo hunter, served in the military, traveled all over the United States, married an Indian woman named Ijakalaka and settled where Ekalaka, Montana is now. They ranched there, just doing what needed to be done.

As I write this I am thinking that just being average and doing what needs to be done is not so bad. Maybe instead of people trying so hard to be famous, powerful, and rich they should be happy where they are. The Russells just worked their ranch, raised their family turned out to be pretty great people. No they are not famous, they were not powerful, and they definitely were not rich, but they were happy.

I have not seen as much of our great nation as my great, great grandfather did but I am happy in my little corner of the world. I own a business that I have dreamed about owning for years. I have kids and my husband. I also have two very sweet dogs and one silly cat. They all care that I come home from work every day. They all love me.

So, maybe I am just the average American. Who cares. I don't. Maybe no one cares if I write this down. So what. I am doing this for me. If someone else reads it and gets something out it like a laugh or a "thank God I am not her", it has served more of a purpose than it was intended to.

Stay tuned for chapter 1.