Angels Camp, CA…Margaret Mary Cairns, my paternal grandmother, was born and raised in Ireland. She began working in a tartan factory at age eight or nine and when she married, she used this skill to make clothing for her eight children and bring in a little money from sewing for others. She married at a young age, and when her husband, my grandfather, Gavin Baxter, came to the United States, she stayed behind to raise their one daughter until he could find employment and earn enough money to send for them. This lasted ten years!

Once he sent for her, she knew she would never see her family or homeland again, but it was Gavin she so loved and would sacrifice all that to spend the rest of her life with him. They settled in Coleville Washington and it was here that she gave birth to seven more children assisted by her Native American mid-wife. While her hard-working husband spent every day working at a farm and school run by the Jesuits, she tended to the garden growing their food digging the soil by hand, baking several loaves of bread a day, usually seven, on a wood burning black cast irons stove no matter if it was a hot summer or a cool autumn day, brewing rootbeer for her children and beer for she and Gavin in their root cellar every summer. And even though their finances were sparse, they managed to send pails of stews to their neighbors in the winter who did not have much to eat.

Gavin and his six sons would hunt and fish for their meat. Margaret was a tiny framed woman with long beautiful hair that Gavin brushed nightly before retiring to bed that she coiled into a bun upon arising in the morning. If you stopped by for a visit, she always had a cup of coffee to offer you and a plate of dessert she had baked that day. There was no bathroom in their house and a galvanized tub was set in a room off the kitchen to which water heated on the stove has poured into the tub for bathing. She used a wringer washer and a clothes line when she did laundry. Margaret had no luxuries! I so admire and respect this remarkable woman who never owned or drove a car. And in 1955 she died of a broken heart because her Gavin had succumbed to a heart attack three months earlier. I could not have done what Margaret Mary Cairns did. And it is said women are the weaker sex. They obviously did not know my grandmother! Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!

Beer Batter Gingerbread Cake
1 cup Guinness stout AND regular molasses
Bring in a boil in a large pan. Remove from the heat and whisk in:
1 tsp. baking soda. Set aside to cool. This mixture will foam up so make sure your pot is deep.
Combine in a bowl:
1 cup crystalized ginger
1 ½ cups melted and cooled butter
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
Stir in:
2 large beaten eggs
Zest from 3 lemons
Combine in a separate bowl:
2 ½ cups flour
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. allspice
2 Tbsp. Ground ginger
½ tsp. salt

Alternate the dry mixture with the cooled liquid mixture into the crystalized ginger mixture. Place the batter into two greased 8×8 pans and bake in a preheated 325-degree oven. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes. When cool dust with powdered sugar and cut each cake into 4 or 6 squares. Serve with Crystalized Ginger Whipping Cream
Crystalized Ginger Whipping Cream
Whip until soft peaks form:
1 cup whipping cream & 2 Tbsp. sugar
Gently fold in:
½ cup crystalized ginger

Jenny Baxter Jenny’s Kitchen