Snooky And The Homemade Chocolate
Milk In Grandma’s Summer Kitchen
Every weekday after school, a
fourth-grade girl called “Snoo
ky,” would go straight to her
grandmother’s old-fashioned
“summer” kitchen and fix herself
a tall glass of homemade choco
late milk.
“Yummee!” Snooky would
say, downing a tumbler full of the
creamy drink and smacking her
lips afterward. “That really hits
the spot.”
A few moments later she
would take the glass into the reg
ular kitchen where her grandma
cooked meals for her grandfather
and two men who needed a
home.
“Thank you, Grandma,” Snoo
ky would say, rinsing the cloudy,
milk-stained glass under the
water tap. Then the glass would
be set aside until the next time
her grandma washed the dishes
in hot, soapy water.
Meanwhile, with her tongue,
Snooky would continue licking
the brown streak of chocolate res
idue that was still above her lip.
“You’re welcome, Snooky,”
Grandma would say an shoo off
her youngest granddaughter
across the dirt driveway to her
own house.
Snooky thought Grandma al
ways knew how hungry a kid was
after walking a mile and a half
home from school. That’s why
Grandma could be counted on to
have something tasty stashed
away in the summer kitchen.
Maybe kids today never heard
of a summer kitchen. It was a
pantry, a work area, kitchen, and
diningroom all rolled into one.
Snooky’s grandparents would al
ways eat their meals there in the
summer because it was so cool
and comfortable. The regular di
ningroom was used only when
company came calling.
Could This Be A ‘Harebrained’ Study?
UNIVERSITY PARK
(Centre Co.) Those tired
cliches and puns just won’t stop
coming. When it is suggested
that he is trying to pull a rabbit
out of a region, Duane Diefen
bach just smiles ruefully, shak
ing his head. “They are not rab
bits, they are hares snowshoe
hares,” he said. “In Pennsylva
nia, they exist only in parts of
the Northern Tier, and this
study will try to determine just
where their populations per
sist.”
The adjunct assistant profes
sor of wildlife ecology in Penn
State’s College of Agricultural
Sciences doesn’t think it’s a
“hare-brained” scheme to have
researchers survey a
15,000-square-mile region of the
sparsely populated, mostly for
ested northern counties, includ
ing the Poconos. They will be
armed with hand-held comput
ers and global positioning
(GPS) units, looking for what
researchers euphemistically
refer to as “pellets” fecal
matter.
Because the pellets “depos
ited” by snowshoe hares (Lepus
americanus) are indistinguish-
This summer kitchen had a
modem big electric refrigerator
where Snooky’s grandma would
store the raw cow’s milk from the
farm. The milk was not pas
teurized or homogenized.
Her grandma would skim off
most of the thick cream that rose
to the top of the milk. She would
save it for later to churn into but
ter. And another thing her grand
ma did with the cream was to
whip it up all light and fluffy
with sugar for a luscious topping
to slather on desserts like ginger
bread.
Anyway, since her grandma
didn’t always want to stop her
work to prepare Snooky’s choco
late milk, she showed Snooky
how to do it herself.
Snooky would begin by mea
suring out a heaping teaspoon of
powdery cocoa from the Her
shey’s can to drop into the glass
tumbler. A little brown cloud
would rise out of the glass and
she would swoosh at it with her
hand.
She would heap in sugar that
was at least double the amount of
cocoa.
“Let’s see,” she would mur
mur, “I need a dash of salt, too.”
So she would get the salt shaker
on the table and shake some in
before blending everything with a
spOon.
Next, Snooky would pour a
wee bit of hot water from an old
teakettle over the cocoa and
sugar and stir it to form a soft
brown paste.
Snooky would stir the paste
until the sugar in it stopped
squeaking. If it didn’t sqeak, she
knew it was all dissolved.
That’s when it was ready for
the bluish-looking milk. The milk
didn’t appear quite as blue once
able from those left by Appala
chian cottontail rabbits (Sylvila
gus obscurus) and eastern
cottontail rabbits (Sylvilagus
americanus) that also thrive in
the region, DNA testing will be
used to determine where the
hares are. The GPS units and
computers will allow research
ers to electronically mark loca
tions of hare droppings and
eventually to draw maps show
ing the range of the hares.
“It’s kind of a crap shoot”
Diefenbach pauses, catching
himself in yet another pun.
“This method has not been tried
before in Pennsylvania, but we
are optimistic that this ap
proach will allow us to de
termine the range of the snow
shoe hare here. Our state is at
the southern periphery of the
snowshoe hare’s range, and
habitat use by this species is not
well understood.”
The research project in
triguing because of its high-tech
approach to a rather mundane
activity is titled the “Distri
bution and Large-Scale Habitat
Associations of Snowshoe Hares
in Northern Pennsylvania.” It is
one of 15 approved for funding
* Korner**
K 9
she shook the bottle to blend in
the remaining cream.
She would add only a little
milk to the cocoa paste at first,
then little more until the glass
was full.
Oh, boy, she would swallow
long and hard to quench her
thirst for the best drink in the
world.
MILK!
“Yununee!” Snooky would
say. “Does that ever hit the spot.”
Afterward, she sometimes
looked around and tried to un
derstand all the stuff her grand
ma saved in the summer kitchen.
There was a square table of
dark wood where grandma’s
family sat on unmatched hand
made chairs to eat.
After she washed the dishes,
Grandma would often take the
clean, everyday dishes back to
the table and arrange the plates
and silverware for the next meal.
Snooky could see how grand
ma had filled a big heavy comer
cupboard in the summer kitchen
with all kinds of things. And the
dark sideboard buffet that
matched the table had compart
ments for her best silverware, ta
blecloths, doilies, aprons, and ruf
fled dust caps.
Snooky, however, didn’t give a
hoot about Grandma’s dry sinks,
old magazines, newspapers, wilt
ing plants, or an old church pew
stacked with odds and ends
against the wall.
Nope.
The chocolate milk that she
could make freely in Grandma’s
summer kitchen was all that mat
tered to a fourth-grade girl.
And ever after, when Snooky
grew up, she never stopped lov
ing chocolate milk.
by the Pennsylvania Game
Commission and the Pennsylva
nia Fish & Boat Commission to
benefit the state’s most troubled
wildlife and fish species. Using
monies allocated to the state
from the federal State Wildlife
Grant Program, the Game
Commission is providing
$BO,OOO of the $115,000 project
cost, with the university supply
ing the remainder.
“The snowshoe hare is a spe
cies of interest to hunters and
nonhunting wildlife enthusi
asts,” said Diefenbach. “Al
though hunter harvest data by
county provides a gross mea
sure of hare range in Pennsylva
nia, hares likely are patchily
distributed and associated with
specific habitat types.
“Presently, hares are hunted
in Pennsylvania, but a very con
servative one-week season has
been established because the ef
fect of hunting on the popula
tion, as well as habitat require
ments and trends in abundance,
are unknown,” he said. “Great
er hunting opportunities or hab
itat improvements might be im
plemented if more was known
about the distribution and habi
tat requirements of hares in
Pennsylvania.”
Cottontail rabbits and snow
shoe hares are a lot alike, but
there are some important differ
ences. First and perhaps most
obvious, snowshoe hares are
adapted to living in northern
climates where there is near
constant snow cover in winter.
Subsequently, they have larger
back feet to help them maneu
ver on shifting, slippery surfaces
hence the name “snowshoe.”
And hares’ fur turns white in
the winter to help them blend
into their surroundings and
avoid predators, which accounts
for their other common name
“varying hare.”
“Another important differ
ence between hares and rabbits
is not so noticeable,” said Die
fenbach. “The young of snow
shoe hares emerge from their
mother able to run, while cot
tontail rabbit babies are more or
less helpless at first.”
One final clich about rabbits
that is true for hares: They re
produce like, well rabbits.
“Hares are very productive,
similar to rabbits in that re
spect,” said Diefenbach. “A fe
male hare might have three lit
ters a year.”
LMHS Junior
To Attend
Governor’s
School For
Ag Sciences
LANCASTER (Lancaster Co.)
Lancaster Mennonite High
School (LMHS) junior Loren
Hershey, son of Les and Lois
Hershey, Kirkwood, has been se
lected to attend the 2003 Penn
sylvania Governor’s School for
the Agricultural Sciences this
summer. He was also chosen as
an alternate for the Pa. Gover
nor’s School for Global Entrepre-
neurship.
In addition, junior Jennifer
Wenrich, daughter of Martin and
Esther Wenrich, Leola, was cho
sen as an alternate for the Gover
nor’s School for the Agricultural
Sciences, and junior Angela Diet
zel, daughter of Dan and Joanne
Dietzel, Strasburg, was selected
as an alternate for the Governor’s
School for Teaching.
The Governor’s Schools of Ex
cellence are a comprehensive set
of residential summer programs
conducted on college campuses.
This year over 3,700 applications
were received and only 824 stu
dents could be chosen;
0,1 &
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