For their loss, we extend our sympathy to Dick’s family and many friends.

We have received several comments regarding our story about the petroleum jelly incident at Kenyon College. In talking about this with several people, we, along with others, have decided that the concept of common sense no longer seems to play a particularly important role anymore. In fact, one person was kind enough to share a similar story with us.

Evidently at one time, when a local municipality enacted a local law, three copies of the law had to be sent to the great State of New York. Once the state received the copies, a notice was sent back to the municipality that the law was now in force. Our storyteller related that he dutifully sent off, in his role as municipal attorney, the required three copies of a somewhat substantial, and hence lengthy, local law. Much to his surprise, instead of the expected notice from the state, he received all three of the copies of the law in the mail with a note which basically said that the state now only required one copy of the law and so he was to remove two of the copies and send the third copy back to the state. We have to think that the only winner in this had to be the United States Postal Service.

We must say that we were somewhat surprised by the response to our request last week for the pickle relish recipe from Miller’s Restaurant. We received our first copy of the recipe from Nancy Dunn of Susquehanna Avenue when we arrived at her house last Thursday at 8:30 a.m. to pick her up to go out for breakfast. She was clutching her copy, which her mother had included in a set of two, hand written cook books which Nancy’s mother, Beulah Carpenter, had given to Nancy at the time of her wedding some 59 years ago.

After breakfast we dutifully copied the recipe off and headed for home where we discovered a message on our answering machine from Jean Johnson of Main Street saying that she had a copy of the recipe which she would be delighted to share with us. Before we had a chance to call Jean back, Sophie Rogers of Glen Avenue called to say not only did she have the recipe, but she also worked for a time at Miller’s Restaurant. She well remembers that the pies which Mrs. Miller’s mother, whom Sophie referred to as Grandma Lennon, made were wonderful. Sophie also mentioned that when she last made the relish about 10 years ago, her son, who is not overly fond of hot dogs, ate two of them because he liked the relish so much.

Once we had finished our conversation with Sophie, we called Jean back and discovered that she had gotten the recipe from the newspaper sometime after the restaurant closed. She also mentioned that when she went to look for the recipe, she was somewhat surprised to discover that it was the first recipe in the box. Our conversation with Jean was cut short when the front door bell rang. When we answered the door, we discovered Phyllis Selan, who lives on Fork Shop Road between Toddsville and Fly Creek, was on our porch with a copy of the recipe in hand. We obviously had hit pay dirt in our search for the recipe.

Thinking that the rush in the recipe department was over, we took off to do a bit of quilting at a friend’s house, who, we hasten to point out, did not have a copy of the recipe. Upon our return home, we had two more recipe calls on our answering machine. The first was from our back door neighbor, Ruth Weeks of Fair Street, who told us when we returned her call that when she went looking for the recipe, she discovered, when she opened her recipe box, that the pickle relish recipe was standing upright in the box and was thus the first one she looked at. Upon completing our call with Ruth, our back door bell rang and when we opened the door, we discovered our second message caller, Katie Sanford of Susquehanna Avenue, was at the door clutching still another copy of the recipe. Katie explained that the recipe she had had been hand written by her mother, Jane Tennant.

We received our final copy, at least as of this writing, of the recipe in the mail from Catherine Wilmot Walker of Country Highway 26 in Fly Creek. In addition to the recipe, Mrs. Walker also noted that she "... used to jump in the boat and row to their dock, tie up and walk up the hill to their restaurant. Her chicken and biscuit was outstanding." We thank all of the holders of this recipe who shared it with us. And we must say that we greatly enjoyed talking with all of them.

In closing, since there seems to be some variation in the recipe, although not enough that we think it would substantially change the outcome, we are sharing the recipe as we first received it from Nancy Dunn.

Mrs. Miller’s Relish

4 quarts sliced cabbage

6 green peppers

6 red peppers

6 green tomatoes

6 onions

Grind peppers, tomatoes and onions together with coarse chopper and drain.

Add:

2 quarts vinegar

2 lb. sugar

One-half cup salt

6 oz. white mustard seed

One-half oz. celery seed

One-half oz. tumeric

Cook all together 20 minutes. Seal hot. Makes about 10 pints.

And, should anyone undertake making a batch of this pickle relish, please feel free to share a bit of the finished product with us. That way we will be able to attest that it is indeed as good as everyone says it is.

We remain,

In these Otsego hills,

The Ellsworths

The Ellsworths may be reached by mail at 105 Pioneer St., Cooperstown, N.Y. 13326, by telephone at 547-8124 or by e-mail at cellsworth1@stny.rr.com. They look forward to hearing from you.

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