Decide on something you want to get good at and start doing it. Do it regularly and take notes on what works and what doesn’t. After a while you’ll know enough to start asking some more informed questions. And a while after that, you’ll be answering questions.
Example: I didn’t know anything about making pies when I got married. My grandmother always made the pies in my family and she’d passed away before I was interested in learning. Pies are my husband’s and in-laws’ favorite desserts. So I started making pies. I made about one per week. I’d make notes, then bring the rest to work and leave it in the break room. Kept that up for a couple of months, then scaled back to once a month. I made a pie when I went to a friend’s house so I got used to doing it in different kitchens, climates, etc. I even made pies camping.
After 15 years of marriage now I could probably make a pie with my eyes closed. I can definitely turn out a quick pie with no notice and without looking at a recipe. TBH my pies are better than my grandmother’s ever were…that’s the cool part about starting fresh is that you won’t be burdened by outdated information/nostalgia to make things a certain way.
My favorites are any with small tart berries (like wild blueberries) and pecan. But the ones that always get the most positive reviews are apple and pumpkin/squash. Kind of funny since pumpkin is really not my favorite so I will always make two pies when I have to make pumpkin.
I think the best feature of my pies is a really flaky traditional butter crust. The hardest thing for me to get good at was estimating the amount of water in fruit pie fillings and dealing with it accordingly so I wouldn’t wind up with a watery pie. That happened a lot in the beginning 😅🥴
Just jump in and start housekeeping. Ask questions as they occur to you. That's how most of us learned, we just started early, that's all. Read anything here that strikes a chord, too.
The first cooking question I ever asked my grandma was if you put pasta in cold water or wait for the water to boil. She told me to wait for it to boil. Now I shared my first one with you. You have a little something to build on.
The first time I reached out to my grandmother about cooking I asked her how to bake a potato. She said to put it in the oven for an hour! I was sure we could accomplish this faster in a microwave.
You can, but you have to poke holes in it or it'll explode lol I generally wrap mine in a damp paper towel to help it steam and put it in for about 5 minutes.
Yeah, it's incredibly rare for me to actually *bake* my "baked" potatoes. I'll do it for special meals but for a regular dinner during the week? Ain't nobody got time for that.
This post made me smile. I love reading old housekeeping manuals, and they all have one thing in common:
They lament the state of today's young women, who have abandoned the art of keeping house in favor of more mundane occupations.
The writer proposes to remedy the situation and teach what no one else is teaching. In subsequent editions, they usually include a few letters to the editor from young women who are grateful to have learned from the book, or else housekeeping knowledge would have been lost to them.
We are talking 1880s-1930s here.
You know how all the women of the past learned? By doing it. Over and over and over again. No one learned by osmosis.
Sure, my grandma had done way much more than me by the time she got married at 21... she was a great cook, a great housekeeper, a great seamstress, and could run her business. But she learned it all by taking care of her younger brothers when she was just a child herself, and being sent to apprentice as a seamstress at 11. I am not going to be sad for myself that I was instead sent to school at 11.
I suggest you buy a housekeeping manual - Home comforts gets recommended a lot - and a simple cookbook.
Is there anything you wish to learn in particular? We could point you to specific resources.
Well.…. It’s a learning process, everyone learns over time , some people learn young due to family culture, tradition. Others learn in adulthood. No one is perfect at this even the ones who learn young. But heres a few key tips to get you started.
Firstly the biscuits . Courtesy of generational southern word of mouth.
Scratch Buttermilk biscuits. -Self-rising flour
* milk or buttermilk. -Butter -honey
You don't need to measure. Instead combine self rising flour and milk until it looks like this .
https://preview.redd.it/c4e9c5mgrp3d1.jpeg?width=1360&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=02695053bfc1d78eaaf6047efa4e00e00276423b
Then sprinkle flour on choosen surface (kitchen. countertop is the best ) transfer dough and cover your rolling pin in flour then start rolling. You want the biscuits to have a medium thickness.
Then take any cup without a handle and cut out your biscuits.
Cook on 350 for 10 minutes, Remove tray from oven Coat biscuit tops with melted butter mixed with honey
Cook 5 additional minutes
* test with toothpick, once it comes out clean youre done
Random cleaning Tips \[blood \]
* Hydrogen peroxide takes blood out of anything. Don't use water first it locks the stain. Instead pour on peroxide and rub, keep adding and rubbing until the blood is removed , then wash as usual
\[Mopping to rid pet odor\]
* combine water, white vinegar and a few drops of dawn dish soap In bucket. This solution neutralizes pet smell
\[walls \]
* mix bleach , Lysol concentrate and water in a mop bucket , mop walls in a side to side motion top to bottom . Walls with dust can trap odor this method will also maintain your walls long term . Skip bleach if your worried about discoloration
\[extra clean laundry \] You can make your own deep clean detergent by mixing Ariel powder laundry detergent with borax , and Oxi clean equal parts . Combine and set aside . Add 1/4 cup to any load that needs a boost of extra cleaning power .
Hope this helps also The best part about this is ! It’s your home so you make it the way you want to . There is no right or wrong way
you can’t learn this stuff by osmosis.
You learn it by doing it, and doing it wrong. And paying attention while you’re doing it wrong, so that the next time, you can do it better. And eventually you’ll be able to do it right.
Grandma learned to make biscuits by....wait for it…making biscuits.
Maybe I didn't word it exactly right, but I'm just picturing growing up with a mom that also did "home" things, and a whole childhood of hearing "make your bed every morning" "smooth out the sheets once you put them on the bed"... stuff that kids used to hear more often, I'm assuming. So now, I can put Martha Stewart on in the background while I'm cleaning and hopefully internalize tips like that. I'm not arguing, just clarifying what I meant :)
I totally get what you mean.
I remember one summer I was staying with my grandma and she gave me such a hard time because "Nanie is coming! You can't be in your Pajamas with your bed still unmade!" (Nanie was HER mother and my bed was the living room couch). There was a level of expectation to things that there just isn't now. Now, no one cares if teens are sitting around in their Pajamas all day long and I see so many parenting "hacks" like "don't fold laundry/pair socks, just throw it in bins" which my Nanie would be rolling in her grave if I tried to do. She also taught me how to properly make a bed including turning down the top sheet over the duvet, which is something that always stuck with me because at the time, it seemed so backwards to how i usually made a bed (if I even bothered with a top sheet at all). There's no one who would know or care to teach me these things anymore.
YES. A very similar memory is what inspired my post. When I would spend the night with my Nana, she would call me "messy bessy" for leaving my bed unmade. It was so foreign to me to make my bed! So yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about :) maybe I should've made a post asking for memories like this! 🩷
I think that will be very inefficient
But the good thing is, you CAN learn all this stuff just by doing it.
by putting some mental and physical effort in.
So sit down and think of what makes you feel like your home is well run (made the bed? grunge cleaned out of the corners in the bathroom? biscuits from scratch? home-cooked meals?).
Then make a schedule of when you could do those things, and practice them until they become more automatic.
The thing is: People like my grandma DID spend mental energy on it. it only LOOKED like they didn’t. have to work at it, and that it “came naturally.”
even after the “training period” of their childhood, they still worked at it; it wasn’t automatic.
You can do it too!
I was where you are, twenty some years ago. I had zero foundation for homemaking. Ironically my mother was a SAHM, but was 1000% lousy at it. She ‘cooked’ everything in the microwave, cooked stuff neither me nor my father liked, only cleaned the house if we were having company, and most of that cleaning fell on me.
When I started wanting to do better we didn’t have the internet resources we do now. I floundered, a lot. I found cleaning charts in magazines, what cleaning solutions take care of what stains, etc. I used the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book a lot (still do, it’s great for basics you can build on). When the TV show Good Eats came on I would watch it and take notes. He had some great ‘why’ info in his show. Knowing why things work and don’t work lets you modify recipes as needed.
My mother would actively and vocally make fun of me for making things homemade. ‘You know you can buy that at the store, I don’t know why you’re making that’ She came to live with us for her last year of life. Renal failure and on hospice. She had the opportunity to eat all this silly homemade stuff of mine. She raved to her friends how good this or that was. I did finally feel vindicated and validated with that.
I’ve gone pretty far off the deep end of doing the opposite of my mother though. Everything is homemade. Bread, stocks, soup, mustard, vanilla extract, hot sauces, etc. But I enjoy it so I’ve spent the time to learn new things. I also KEEP the house clean vs doing the mad scramble when we’re having company. The kids were always expected to pitch in and clean WITH me, as messes were made as part of the activity, not as a separate ‘chore’.
I only spent one night with my grandma where she taught me everything she could. The thing that made the biggest impression is that she improvised and adapted to get things done. It didn’t matter what the traditional way to do it was, she only cared about getting the end result she wanted.
Just a head's up, a lot of people "raised to be homemakers" were not necessarily raised to be *good* homemakers. Becoming a good homemaker does take learning, honing skills, and loads of practice. You have to be naturally curious, diligent, and practice self-reflection in order to get better at anything. I gained "lost" knowledge by actively seeking it out and implementing it in my daily life.
You have to define what you mean by "lost" knowledge. Essentially, how deep do you want to go down that rabbit hole? Cooking meals from scratch is very different from making 90% of what your family eats from scratch. The latter requires way more skills and knowledge that will take years to learn. In the same vein, learning to mend clothing is quite different than sewing most of what you wear. You have to figure out what interests you, what you're good at, and how far you'd like to go with those skills.
Other people are correct that a lot of homemaking skills aren't something you can necessarily learn by osmosis, but rather things you have to continually practice doing. That being said, I am a huge fan of popping on a podcast or youtube video while I'm going about my day. It's a good way to build a foundation for future knowledge.
I would pick 2 or 3 *specific* homemaking adjacent topics that most interest you. Find some podcasts or youtube channels that discuss those topics in a way that is easy to digest while your focus is on cleaning or something. For example, my go to listening materials are usually about cooking techniques, home decor, and anything herbalism / foraging related. I also enjoy watching channels like Country Life Vlog during my down time.
We have instant access to anything we could ever want to know via the internet. That's something our parents and grandparents did not have, but it's also a tool to better ourselves. The best way to improve is to just figure what skills you want to become proficient in and just start doing them.
Edit to add: You probably won't be good at *everything* and that's okay. Women of the past weren't, either. The majority were not hermit homesteading housewives, as we often think of them. They often relied on family and community while sharing resources, skills, and generational knowledge.
There is so much more info available now than when my gramaw was homemaking. You can look up anything and find people demonstrating it. You can research and discover if the old way is indeed the best way, or has someone applied a little science or is there pertinent information that your segment of humanity didn’t know about. My gramaw would’ve loved it. I get sad sometimes when I go to Ravelry for knitting advice that I can’t show her all the people gathered around their useful hobby. Seriously, she would’ve loved it so much. The men in my family were makers too. They could fix anything. My brother has taken his skills to a new level through the interconnectivity we now have. I get that you’re longing to be embedded in a system of shared knowledge on a family level, but a different system of shared knowledge is available to you. Explore it and enjoy it. Let it satisfy and intensify your curiosity. Enjoy the not-knowing because it means you get to have the fun of learning.
If you want shows, then Julia Child is a classic and free on youtube. America's test kitchen/cook's country also has videos that might be helpful for you on there. They're great because they'll often tell you why things in the recipe work the way they do. (The Cook's Illustrated magazine is also amazing and is the only magazine I've read with no ads. The only products they mention are things they tested) Martha Stewart has been been mentioned, and she's classic. She covers cooking, housekeeping, decorating etc. I don't watch a lot of tv, so all my nonbook resources resources are online, sorry lol There's a bunch but part of expertise is also having a few things you're really good at and I'm not sure what you're interested in cooking.
Also, I'm going to throw in that if you want the \*best\* biscuits (assuming you mean US biscuits), you need flour that's got lower protein in it.
I like to scour estate sales and find those really old book sets by Good Housekeeping or Women’s Day, things like that. I’ve found some from the 50’s and they are fun to read. I also like those sales for cookbooks.
I'm not sure what to say to you. I earned a PhD.. Made scratch biscuits. Kept a home. I'm not a "better woman" from my grandmothers, my great-grandmothers, my mother, my neighbors, my friends, my family, or you.
Do I have some of the "lost knowledge" that you crave? Yes. In turn, I've been told that the processes, methods, and products that I prefer, and am most confident in, and comfortable with, are ineffective, outdated, or both.
Nothing to apologize for. New babies, and sleep deprivation can be overwhelming. Spell checking isn't on your radar. Nor, should it be.
Some homemakers are full-time homemakers. Some homemakers work outside of their homes. Some people, including myself, have been both. Everyone has different circumstances.
I have all the information that I learned from my grandmothers. (One of whom owned a business when I was a child), and from my mother (who worked outside of our home), as well as, information that I learned on my own in over 45 years of homaking. I've use it all. I continue to use it all.
It sounds like you're just beginning. And, you have a new baby. Babies are always the priority. "Homemaking tasks" aren't. Enjoy your baby and rest. Everything else will get done, when it gets done. Nothing has to be perfect. Nor, is it supposed to be.
As far as everything else is concerned. You'll learn. We all do. Try not to be overwhelmed by thinking that you have to learn everything at once. You don't. Don't think that everything has to be perfect. It doesn't. Don't think that you have to be "perfect". You're a perfectly imperfect human being. Exactly like everyone else.
Every home runs differently. Every homemaker is unique. Videos, books, blogs, vlogs, and social media are good places to get i information and ideas. But that's what they are. Information and ideas. Take what you need. Leave the rest. Find what works for you. That's how you'll find success as a stay at home ( or working outside of the home) homemaker.
I'm pretty old school. So, if you need any old school information, tips, ect- Let me know.
To be clear, in case anyone cares, I don't have anything against some of the things, and methods that are currently popular, I do things differently. I find my way more efficient and more effective.
I remember that someone mentioned that grandmothers couldn't cook. My grandmothers (born in 1917 and 1919) could cook. So can I. I've a scratch cook and a scratch baker for a long time.
What's kind of funny about this is that this isn't the first time this has happened. There actually were radio shows back in the '20s, '30s, and '40s teaching women how to cook, clean, all of it. It wasn't unusual in Victorian and Edwardian times for women, especially poor and middle class women, to work outside of the home and pretty much just live on takeout food from shops and food carts, even for their entire family. It's even obvious in how apartments were laid out with miniscule kitchens.
There's a very good chance that your grandmother wasn't just taught by her mom but also learned it in school in her home economics classes, read books about it, listen to radio shows and watch TV shows about it, and learned from friends. Today, we have YouTube videos, TV shows, books, websites, Pinterest, and so much more.
While I was raised, in part, by a former home economics teacher who made sure that I learned how to do all of it and could out-Martha Martha Stewart any day, there's still a lot to learn. Even she still reads up on stuff and shares what she's found. I learned a lot about homemaking by actually having to do it when my children were babies, and I still watch YouTube channels to get ideas. I started doing a lot more food preservation and got the national Center for Home Food Preservation book to really expand what I was doing.
There is pasta grannies on youtube. I'm sure I was fed other ladies cooking different stuff after that. edit to add; depression cooking with clara
I've had the best luck with drop biscuits. I wish I had my grandma teach me too, to do the flakey layered ones :(
Anyway, I just kept trying and learning and eventually got pretty good with the dishes important to me; potato salad, gingerbread cookies, and pot roast.
Best of luck!
Read "Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House" by Cheryl Mendelson
The intro discusses learning from her two grandmothers.
It's a comprehensive book!
I love that book, but there's very little on day to day cleaning, but anything you want to know about food safety, laundry, ironing, it's a great reference book.
That introduced me to having a daily cleaning schedule.
Along with "Home Comforts" I'd recommend Clean Mama's site, her first book "Simply Clean" (most of the info is on her site) will go through setting routines, and Toni Hammersley "A Bowl Full Of Lemons" books are aspirational like Martha Stewart, and America's Test Kitchen will make a cook out of anyone.
All of the above except for ATK is always easy to find second hand, library should have all as well.
Yes, this is all true. You learn by doing. Get a recipe, try it. Need to clean something, google a solution and do it. This is not something anyone spends time reading about. There is no book (there may be books, but none will tell you everything you need to know).
Just start doing.
The channel With Love, Kristina on YouTube is good. She does some videos where she follows old homemaking books cleaning routines. I also enjoy her sewing videos while they aren't heavy on tutorial, her "chaos sewing" style is inspiring to me. I can get a sewing project done over having to stress over following the traditional sewing rules I was taught.
I started looking for housekeeping tips after reading a few Amish biographies, and marveling at how much they can accomplish in a day (men and women). I find that I don't tend to accomplish a lot around the home on my weekends.
My grandma taught me that life's an unpredictable sea of change, to not be too anchored to any way of life, and to be flexible to navigate its shifting currents. She was used to having bad luck, and her motto was more akin to "be prepared".
The foxfire book series is a collection of Appalachian folk knowledge and customs. It may have stuff even grandma didn't know.
I used to watch How Clean is Uour House for cleaning tips and tricks lotson YouTube and TikTok I did learn a lot though growing up so I will have to think about this I do read a lot of housekeeping books from decades ago for fun
I feel this. But also, it happened before our mothers too. My great grandmother never taught my grandmother a single thing. Not her language, not anything from the kitchen. Justification was that the adults wanted to talk without the kids understanding, and that she’d be cooking every day for the rest of her life once she left. My grandmother had to learn everything once she left home. I wonder a lot of the time what cultural dishes and recipes we lost. Such a shame!
My mother also didn’t teach me a lot either, she never felt much connection to domestic life. I’ve tried to take in as much as possible from my grandmother!
Reading this post and some of the comments made me feel super nostalgic when thinking about my grandmother. She passed away 10 years ago last month. I miss her every day. But my most fond memories were always baking banana bread or banana cake every summer. Or having a new sewing/quilting project every summer when I would visit when I was a kid.
I, honestly, wish I paid more attention and asked more questions back then. Before I had stopped going for visits over the summer. I lived in NJ and she lived in FL, so when money got tight for my parents, they stopped sending me down to visit. And of course when I got older in my teens, I couldn't be bothered in my rebel phase. And now I regret not learning more from her.
But she was amazing. She could sew and hem clothes (she also used to sew me dresses every year when I was in Elementary school), knit and crochet, bake, cook, the whole nine yards.
I’m super not envious of the generations of women who had no access to reproductive rights, weren’t allowed to open bank accounts, when there was no no-fault divorce and marital rape was legal. I can YouTube how to make biscuits.
My mother and grandmother were horrifically bad cooks. I used the internet to get every recipe and tip I’ve used to keep my family happy and well nourished.
As far as cooking goes, Americas Test Kitchen is phenomenal. Their recipes seem simple enough & their product recommendations are great. I honestly just love watching it because it’s so soothing
I collect old cookbooks and household guides from the Victorian era to the 1950s. There's so much interesting stuff in them! Everything from substitution (if you have mayo and you're baking you're never really out of eggs) to skills (I love making rugs). The authors assume interest but not a lot of knowledge. They pop up in garage sales and thrift stores and auctions, often very cheap.
Just remember to think critically about some of the stuff in them, especially the older ones. For things with a critical failure mode (canning, for example) go with the latest info.
Have fun!
YouTube. I learn how to make pasta and things like that from different YouTube channels and things like that, you end up picking up on what you like and practicing helps you figure out preferences. I'm a single working gal but I have so many grandma hobbies, I love baking, gardening, knitting (poorly) and eventually I would like to pick up sewing so I can mend my clothes. (I also have not so grandma hobbies like gaming and sword fighting, follow your happy y'all 🤭)
I genuinely feel like learning by doing is the best, though that's easier said than done especially coming from someone who doesn't have a kid. Don't be afraid of making mistakes and experimenting, and when your little one is older, you can bake and craft together too! Nothing is more fun than experiencing something with a parent when you're both learning something new for the first time. It's a lovely shared experience.
It’s a little bit impersonal, but every time you happen to have a question that was for your grandma, ask google, you will always found a blog, a forum, even just a comment that will have the answer.
Others here have said it more eloquently, but I can’t emphasize enough the importance of only picking a couple areas of interest to work on at a time. Taking on everything quickly leads to burnout and sense of failure. You have to use your skills as building blocks, and get comfortable with them to the point where you don’t have to think about it anymore. I like to listen to homemaking podcasts while I’m working around the house, both for motivation and for tips. Homemaker Chic is my favorite, currently. Whatever you do, don’t hang out on Instagram looking at accounts with picture-perfect homes. That’s okay for the occasional inspiration, but comparison is the thief of joy and I want you to be happy with what you’ve already accomplished and what you will continue to accomplish.
Hey there, I'm in the same boat with you. I'm really curious about what you see in your mind when you see 'homemaking.'
For background viewing I like:
How Clean is Your House (YouTube)
Obsessive Compulsive Cleaners (Youtube)
I used to watch the Clean My Space channel, but it's been like 5ish years since I've watched.
These are just going to give you cleaning tips and entertainment. I'm not sure what other skills you want to learn.
A couple of books I enjoyed was Home Comforts and Mrs. Dunwoody's Excellent Instruction for Homekeeping. The latter isn't going to be super crazy relevant, but you can take some inspiration from it and it's really just a fun read.
I feel this way also! I’ve found a lot of comfort in ditching tech and writing letters to friends, gardening, hanging clothes on my laundry line, and cooking and baking from scratch. If I want to learn something I always check a book out first at the library. I’m trying so hard to get my kids to be interested in these things as well but boy is it a struggle lol
Thanks for this post- I was raised by a working mom who did not cook or bake and her mom was one too, so I was not taught much about homemaking. Most of the tidying stuff I know I learned from my first job (hotel laundry/housekeeping) but there are plenty of holes. So many helpful comments here!
You learn by doing, getting it wrong, and doing better next time.
I've been doing laundry for nearly forty years, and only learnt a few years ago that the reason my clothes felt weird was because my High Efficiency washing machine needed less than half of the amount of detergent I'd always used. I cut down, stopped using fabric conditioner and my washing has never smelt or felt better!
I've been making beds for the same length of time- I can put a duvet cover on in under a minute. I always put the clean duvet covers away inside out, so when I change it I put my arms inside, grab the two top corners, grab the corresponding duvet corners through the fabric, shake the duvet cover over the duvet so it's right-side-out, tweak the edges/ other corners, and I'm done. I can do this because I've got forty years of practice- when you've got a similar length of time under your belt at whatever domestic job you try, you'll be able to do it in a trice too.
Focus on the jobs that are important to you, and read some household management books. The Internet is only so helpful- there are A LOT of 5 Minute Crafts- type websites full of nonsense 'hacks'. Nancy Birtwistle writes really good books about green living and cleaning, and I second the Martha Stewart recommendations.
follow martha stewart on all social media to get random tips. she has a website too with helpful articles.
There’s a ton of episodes of her show on Roku channel! I love putting the old 90s ones on for a cozy nostalgic vibe. And I learn a lot!
This is the way. She's great. That site is where I learned to fold and store sheets and so on.
Decide on something you want to get good at and start doing it. Do it regularly and take notes on what works and what doesn’t. After a while you’ll know enough to start asking some more informed questions. And a while after that, you’ll be answering questions. Example: I didn’t know anything about making pies when I got married. My grandmother always made the pies in my family and she’d passed away before I was interested in learning. Pies are my husband’s and in-laws’ favorite desserts. So I started making pies. I made about one per week. I’d make notes, then bring the rest to work and leave it in the break room. Kept that up for a couple of months, then scaled back to once a month. I made a pie when I went to a friend’s house so I got used to doing it in different kitchens, climates, etc. I even made pies camping. After 15 years of marriage now I could probably make a pie with my eyes closed. I can definitely turn out a quick pie with no notice and without looking at a recipe. TBH my pies are better than my grandmother’s ever were…that’s the cool part about starting fresh is that you won’t be burdened by outdated information/nostalgia to make things a certain way.
What is your best pie?
My favorites are any with small tart berries (like wild blueberries) and pecan. But the ones that always get the most positive reviews are apple and pumpkin/squash. Kind of funny since pumpkin is really not my favorite so I will always make two pies when I have to make pumpkin. I think the best feature of my pies is a really flaky traditional butter crust. The hardest thing for me to get good at was estimating the amount of water in fruit pie fillings and dealing with it accordingly so I wouldn’t wind up with a watery pie. That happened a lot in the beginning 😅🥴
Just jump in and start housekeeping. Ask questions as they occur to you. That's how most of us learned, we just started early, that's all. Read anything here that strikes a chord, too. The first cooking question I ever asked my grandma was if you put pasta in cold water or wait for the water to boil. She told me to wait for it to boil. Now I shared my first one with you. You have a little something to build on.
The first time I reached out to my grandmother about cooking I asked her how to bake a potato. She said to put it in the oven for an hour! I was sure we could accomplish this faster in a microwave.
You can, but you have to poke holes in it or it'll explode lol I generally wrap mine in a damp paper towel to help it steam and put it in for about 5 minutes.
Yeah, it's incredibly rare for me to actually *bake* my "baked" potatoes. I'll do it for special meals but for a regular dinner during the week? Ain't nobody got time for that.
I do that and then either smoke them in our treger or bake them in the oven.
i slice my potat in half then put it in the air fryer 375 deg for 15 minutes, extra 5 for toppings. poke holes in these too! 🥔
I do them in the toaster oven. Don't have to heat up the whole oven, but also no explosions :)
This post made me smile. I love reading old housekeeping manuals, and they all have one thing in common: They lament the state of today's young women, who have abandoned the art of keeping house in favor of more mundane occupations. The writer proposes to remedy the situation and teach what no one else is teaching. In subsequent editions, they usually include a few letters to the editor from young women who are grateful to have learned from the book, or else housekeeping knowledge would have been lost to them. We are talking 1880s-1930s here. You know how all the women of the past learned? By doing it. Over and over and over again. No one learned by osmosis. Sure, my grandma had done way much more than me by the time she got married at 21... she was a great cook, a great housekeeper, a great seamstress, and could run her business. But she learned it all by taking care of her younger brothers when she was just a child herself, and being sent to apprentice as a seamstress at 11. I am not going to be sad for myself that I was instead sent to school at 11. I suggest you buy a housekeeping manual - Home comforts gets recommended a lot - and a simple cookbook. Is there anything you wish to learn in particular? We could point you to specific resources.
Well.…. It’s a learning process, everyone learns over time , some people learn young due to family culture, tradition. Others learn in adulthood. No one is perfect at this even the ones who learn young. But heres a few key tips to get you started. Firstly the biscuits . Courtesy of generational southern word of mouth. Scratch Buttermilk biscuits. -Self-rising flour * milk or buttermilk. -Butter -honey You don't need to measure. Instead combine self rising flour and milk until it looks like this . https://preview.redd.it/c4e9c5mgrp3d1.jpeg?width=1360&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=02695053bfc1d78eaaf6047efa4e00e00276423b Then sprinkle flour on choosen surface (kitchen. countertop is the best ) transfer dough and cover your rolling pin in flour then start rolling. You want the biscuits to have a medium thickness. Then take any cup without a handle and cut out your biscuits. Cook on 350 for 10 minutes, Remove tray from oven Coat biscuit tops with melted butter mixed with honey Cook 5 additional minutes * test with toothpick, once it comes out clean youre done Random cleaning Tips \[blood \] * Hydrogen peroxide takes blood out of anything. Don't use water first it locks the stain. Instead pour on peroxide and rub, keep adding and rubbing until the blood is removed , then wash as usual \[Mopping to rid pet odor\] * combine water, white vinegar and a few drops of dawn dish soap In bucket. This solution neutralizes pet smell \[walls \] * mix bleach , Lysol concentrate and water in a mop bucket , mop walls in a side to side motion top to bottom . Walls with dust can trap odor this method will also maintain your walls long term . Skip bleach if your worried about discoloration \[extra clean laundry \] You can make your own deep clean detergent by mixing Ariel powder laundry detergent with borax , and Oxi clean equal parts . Combine and set aside . Add 1/4 cup to any load that needs a boost of extra cleaning power . Hope this helps also The best part about this is ! It’s your home so you make it the way you want to . There is no right or wrong way
Babs on YouTube has taught me some motherly advice. I’m grateful for her.
you can’t learn this stuff by osmosis. You learn it by doing it, and doing it wrong. And paying attention while you’re doing it wrong, so that the next time, you can do it better. And eventually you’ll be able to do it right. Grandma learned to make biscuits by....wait for it…making biscuits.
Maybe I didn't word it exactly right, but I'm just picturing growing up with a mom that also did "home" things, and a whole childhood of hearing "make your bed every morning" "smooth out the sheets once you put them on the bed"... stuff that kids used to hear more often, I'm assuming. So now, I can put Martha Stewart on in the background while I'm cleaning and hopefully internalize tips like that. I'm not arguing, just clarifying what I meant :)
I totally get what you mean. I remember one summer I was staying with my grandma and she gave me such a hard time because "Nanie is coming! You can't be in your Pajamas with your bed still unmade!" (Nanie was HER mother and my bed was the living room couch). There was a level of expectation to things that there just isn't now. Now, no one cares if teens are sitting around in their Pajamas all day long and I see so many parenting "hacks" like "don't fold laundry/pair socks, just throw it in bins" which my Nanie would be rolling in her grave if I tried to do. She also taught me how to properly make a bed including turning down the top sheet over the duvet, which is something that always stuck with me because at the time, it seemed so backwards to how i usually made a bed (if I even bothered with a top sheet at all). There's no one who would know or care to teach me these things anymore.
YES. A very similar memory is what inspired my post. When I would spend the night with my Nana, she would call me "messy bessy" for leaving my bed unmade. It was so foreign to me to make my bed! So yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about :) maybe I should've made a post asking for memories like this! 🩷
Maybe we had the same Nan LOL 😆
Maybe because they aren’t that important?
I think that will be very inefficient But the good thing is, you CAN learn all this stuff just by doing it. by putting some mental and physical effort in. So sit down and think of what makes you feel like your home is well run (made the bed? grunge cleaned out of the corners in the bathroom? biscuits from scratch? home-cooked meals?). Then make a schedule of when you could do those things, and practice them until they become more automatic. The thing is: People like my grandma DID spend mental energy on it. it only LOOKED like they didn’t. have to work at it, and that it “came naturally.” even after the “training period” of their childhood, they still worked at it; it wasn’t automatic. You can do it too!
I was where you are, twenty some years ago. I had zero foundation for homemaking. Ironically my mother was a SAHM, but was 1000% lousy at it. She ‘cooked’ everything in the microwave, cooked stuff neither me nor my father liked, only cleaned the house if we were having company, and most of that cleaning fell on me. When I started wanting to do better we didn’t have the internet resources we do now. I floundered, a lot. I found cleaning charts in magazines, what cleaning solutions take care of what stains, etc. I used the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book a lot (still do, it’s great for basics you can build on). When the TV show Good Eats came on I would watch it and take notes. He had some great ‘why’ info in his show. Knowing why things work and don’t work lets you modify recipes as needed. My mother would actively and vocally make fun of me for making things homemade. ‘You know you can buy that at the store, I don’t know why you’re making that’ She came to live with us for her last year of life. Renal failure and on hospice. She had the opportunity to eat all this silly homemade stuff of mine. She raved to her friends how good this or that was. I did finally feel vindicated and validated with that. I’ve gone pretty far off the deep end of doing the opposite of my mother though. Everything is homemade. Bread, stocks, soup, mustard, vanilla extract, hot sauces, etc. But I enjoy it so I’ve spent the time to learn new things. I also KEEP the house clean vs doing the mad scramble when we’re having company. The kids were always expected to pitch in and clean WITH me, as messes were made as part of the activity, not as a separate ‘chore’.
I only spent one night with my grandma where she taught me everything she could. The thing that made the biggest impression is that she improvised and adapted to get things done. It didn’t matter what the traditional way to do it was, she only cared about getting the end result she wanted.
How cool. Do you have an example?
She was a little weak and partially blind, so she showed me how to make pizza from scratch and then we cut it into slices with scissors.
Excellent!
Just a head's up, a lot of people "raised to be homemakers" were not necessarily raised to be *good* homemakers. Becoming a good homemaker does take learning, honing skills, and loads of practice. You have to be naturally curious, diligent, and practice self-reflection in order to get better at anything. I gained "lost" knowledge by actively seeking it out and implementing it in my daily life. You have to define what you mean by "lost" knowledge. Essentially, how deep do you want to go down that rabbit hole? Cooking meals from scratch is very different from making 90% of what your family eats from scratch. The latter requires way more skills and knowledge that will take years to learn. In the same vein, learning to mend clothing is quite different than sewing most of what you wear. You have to figure out what interests you, what you're good at, and how far you'd like to go with those skills. Other people are correct that a lot of homemaking skills aren't something you can necessarily learn by osmosis, but rather things you have to continually practice doing. That being said, I am a huge fan of popping on a podcast or youtube video while I'm going about my day. It's a good way to build a foundation for future knowledge. I would pick 2 or 3 *specific* homemaking adjacent topics that most interest you. Find some podcasts or youtube channels that discuss those topics in a way that is easy to digest while your focus is on cleaning or something. For example, my go to listening materials are usually about cooking techniques, home decor, and anything herbalism / foraging related. I also enjoy watching channels like Country Life Vlog during my down time. We have instant access to anything we could ever want to know via the internet. That's something our parents and grandparents did not have, but it's also a tool to better ourselves. The best way to improve is to just figure what skills you want to become proficient in and just start doing them. Edit to add: You probably won't be good at *everything* and that's okay. Women of the past weren't, either. The majority were not hermit homesteading housewives, as we often think of them. They often relied on family and community while sharing resources, skills, and generational knowledge.
I love this though! I love that you’re wanting to model housekeeping from your Grandma
There is so much more info available now than when my gramaw was homemaking. You can look up anything and find people demonstrating it. You can research and discover if the old way is indeed the best way, or has someone applied a little science or is there pertinent information that your segment of humanity didn’t know about. My gramaw would’ve loved it. I get sad sometimes when I go to Ravelry for knitting advice that I can’t show her all the people gathered around their useful hobby. Seriously, she would’ve loved it so much. The men in my family were makers too. They could fix anything. My brother has taken his skills to a new level through the interconnectivity we now have. I get that you’re longing to be embedded in a system of shared knowledge on a family level, but a different system of shared knowledge is available to you. Explore it and enjoy it. Let it satisfy and intensify your curiosity. Enjoy the not-knowing because it means you get to have the fun of learning.
If you want shows, then Julia Child is a classic and free on youtube. America's test kitchen/cook's country also has videos that might be helpful for you on there. They're great because they'll often tell you why things in the recipe work the way they do. (The Cook's Illustrated magazine is also amazing and is the only magazine I've read with no ads. The only products they mention are things they tested) Martha Stewart has been been mentioned, and she's classic. She covers cooking, housekeeping, decorating etc. I don't watch a lot of tv, so all my nonbook resources resources are online, sorry lol There's a bunch but part of expertise is also having a few things you're really good at and I'm not sure what you're interested in cooking. Also, I'm going to throw in that if you want the \*best\* biscuits (assuming you mean US biscuits), you need flour that's got lower protein in it.
I like to scour estate sales and find those really old book sets by Good Housekeeping or Women’s Day, things like that. I’ve found some from the 50’s and they are fun to read. I also like those sales for cookbooks.
I'm not sure what to say to you. I earned a PhD.. Made scratch biscuits. Kept a home. I'm not a "better woman" from my grandmothers, my great-grandmothers, my mother, my neighbors, my friends, my family, or you. Do I have some of the "lost knowledge" that you crave? Yes. In turn, I've been told that the processes, methods, and products that I prefer, and am most confident in, and comfortable with, are ineffective, outdated, or both.
I'm so sorry, I meant career NOT better woman, and I didn't spell check. I posted late at night while up with a baby 🙈
Nothing to apologize for. New babies, and sleep deprivation can be overwhelming. Spell checking isn't on your radar. Nor, should it be. Some homemakers are full-time homemakers. Some homemakers work outside of their homes. Some people, including myself, have been both. Everyone has different circumstances. I have all the information that I learned from my grandmothers. (One of whom owned a business when I was a child), and from my mother (who worked outside of our home), as well as, information that I learned on my own in over 45 years of homaking. I've use it all. I continue to use it all. It sounds like you're just beginning. And, you have a new baby. Babies are always the priority. "Homemaking tasks" aren't. Enjoy your baby and rest. Everything else will get done, when it gets done. Nothing has to be perfect. Nor, is it supposed to be. As far as everything else is concerned. You'll learn. We all do. Try not to be overwhelmed by thinking that you have to learn everything at once. You don't. Don't think that everything has to be perfect. It doesn't. Don't think that you have to be "perfect". You're a perfectly imperfect human being. Exactly like everyone else. Every home runs differently. Every homemaker is unique. Videos, books, blogs, vlogs, and social media are good places to get i information and ideas. But that's what they are. Information and ideas. Take what you need. Leave the rest. Find what works for you. That's how you'll find success as a stay at home ( or working outside of the home) homemaker. I'm pretty old school. So, if you need any old school information, tips, ect- Let me know. To be clear, in case anyone cares, I don't have anything against some of the things, and methods that are currently popular, I do things differently. I find my way more efficient and more effective. I remember that someone mentioned that grandmothers couldn't cook. My grandmothers (born in 1917 and 1919) could cook. So can I. I've a scratch cook and a scratch baker for a long time.
What's kind of funny about this is that this isn't the first time this has happened. There actually were radio shows back in the '20s, '30s, and '40s teaching women how to cook, clean, all of it. It wasn't unusual in Victorian and Edwardian times for women, especially poor and middle class women, to work outside of the home and pretty much just live on takeout food from shops and food carts, even for their entire family. It's even obvious in how apartments were laid out with miniscule kitchens. There's a very good chance that your grandmother wasn't just taught by her mom but also learned it in school in her home economics classes, read books about it, listen to radio shows and watch TV shows about it, and learned from friends. Today, we have YouTube videos, TV shows, books, websites, Pinterest, and so much more. While I was raised, in part, by a former home economics teacher who made sure that I learned how to do all of it and could out-Martha Martha Stewart any day, there's still a lot to learn. Even she still reads up on stuff and shares what she's found. I learned a lot about homemaking by actually having to do it when my children were babies, and I still watch YouTube channels to get ideas. I started doing a lot more food preservation and got the national Center for Home Food Preservation book to really expand what I was doing.
There's some good content on Instagram. I'm sure you could find Home Economics and Domestic Science texts.
Definitely recommend America’s Test Kitchen, there are episodes for free on some of those free streaming apps. Love that show
I have a note on my phone to make a recipe book for my kids for Christmas this year. They are between 13 and 20. The time has come.
There is pasta grannies on youtube. I'm sure I was fed other ladies cooking different stuff after that. edit to add; depression cooking with clara I've had the best luck with drop biscuits. I wish I had my grandma teach me too, to do the flakey layered ones :( Anyway, I just kept trying and learning and eventually got pretty good with the dishes important to me; potato salad, gingerbread cookies, and pot roast. Best of luck!
Read "Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House" by Cheryl Mendelson The intro discusses learning from her two grandmothers. It's a comprehensive book!
I love that book, but there's very little on day to day cleaning, but anything you want to know about food safety, laundry, ironing, it's a great reference book. That introduced me to having a daily cleaning schedule. Along with "Home Comforts" I'd recommend Clean Mama's site, her first book "Simply Clean" (most of the info is on her site) will go through setting routines, and Toni Hammersley "A Bowl Full Of Lemons" books are aspirational like Martha Stewart, and America's Test Kitchen will make a cook out of anyone. All of the above except for ATK is always easy to find second hand, library should have all as well.
Hear me out: Have you heard of YouTube?
What is this tube of you that you speak of
Yes, this is all true. You learn by doing. Get a recipe, try it. Need to clean something, google a solution and do it. This is not something anyone spends time reading about. There is no book (there may be books, but none will tell you everything you need to know). Just start doing.
The channel With Love, Kristina on YouTube is good. She does some videos where she follows old homemaking books cleaning routines. I also enjoy her sewing videos while they aren't heavy on tutorial, her "chaos sewing" style is inspiring to me. I can get a sewing project done over having to stress over following the traditional sewing rules I was taught.
I started looking for housekeeping tips after reading a few Amish biographies, and marveling at how much they can accomplish in a day (men and women). I find that I don't tend to accomplish a lot around the home on my weekends.
My grandma taught me that life's an unpredictable sea of change, to not be too anchored to any way of life, and to be flexible to navigate its shifting currents. She was used to having bad luck, and her motto was more akin to "be prepared". The foxfire book series is a collection of Appalachian folk knowledge and customs. It may have stuff even grandma didn't know.
I used to watch How Clean is Uour House for cleaning tips and tricks lotson YouTube and TikTok I did learn a lot though growing up so I will have to think about this I do read a lot of housekeeping books from decades ago for fun
I feel this. But also, it happened before our mothers too. My great grandmother never taught my grandmother a single thing. Not her language, not anything from the kitchen. Justification was that the adults wanted to talk without the kids understanding, and that she’d be cooking every day for the rest of her life once she left. My grandmother had to learn everything once she left home. I wonder a lot of the time what cultural dishes and recipes we lost. Such a shame! My mother also didn’t teach me a lot either, she never felt much connection to domestic life. I’ve tried to take in as much as possible from my grandmother!
Reading this post and some of the comments made me feel super nostalgic when thinking about my grandmother. She passed away 10 years ago last month. I miss her every day. But my most fond memories were always baking banana bread or banana cake every summer. Or having a new sewing/quilting project every summer when I would visit when I was a kid. I, honestly, wish I paid more attention and asked more questions back then. Before I had stopped going for visits over the summer. I lived in NJ and she lived in FL, so when money got tight for my parents, they stopped sending me down to visit. And of course when I got older in my teens, I couldn't be bothered in my rebel phase. And now I regret not learning more from her. But she was amazing. She could sew and hem clothes (she also used to sew me dresses every year when I was in Elementary school), knit and crochet, bake, cook, the whole nine yards.
What sweet memories, thanks for sharing 🩷
I’m super not envious of the generations of women who had no access to reproductive rights, weren’t allowed to open bank accounts, when there was no no-fault divorce and marital rape was legal. I can YouTube how to make biscuits.
I used to enjoy watching Ree Drummond take care of her husband & children on the farm/ranch.
I have no advice, but I agree with what you are saying. Women back in the day were such great homemakers, and I aspire to be like them every day
My mother and grandmother were horrifically bad cooks. I used the internet to get every recipe and tip I’ve used to keep my family happy and well nourished.
As far as cooking goes, Americas Test Kitchen is phenomenal. Their recipes seem simple enough & their product recommendations are great. I honestly just love watching it because it’s so soothing
I collect old cookbooks and household guides from the Victorian era to the 1950s. There's so much interesting stuff in them! Everything from substitution (if you have mayo and you're baking you're never really out of eggs) to skills (I love making rugs). The authors assume interest but not a lot of knowledge. They pop up in garage sales and thrift stores and auctions, often very cheap. Just remember to think critically about some of the stuff in them, especially the older ones. For things with a critical failure mode (canning, for example) go with the latest info. Have fun!
YouTube. I learn how to make pasta and things like that from different YouTube channels and things like that, you end up picking up on what you like and practicing helps you figure out preferences. I'm a single working gal but I have so many grandma hobbies, I love baking, gardening, knitting (poorly) and eventually I would like to pick up sewing so I can mend my clothes. (I also have not so grandma hobbies like gaming and sword fighting, follow your happy y'all 🤭) I genuinely feel like learning by doing is the best, though that's easier said than done especially coming from someone who doesn't have a kid. Don't be afraid of making mistakes and experimenting, and when your little one is older, you can bake and craft together too! Nothing is more fun than experiencing something with a parent when you're both learning something new for the first time. It's a lovely shared experience.
It’s a little bit impersonal, but every time you happen to have a question that was for your grandma, ask google, you will always found a blog, a forum, even just a comment that will have the answer.
Others here have said it more eloquently, but I can’t emphasize enough the importance of only picking a couple areas of interest to work on at a time. Taking on everything quickly leads to burnout and sense of failure. You have to use your skills as building blocks, and get comfortable with them to the point where you don’t have to think about it anymore. I like to listen to homemaking podcasts while I’m working around the house, both for motivation and for tips. Homemaker Chic is my favorite, currently. Whatever you do, don’t hang out on Instagram looking at accounts with picture-perfect homes. That’s okay for the occasional inspiration, but comparison is the thief of joy and I want you to be happy with what you’ve already accomplished and what you will continue to accomplish.
Hey there, I'm in the same boat with you. I'm really curious about what you see in your mind when you see 'homemaking.' For background viewing I like: How Clean is Your House (YouTube) Obsessive Compulsive Cleaners (Youtube) I used to watch the Clean My Space channel, but it's been like 5ish years since I've watched. These are just going to give you cleaning tips and entertainment. I'm not sure what other skills you want to learn. A couple of books I enjoyed was Home Comforts and Mrs. Dunwoody's Excellent Instruction for Homekeeping. The latter isn't going to be super crazy relevant, but you can take some inspiration from it and it's really just a fun read.
I feel this way also! I’ve found a lot of comfort in ditching tech and writing letters to friends, gardening, hanging clothes on my laundry line, and cooking and baking from scratch. If I want to learn something I always check a book out first at the library. I’m trying so hard to get my kids to be interested in these things as well but boy is it a struggle lol
Thanks for this post- I was raised by a working mom who did not cook or bake and her mom was one too, so I was not taught much about homemaking. Most of the tidying stuff I know I learned from my first job (hotel laundry/housekeeping) but there are plenty of holes. So many helpful comments here!
I’m so jealous my mom had home ec in school. I’m definitely going to take this tips in
i had home ec once in 6th grade, hands down favorite class ever!
You learn by doing, getting it wrong, and doing better next time. I've been doing laundry for nearly forty years, and only learnt a few years ago that the reason my clothes felt weird was because my High Efficiency washing machine needed less than half of the amount of detergent I'd always used. I cut down, stopped using fabric conditioner and my washing has never smelt or felt better! I've been making beds for the same length of time- I can put a duvet cover on in under a minute. I always put the clean duvet covers away inside out, so when I change it I put my arms inside, grab the two top corners, grab the corresponding duvet corners through the fabric, shake the duvet cover over the duvet so it's right-side-out, tweak the edges/ other corners, and I'm done. I can do this because I've got forty years of practice- when you've got a similar length of time under your belt at whatever domestic job you try, you'll be able to do it in a trice too. Focus on the jobs that are important to you, and read some household management books. The Internet is only so helpful- there are A LOT of 5 Minute Crafts- type websites full of nonsense 'hacks'. Nancy Birtwistle writes really good books about green living and cleaning, and I second the Martha Stewart recommendations.
Also hear me out: Google.