The old house, with its wildly overgrown garden, was silent, secretive and in much need of some tender loving care. But what tender loving care could be brought to an old house that was mainly used for growing cabbages? Well, old lady Wendrington had an idea.
Coleslaw was the name of her family's game for ten generations, and she wasn't going to let that end with her. For weeks she cleaned out the old house. The overgrown garden was cut down and reduced to a plot ready for cabbage-a-plenty. Old lady Wendrington made sure to leave a row for the spicy peppers she needed. The famous Wendrington coleslaw was known for the delicious crunch, and flaming bite it brought to any pot-luck backyard dish.
As the house was tamed, Spring approached, and with that, the time for planting. Old lady Wendrington retrieved her wrinkly old cabbage seeds and her knobbly old garden hoe and set to work. Spaced sixteen inches across, she planted seeds two by two, covered with soil, loved with a gentle pat, and watered. The seeds didn't stay wrinkly for long. They sucked in the water and grew plump in no time, ready to sprout roots and shoots in the warm Spring air.
And sprout they did! Day by day each head of cabbage seemed to double in size, and by mid-summer they were ready to harvest. The harvest picnic was soon, and old lady Wendrington had some coleslaw to make. She set to work plucking and tossing each head into a bin tied to her back. When she was done, she brought them to the kitchen, unsheathed her mother's cleaver, and chopped away. Hours later she stood proudly next to a pile of chopped cabbage nearly as tall as the ceiling. Before she could turn that into coleslaw though, she'd need a couple more ingredients.
She went back to the yard and harvested the peppers and brought in milk and eggs from the barn. The milk she churned aggressively into a thick cream for the base, the eggs she cracked into a large bowl, and the peppers she ground to a paste. Now all the ingredients were ready.
The old lady sauntered over to the other side of the kitchen, stooped down, and undid a latch in the floor. She opened two large doors hiding a giant mixing bowl set into the foundation. She plowed the chopped cabbage into the bowl, and vigorously whisked the peppers, cream and eggs into the delicious binding for the coleslaw. When she poured the mix into the bowl, the aroma made her eyes water with joy, and the gentle thuds of fainting mice sounded through the rafters.
The little old lady removed her little old shoes and her little old socks, stepped her wrinkled old feet into the bowl, hoisted her dress and began to dance among the ingredients. Slowly, the ingredients shifted from their isolated pockets into a homogeneous mixture, as the tossing and lofting of old lady Wendrington's dancing churned then about. "This is what gives it that extra 'kick'" She could hear her mother saying in her head.
Hundreds came to feast at the town's annual pot-luck picnic, and the murmurs of the famous coleslaw could be heard through the hills for miles. The tradition alone was worth continuing to make her famous coleslaw, but old lady Wendrington did love the praise that came every year at the picnic.
When she returned to the kitchen of the old house that evening, she smiled and sighed, content with her work. And as the scurrying in the rafters resumed, she retired for the night, leaving a snack for the mice, and the mess for tomorrow.
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