Farmers Market: When Clifton was the only place for groceries

Linda Roberston/Columnist
Published: May 7, 2008

Most of you know that my office is located inside the Depot at the Manassas Visitor Center, and every day we have so many nice people come in and ask about the area.

A few days ago a group of four people came in asking for directions to Clifton. Jim and Elaine Miller are retired Secret Service and now live in California. They came out for a visit and wanted to show off our town to their California friends Ron and Jolene Veres. Mr. Miller was trying to find his way to the Heart and Hand restaurant in Clifton and wanted directions. He was set on that restau-rant so I had to hold on to my typical speech about the fine dining places in Manassas.

I called my son—the HVAC guy who knows every back road route in Northern Virginia—to get directions for them from Centreville. Mr. Miller knew how to find Centreville so I decided not to try and tell him about the PW Parkway-Yates Ford Road method.

As we stood there talking about their travels I remembered when my grandmother, Della Berry, was a newlywed, Clifton was the place they went to shop and I guess this would have been early 1920s. She told me at that time Clifton was the biggest town south of Fairfax, and if you needed to go to the store that's where you went. My grandmother was a teacher in her teens and a mother of three by her 20s. Oh, how I loved that lady. I learned a lot watching her cook and pre-serve over the years. In fact, her entire life was centered around family and church. She loved to go to church and stay after for socials, but she never learned to drive and didn't like to shop. So she made the list for Grandaddy and off to Clifton they would go. Grandaddy went into the store to shop and Grandmother would wait in the car to watch the people go by. She was a student of people and their behavior. I'm sure she needed this skill because of the … de-lightfully rambunctious … sons that she would have 10 years later.

GRANDMA BERRY'S THREE LAYER CARAMEL CAKE

(Use yellow cake mix if you're not up to this task)

3 cups all purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

2 cups sugar

4 eggs

1 cup milk

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup room-temperature butter

1 teaspoon real vanilla

Grease and flour three cake pans. Combine flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

In your mixer bowl combine and beat the butter and sugar until creamy. Add the eggs one at a time and beat after each addition. Add the flour in three additions and beat just to incorporate after each. Add vanilla, mix and pour into cake pans.

Bake at 350 F until golden, cake will spring back when touched in the center. Cool five minutes and remove from pans.

CARAMEL FROSTING THE OLD FASHIONED WAY

(If you have a cast iron skillet or pan use it for this.)

3 cups brown sugar

2 tablespoon light corn syrup

1 cup whipping cream

1 teaspoon real vanilla

1 stick butter

Warm the cream until hot but not boiling. Add in the sugar and stir well. Boil gently over medium heat.

Cook to the soft ball state or 240 F on a candy thermometer. (Soft ball is when the mixture drops from a spoon into cold water and it forms a soft little ball which you can pick up. Trust me on this, use the thermometer!)

Remove from heat at this point and add in the vanilla and stir.

Begin stirring and add in the butter in about three pieces. Start beating and keep beating until it reaches a spreading consistency.

This is where the Grandmother Berry techniques come into play. She always said the secret to good caramel frosting was in the beating. She wasn't kidding.

Her cakes were legendary in the family.

A GRANDDAUGHTER'S OBSERVATIONS

OK, I have discovered over the years that one of two possible disasters may occur:

» The caramel may seize up as you are beating. It will get hard so fast you can't even think of spreading it. Remedy, dump (or pour if you can), it quickly onto a plate and call it freeform fudge.

» The caramel may not get hard at all. The remedy is to get out the vanilla ice cream and pour it over the top for fresh caramel sundaes. Top with nuts and cherries.

It is going to taste GREAT either way!

Linda Robertson is the executive director for Historic Manassas Inc.