or jam, and perhaps cold meat, and always again doughnuts and the constant cheese—very new for some tastes and very old for others.
As for the supplies—the meat all came from the ranch. Every day a sheep was killed—occasionally a beef. Uncle John at the Alamitos built a smoke house and cured hams. There were chickens and ducks, tame and in season wild.
The staple groceries came from Los Angeles in wholesale quantities—sugar and flour in barrels, navy beans and frijoles and green coffee in sacks, the latter frequently the source of delicious odors from the kitchen oven while roasting; it was daily ground for the breakfast drink, and the sound of the little mill was almost the first indication of stirring life.
At San Justo the vegetables grew in the garden but at the southern ranches they were bought once a week from the loaded express wagon of a Chinese peddler, whose second function was to bring news and company to the faithful ranch cook and his helper. There was always a plentiful supply of vegetables and the quality was of the best. I remember hearing Aunt Susan tell that her man had brought strawberries to the door every week in the year and she had purchased them except on two January occasions when the berries were not quite ripe.
The chief beverage was water, there was some tea and coffee, never wine or other liquor, except the delicious product of the fall cider mill. Whiskey stood on the medicine shelf and I suppose sometimes
