Strawberry Girl

Did you ever read Strawberry Girl by Lois Lenski? She wrote and illustrated many books of middle grade historical fiction about children and their lives in various parts of the country. This book was about a girl in Florida and her family––"Crackers," a term for early settlers and now more associated with a derogatory name for poor white people––who moved there to farm strawberries. The book won the Newbery Medal in 1946. I loved reading Lenski's many books, and still have them, and delighted in her unsentimental depictions of other lifestyles––her illustrations were always fine and engaging, too. Whenever I read this book, just as when I'd read Robert McCloskey's Blueberries for Sal, I wanted to eat those sweet berries right then. 

May is strawberry season in Kentucky and this year there were some beauties. After a late spring, the first berries were huge and Wilson's Cedar Point Farm on nearby Tick Ridge announced on Facebook that it only took seven minutes to pick a gallon basket full! Despite their size, they were sweet and juicy. Before the weekend we bought ten gallons and put all but one into the freezer (for enjoying fresh). I got 20 quart bags full (and about 2 gallons of hulls: I don't actually hull them, I just carefully remove the tops with my trusty serrated paring knife, as close to the leaves as I can get: usually I give them to my chickens but we are chicken-less right now). And I'd say we easily ate about half a gallon in the car on the way home.

A huge bowl full of fresh local strawberries: note that this bowl is about three feet wide! 

Ready for the freezer with two quarts to slather with whipped cream and Angel food cake.

I love to sit on our porch at the farm cottage and "put up" produce or prepare to can, especially in the cooler weather that we were enjoying before the weekend: just like I remember a New England summer, hot in the sun but not too humid and with a light breeze. I can work there and see what's going on, who is coming and going, and the west porch stays fairly cool until the sun comes around in the afternoon. My husband and I like to joke that in Hancock, NH we also had an east porch and a west porch but on a much grander scale.

At this point we wouldn't trade this farm, and it's more ramshackle porches, for the world. It's a centering feeling to be here and what is remarkable is how well-sited the house was when it was built over one hundred years ago. The breezes come down over the knob and wrap around it, and through the open doors and windows on all sides. It is always much cooler than the doublewide that is in a bowl where no air stirs: instead it goes right over (which is, admittedly, a good thing in tornado weather). [Sometimes we do have to air-condition during the day but usually at night I just throw the windows open and fans on in all but the most humid weather.]

My trusty French serrated paring knife.
OK, so it's also color-coordinated!

I'm currently macerating some berries for jam––a two-day recipe––and I will post on that in the next few days. Son Henry especially enjoys strawberry jam and I like to make enough extra to tuck away for Christmas gifts, too. It is always spring in a jar.

By chance we discovered another nursery over in western Casey County the other day: I've been scrounging around for plants since returning from Colorado. If you don't get them before Mother's Day in Kentucky, or even by late April, they can be few and far between (unless you like a lot of wave petunias and marigolds). [Next year I am determined to grow my own favorite heirloom annuals from seed!] Anyway, the Amish-Mennonite family who operate their farm-based nursery will have blueberries in a few weeks––entirely organic––and I ordered about 20 pounds of those (affordable and pre-picked by them). Fortunately, they will be easier to freeze. On the way home I will stop and see my friend Diana at her produce farm (where her specialty is heirloom tomatoes) and perhaps share a nice gin & tonic on her porch.

You come back when you're ready!

Catherine

Ode to Dad

My Dad, James H. Seiberling, and me on my
Grandpa Sei's croquet court in Akron, Ohio, c. 1976-78.

My father has been gone eleven years. Yesterday I was listening to some classical music on NPR that I know he would have enjoyed. For a long time I couldn't listen to any classical or nineteenth century music, or anything on the organ, without weeping. For my father, music was his lifeblood, his passion, his heartbeat. I am fortunate that he passed that along to me in a diffused but enthusiastic measure.

As I was listening to some child prodigies playing Brahms and other works while at the table in our quiet kitchen on a Sunday evening I was also rummaging through some old recipe clippings. I found them in the shed in one of many unopened, and as yet unplaced, boxes that have formed the detritus––and delights––of my middle-aged life. There, from Dad's college typewriter (he never did try to use a computer), was a recipe he had brought to us in an early autumn of our marriage, on one of many visits he made to New Hampshire to see us each year. I thought of Dad, of course, while reading it, and smiled at a frugal notation he made (see below) and thought, given the season, that I should make it again. Then I realized that October 27, Sunday, was the actual anniversary (and same day of the week) of his passing eleven years ago. This is usually a date that I would have anticipated weeks ago but I suppose it is a sign that the immediacy of grief has slowly left me, replaced only by the presence of my father in my soul and memory as I navigate through the rest of my time here.

Dad died just two days before my 40th birthday and at the very minute, at 2am, that the clocks turned back in the hospital for Daylight Savings time. My two brothers and I were with him for his last days which was a blessing and a comfort and we had all been in and out in the few months prior. Dad's doctor said at the time, "I called and you all came. Not everyone does that, you know." There were many profound and unexplainable things that happened during his last day, and at his memorial service a week later, and I've written about them privately. I always found the Daylight Savings timing to be a strange kismet as he welcomed the darker days of winter when he could be indoors and hibernate as he was want to do with his music and his television. It's not that he was antisocial––being out and about was just always on his terms, like so many things.

As well as music and playing the organ, Dad loved all things autumnal, like I do. He liked Halloween and unpasteurized apple cider (from an old mill in Loyal Oaks near Norton), pumpkin pie and apple crisp and he especially liked homemade apple butter stirred into large-curd cottage cheese. He sometimes joined us for Thanksgiving and appreciated my stuffing (there were several dishes that he liked me to make when he visited but he always preferred his friend Alice's potato salad to mine!). He liked the cooler days and the thrill of the baseball playoffs and World Series, no matter who was playing. Of course, he was a born and bred Cleveland Indians fan and even though I could care less for the sport, I enjoyed going to home games and feeling the breeze from Lake Erie and being a part of the roar of the crowd and sharing this great American tradition with my father and brothers and cousins. [We would also meet my cousins each summer in Boston at Fenway Park––usually for an Indians-Red Sox game.]

The year he brought me this recipe, for Jacobs Field Apple Crisp (once served at the home of the Cleveland Indians and now called Progressive Stadium), he also sat in our darkened kitchen and played spooky music on our daughter Addie's electric organ while trick-or-treaters came to our porch. Hancock was the perfect small village for door-to-door goblins and we must have had several hundred children each year from the village and surrounding towns. Dad delighted in seeing the costumes and our decorations and enjoyed many meals around the same table that now graces our small Kentucky kitchen. There he was comfortable telling us stories of his childhood and so many memories that he'd never shared with me before. Perhaps it is something about a kitchen table and a good meal that evokes such spirited remembrance.

So yesterday I was able to listen to beautifully played music, all of which my father would have known by composer, title, and movement. I savored a favorite recipe in his typewritten hand and I was grateful. I know he is still with me, every day, and I know we will be together again. And I know that he is in the great celestial realm, somewhere, playing the organ and singing in a choir. When I hear music that he once shared with me, it is a kind of connection to the divine. And that is why I have always sung, too. After all, singing is like praying twice.

Of course, I plan on making this recipe again very soon. Here it is written exactly as he typed it (if I had my scanner set up I would just scan it!):

Jacobs Field Apple Crisp

Filling:

• 15 apples (4.5 pounds) such as Macs or Golden Delicious
• 1 cup brown sugar packed down
• 1.5 tsps ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp ground allspice
• 1/2 cup cider or apple juice
• 1 Tbsp. cornstarch dissolved in 2 Tbsp. water

NOTE: Allspice and cloves may be omitted if not already in your spice rack as they are quite expensive today! [Dad was a bank branch manager and always frugal and I appreciated his concern about my spice cupboard and finances.]

Crumble Topping:

• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup brown sugar packed down
• 4 cups granola cereal [CSP note: I've also used plain rolled oats.]
• 2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp. nutmeg
• 1/8 tsp. allspice
• 1/8 tsp. cloves
• 3 sticks butter, melted

For the filling: Peel, core and slice apples. Combine apples, sugar, spices and cider in large pan or wide kettle. Simmer uncovered over medium heat until apples are tender, about 15 to 20 minutes. Be careful not to burn. Stir in cornstarch mixture. Simmer several minutes, stirring occasionally until thickened. Remove from heat.

For the topping: Combine flour, sugar, granola and spices in a bowl. Add melted butter and stir until dry ingredients are thoroughly coated. 

Place filling in a baking dish and heap the crumble topping over the filling. Bake at 325 degrees for 15 minutes or until golden and bubbly. [CSP note: I've not made this in a while so baking time might be longer.] Let cool and serve with ice cream or whipped cream.

Recipe can be halved for smaller amount.

He added: "This is awesomely delicious. I know you'll enjoy!"

Happy Halloween to you all ~

You come back when you're ready!

Catherine

A Hymn to Mrs. Butterworth's®

My Mrs Butterworth's® Tryptych, along with a painted version, and an
"Aunt Jemima Breakfast Club" button (I'm embarrassed to share the price).

Mrs. Butterworth's® keeps appearing in my life. Last week I posted about baking a cake in her name so I thought I'd elaborate a bit more about my obsession. As a child in Akron, Ohio, I was intrigued with her brown glass, apron-clad, bun-wearing visage—and in the television ads I believe she even spoke. We were a Log Cabin® syrup family and it wasn’t until we moved back to New Hampshire that I truly began to appreciate the wonders of real maple syrup. There we watched it being boiled down each March (it takes about 40 gallons of maple sap to make a gallon of syrup) and had it drizzled onto spring snow (most sugar houses serve this with a popsicle stick—for twirling your maple “candy”—as well as dill pickles and old-fashioned donuts). Any cook worth their syrup knows that most stuff sold as “maple syrup” is actually just glorified corn syrup with caramel coloring and artificial maple flavoring—even the Cracker Barrel® restaurant chain has started cutting their real Vermont maple syrup with the fake stuff. [Since moving to Kentucky we import it each year, or buy a case when we visit, from Carol and Bill Eva at Longview Forest Products in Hancock, New Hampshire.] We certainly appreciate the locally-made sorghum, too, boiled down at Oberholzer’s in Casey County, Kentucky each autumn, but it’s just not the same thing on pancakes or waffles or French toast.

Like the fictive Betty Crocker®, Mrs. Butterworth's is a product—an ad agency conjuring of homey goodness. Here is the guise of a nice plump woman who is so caring and kind that she’ll whip up a batch of pancakes or waffles in no time—perhaps the less multi-cultural echo to Aunt Jemima® (who, I don’t believe, ever had her own matronly-shaped syrup bottle). I assume that every kid wanted a Mrs. Butterworth in their childhood kitchen—a beguiling presence during a time when many of our mothers were starting to work outside of our homes. Buttery, syrupy, sugary down-homey comfort—a nanny in a brown glass bottle. When you grow up to learn that all artificial ingredients and refined sugars are bad, you consider, too, that Mrs. Butterworth's® is just diabetes in a beguiling bottle. As children, we don’t even think about these things and as adults we should know better. Yet, as a store-aisle icon, Mrs. Butterworth's® is right up there with the best of them. [The Jolly Green Giant® and Mr. Clean® aside, because they both scared the hell out of me—yes, I am clearly a child of television and was highly influenced by advertising, even if most of it was in black and white until we got our first color television in the very late 1960s.]

Our neighbor, Mrs. Emily Wirth, in Akron days, was a great comfort cook. She liked to make fried chicken and waffles when we were invited for dinner, served with a side of buttered corn and delectable currant scones (I still have that recipe). For some reason, I began to associate her with Mrs. Butterworth's®. It may have been because she made doorstops out of the amber bottles—filled with sand and outfitted with crocheted aprons—or that she was a kind and welcoming woman who loved to cook and provide love to everyone around her. The wife of the assistant pastor at our Presbyterian church, she was prayerful, genuine, and full of laughter—and she was my mother’s best friend during some difficult times. She was my first exposure to someone who had been “born again” and I admired her belief and her faith especially because she lived what she believed. I know she would have taken in total strangers or homeless people—and maybe even did—and fed them chicken and waffles. There was always someone in her kitchen and you just wanted to be near her. [I recall her—and her faith—with great longing because she was never the disingenuous kind of believer that is all too common in today’s world.]

A few years ago, at a yard sale in Kentucky, I had to buy Mrs. Butterworth's®—three original bottles in three sizes. [I call this my “Mrs. Butterworth's® Triptych” and she/they live in their amber-glass idolatry on a shelf in my cottage kitchen—I don’t know about the Renaissance artists, but Andy Warhol might have appreciated them.] I picked up another during the same annual Highway 127 yard sale—only she has a painted red dress, a cream apron and cream-colored accents. The modern Mrs. Butterworth's® bottles are now made of plastic and she has had some kind of makeover. I’m not impressed. [My husband wasn’t impressed, either, that I paid $8 for three c.1970 fake syrup glass bottles. But he knows me well enough by now to just say, “Oh, isn’t that nice, dear,” while quietly gnashing his teeth.]

You come back when you're ready!

Catherine

National Pie Day

Pie (and cake) being served in Pie Town, New Mexico, c. 1940s, Russell Lee (for Works Progress Administration)

I couldn't very well let this day pass without notice, even if I am not making any pie in its honor. The last day I wrote about National Pie Day was just after Obama's first inauguration in 2009 (on my dormant blog, In the Pantry: just go there and do a "Search" on anything related to "pie" and "bakery" and you will find many writings). Then I was going to write about the many wonderful things I learned from Robert the Baker in the ten years I worked for him––but that will become its own sort of essay (and many years ago, probably about seven or eight, I wrote about him, too). And this is a blog, after all.

I'm celebrating National Pie Day this year with two healthy fruit smoothies and some homemade soup. My husband and I are doing the 21-day Digest Diet to get ourselves on track and to boost some needed weight loss. So no pie for the Ponds right now. I'm not ruling it out in the future but, well, let's just say that I like this "diet" because it clearly tells me what to prepare each day in an easy-to-follow format and I'm too busy right now to worry about meals. If someone is telling me what to prepare, and it is easy to do (sort of like spa cuisine), that's half the battle. If we can get through the more restrictive first four days, we can do anything. I'll let you know how it goes.

For now, I am enjoying a lot of food porn: in cookbooks, recipe clippings and favorite cooking shows. It really does help.

You come back when you're ready!

Catherine

For more about Pie Town, New Mexico, here is a great online article in the Smithsonian.

Gooseberry Jam

I've always wanted to make gooseberry jam because I love fresh gooseberries––especially lightly sugared, and folded, in fool-fashion, with homemade vanilla custard sauce and a bit of whipped cream. The pie isn't bad, either. Maybe I'm just losing my sweet tooth, but I have to say that while the results were as promised, the flavor of the jam is more like cranberry sauce (which isn't a bad thing, either, as I'm already imagining slathering the jam on pork or turkey this fall and winter). However, it's quite different than the flavor of a fresh gooseberry which is more a combination of rhubarb and a blueberry. I also used a combination of red (more ripened) and green berries and perhaps next time I shall try to use all green.

This year I bought several quarts of gooseberries from one of our local Casey County farmers. Bobbett Jascor is a garlic farmer and also raises many other unusual fruits that aren't easily found in the markets: gooseberries, currants and even a grape-sized kiwi. Having made the jam, I can understand why Bobbett just makes jelly (which she compared to cranberry sauce, too). [I should also add here that the reason I did not pick gooseberries from our own bush––for more on this wonderful fruit see "Gooseberries!" from my In the Pantry archives––is that my chickens beat me to it! Yes, they have quite a reach from the ground! And, yes, they knew when they were just perfect for eating. Glad they enjoyed them.]

These little buggers (the berries, not the hens, although there are moments) come complete with stems and tiny little hairy beards, both of which have to be removed before using (unlike blueberries where you just have to remove the invariable stems and leaves that get in the mix). Gooseberries are also a thorny (as in long and thorny) berry so I was more than happy to pay $2 a pint to have them picked for me, even if I had to do the cleaning.

Pie is good, too! This is also how I make
our rhubarb pies, more or less.
From RecipeCurio.com

So there I was last week, two days before leaving for a conference, sitting on the porch picking the beards and stems off of about 8 quarts of gooseberries! Needless to say, it was more labor intensive than I'd planned. Bobbett just makes jelly and throws everything in: I could do the same with my steam juicer next year (as I plan to do with elderberry heads in a few more weeks). But I've always been more of a jam kind of gal: I like the thickness, the flavor, the way it glops on a crumpet or slice of bread.

After that preamble, would I make this again? Probably, but not any time soon. After all, next year is another year and, as we dig into the freezer or open a jar, I will have long forgotten the time spent plucking each little stubborn stem and pinching off each little beard. And for a jam that is more like cranberry sauce, which takes about 1/10th the time from cleaning the berries to jamming them, well, I might think twice.

This is a recipe from my old standby, The Joy of Cooking, and is fairly standard for jam: 1 cup fruit to 1 cup sugar.

Gooseberry Jam

• 4 cups gooseberries (de-bearded and stemmed, lightly rinsed)
• 4 cups sugar
• 1 packet pectin (or 2 apples finely diced)

1. Mix berries and sugar (and pectin or apples).
2. Stir well on low heat until bubbly.
3. Follow directions on pectin package OR, if using apples, cook until jam "sets" on a plate.
4. Put into cleaned, sterilized glass jars and can.

NOTE: I doubled the recipe, almost, with 7 cups of berries, a scant 7 cups of sugar, 1 package of pectin, and 2 diced green apples. I ended up cooking it until set. It made 7 half-pints.

You can also freeze gooseberries as you might any other berry. Lightly wash and drain (unless you know they aren't sprayed), put onto clean, dry cookie sheets (with sides) and freeze flat. Then, when solid, you can put them right into a freezer bag or other container as the fruit has frozen individually.

You come back when you're ready!

Catherine

The Perfect Peach: a Cautionary Tale

There once was a beautiful, plump and perfect peach with just the right amount of blush and not too hard and not too soft. Its skin had an unmatched smoothness and it was the only peach I could reach on our only tree that has bore fruit for the past several years since we've lived here, but never this early in the season (late May: unheard of for Kentucky peaches). Last year we picked too late and two limbs broke from the weight of them. Another year our neighbor was able to pick them while we spent our last summer in New Hampshire: he canned them and said they were picked at just the right time. Every year, I thank Miss Lillian for planting the tree so many years ago.

As I admired the fruit my brief thought was "Oh, the worms haven't found them yet!" I held the large peach and admired it before taking my first bite, savoring it as slowly as I could while the nectar ran down my chin and onto my hands. Never was anything more delicious or infused with everything natural: the warmth of an early Kentucky spring and summer, the country air, the good earth––and no pesticides! There were so many more peaches hanging above me but I needed my children, and a good step-ladder, to get to them. And so, the day after I plucked that first fruit from the tree, we picked all that we could reach: about a bushel.

The next day, as my intention was to turn them all into jam and cobbler and whatever we could muster before they spoiled, they all appeared with odd and different-sized bruises on them. I thought my sons had been too rough with the peaches while picking and so I blamed them, at first. But I soon realized as I cut into each peach that most had small worms in their pits. These tiny, damaging devils must have gotten in at another point in the peach's life cycle, burrowing and waiting for the right, ripe moment to attack from within. They, too, knew when the peaches were at their best expression of perfection as those nasty worms were eating the tree-ripened peaches from the inside out! Parts of the peaches remained acceptable to eat, in small chunks and sides, so I carefully cut those out and used them in a delicious batch of sangria.

But I was truly crest-fallen. How could this be? We're not orchardists by any stretch and yes, I appreciate organic produce. However, I can assure you, I will find any means possible to have a worm-free peach crop next year, even if it means being non-organic in the process. We have no idea what we ingest from the produce at the grocery store so better to have some understanding and control of what I put on my own garden, when necessary. I am hoping that there will be a semi-organic, not too chemical-driven solution––like the diatomaceous earth I just sprinkled on my broccoli and cabbage plants to rid them of the little green and damaging cabbage worms that can plague the brassicas.



It would seem that there is a parasite or foe for every living thing and worms are especially insidious to a species. It would also seem that rot seeks perfection. But the lesson here is that nothing is ever perfect and trying to attain it or even flirt with it––or even to deny it––gives perfection power. "When we make plans, God laughs." Isn't that how the expression goes?

Yet the memory of that one truly perfect and luscious peach, picked by my own hand and selfishly savored on one hot day in May will stay with me forever.

While I will patiently wait for the "Baby Gold" peaches to arrive later in August from Pennsylvania for our canning fest, I will eat and cook or bake with the larger and earlier southern varieties––including the ones ready now at nearby Haney's Appledale Farm. They might not be from our tree, or even organic, but they will do.

You come back when you're ready!

Catherine

Valley View Farm Sangría !

This will be my shortest blog post ever. Go make this stuff. It takes ten minutes and then you percolate it all day in your fridge. In a gallon pitcher. Strain over crushed ice, add lemon slices or fruit of your choice (fruit skewers would be festive but we were thirsty), serve with something suitably Spanish or Mexican. This was our daughter's last night of a quite wonderful visit. I've been spoiled. I am blessed. I can be cranky but then I can be revived, too. This is one of life's greatest revivers. 

So this evening our sangria glasses were raised high and then sipped and slurped along with our delicious taco meal and homemade guacamole. Just remember: it's not fruit punch although it certainly tastes smooth and sweet going down. But it's red wine and fruit and it's all good.

Valley View Farm Sangría

[this recipe makes just over a half gallon of delicious liquid that will keep a few days if it makes it that far]

• 2 bottles red wine (I used Bully Hill® and Cupcake® red varieties)

• 2 sliced lemons

• 2 sliced limes

• 2 sliced oranges

• 1 pint berries (we used blackberries on hand: ok, so they aren't local...yet)

• 2 cups macerated peaches (from our own tree! early this year...)

• 4 Tbsp sugar

• 4 shots of Cointreau® (or other orange liquor)

• 1/4 cup of orange juice

• Ale-8® or other ginger ale of your choice (or seltzer water, if desired)

Slice citrus fruits and put in bottom of pitcher. Add berries and peaches. Add sugar and stir well. Add Cointreau, orange juice and wine. Stir, cover and refrigerate overnight or at least eight hours.

Pour chilled mixture into tall glasses over crushed ice (about 2/3rds up the glass). Top with Ale-8 (or seltzer) and a lemon slice or other fruit morsel.

And speaking of fruit, you can mix it up. Add grapes or chunks of apple. Use different berries or cherries, fresh plums or nectarines. Pineapple works, too. Make it your own. Just use red wine like the Spaniards do.

Then drink. Enjoy. Ah, FRESCA! Ah, summer!

You come back when you're ready!

Catherine

Violet Jelly: First Canning of the Year!

Violet jelly has to be the easiest jelly I've ever made: the hardest part, to be honest, is leaning down and picking the delicate flowers. After a good forty-five minutes of picking (myself, our youngest boy and his friend––ok, I paid them!)––and lots of me saying "OH, look at the Jack-in-the-Pulpit! The trillium!" (a new cache we discovered up the road from our farm) or the kids showing me great new finds like clusters of small yellow violets––we, miraculously it seemed, had 2 heaping cups of violet blossoms (the recipe for jelly called for four cups of violets, but more about that in a moment).

The purple Sweet Violet (violet odorata) is what you want for jelly.
[In the Language of Flowers, the blue violet is a symbol for faithfulness.]

I first started using violets (and Johnny-Jump Ups, which seemed to grow all over the lawns in our part of New Hampshire) in crystallized form or to decorate small cakes at the tea room I used to operate at Barrett House in New Ipswich, New Hampshire (many moons ago). They have a very delicate, subtly sweet flavor and are perfect for dainty desserts (as long as they are not sprayed), or just thrown into a salad. You can even make them into vinegar and sherbet.

As there are many varieties of violets in Kentucky that grow on roadsides and at the edges of fields before the grasses come in, and early in the spring, I wanted to find ways to "put them up," particularly the prolific sweet purple violet. [There are other more scarce varieties that grow in the woodlands.] I was not disappointed. There are violet recipes galore on the Internet and in several of the cookbooks that I, um, "collect." NOTE ~ You will want to pick in an area that is not sprayed, or, at least, has not been sprayed since the summer prior. As they are the first flowers on the roadside, you should be fine as long as you choose a less-traveled road, or better yet, your own yard or farm lane!

Violet Jelly

• 2 cups violets (see below)
• juice of 1 lemon
• 4 cups sugar
• 1 packet of Sure-Gel

Yield - 4-5 half-pint jars of jelly

The night before: Place the violets in a glass quart jar and cover with boiling water to the top of the jar. You will see the violet petals immediately start to steep and cast off a lovely pale blue (middle photo, above). Cover and set aside to rest over night or for at least a few hours. The next morning the violets will have floated all through the "violet tea" and will be pale in color (right photo, above). Strain the "tea" through a sieve, into a quart measuring cup or bowl, and discard petals.

Here is the specific recipe I borrowed from to make this.

NOTE ~ I used two cups of violets and doubled the recipe everywhere else so I was technically using half the amount of violets and got double the amount of jelly. However, I believe I got the same intended effect. Using four cups of violets probably just intensifies the flavor a bit more. I'll let you know next year!

Add the lemon juice and watch the pale violet color transform before your eyes.

Pour the violet and lemon juice mixture into a non-reactive pan.
Mix in the powdered pectin.

Add sugar and stir until boiling. Then boil again, hard, for one minute.

Pour into half-pint glasses that have been sterilized. Boil for 10 minutes.
[I use a simple hot water bath in a favorite old vegetable steamer for quick batches.]

And now I can't wait for rose season to make rose jelly and other herbal delights using the same infusion process.

You come back when you're ready! 

Catherine

Dinner from the Pantry

Braised short beef ribs in a tomato-ginger sauce, creamy polenta with cheese and pan-grilled zucchini.

We've been "eating down the freezers" these past few months (yes, I said freezers) and making a wee dent in our vast Apocalyptic Pantries (yes, that's also plural). Believe me, I was a food hoarder gatherer well before the 2012 craziness but I have to say that with the continued high price of gas, living far enough from any store to justify a quick run, and very far away from certain products that I like to have on occasion, it's great to have food at the ready on the farm. It's also economical as we build our cattle herd and face other farm costs: I can count on one hand how many times I've been to a big grocery store since January 1st. 

I also know that, in a pinch, if we lose power for an extended period on our ridge, as has happened in ice storms of the past, we will have a lot of food to share with our neighbors from our melting freezers. I say this because I find it appalling how some food gatherers hoarders as portrayed on television shows seem to stock up as much on weapons as on food to keep it away from their neighbors and other marauding bands of hungry crazy people (or is it zombies?). [The writer and community-minded self-sufficient living expert, Kathy Harrison, featured on Doomsday Preppers, is not of this vein and I highly recommend her blog for useful information on sustenance living.]

This excellent Italian polenta has been in my pantry, unopened, since 2007

when I purchased it in Boston's North End. Because it was vacuum-sealed,

it was perfectly fresh. It also has the delightful and nutty addition of buckwheat.

While I've been trying to be gluten-sugar free this Lenten season, I've not been as vigilant as I might be (I lasted three weeks, however). This meal, except for the dessert, was just that (assuming that my corn-buckwheat polenta mix has no wheat in it because I can't read Italian). I've been dabbling with new ways to eat that don't have to involve traditional gluten-dependent baking or cooking methods (very hard habit to change after forty years of baking and cooking this way) and also being more portion conscious, too.

Five medium zucchini, sliced, and stir-fried in the skillet with a bit of olive oil and butter.

Pears from the pantry are just as great
from the jar as they are in a fruit dessert.

So here are the basics of this meal that evolved in a few hours while I was puttering this afternoon:

• I thwawed some short boneless beef ribs out yesterday that I needed to use asap;
• I had five zucchini to use up;
• I have some canned tomatoes (not my own) to use up;
• I found that the potatoes we got at a local (unnamed, because it's sort of "you get what you pay for") produce place the other day were punky and pathetic (and not even seed potato-worthy by the looks of them: they were in a huge bag) so I remembered a packet of polenta (vacuum-sealed) from an Italian foodie tour of Boston's North End that I took with some dear friends (Oh my, was it way back in 2007?? How can this be?);
• I wanted to do something with some of the pears that I canned last fall;
• I found a bottle of ginger-soy-sesame sauce that I got at a recent "dented cans" store (with an expiration date looming).

Braised Boneless Beef Short Ribs

This made eight ribs, enough for four people. I like beefy cuts with a bit of fat and some marbling and prefer these to pork ribs. I cooked them slow and low in the oven, after braising, for just over 2 hours in my four-quart Le Creuset while I prepared other things and did laundry. This is one of my favorite meals for busy days. You could probably do this in a slow-cooker, too, but just remember to braise the meat first. It locks in the flavor and also allows for the slow tenderization that occurs at low temperatures over several hours.

• One packet of boneless beef short ribs (enough for two per serving)
• 1 medium onion
• 1 Tablespoon minced garlic
• 1 Tablespoon crushed/minced ginger
• 2 Tablespoons olive oil
• 1-14 oz can diced tomatoes (reserve juice)
• large pinch each: sugar, Kosher salt, ground pepper and cinnamon
• 1/4 cup of ginger-soy dressing (this comes in many brands)

1. Set oven to 300 degrees.
2. Heat 1 Tbsp of the olive oil in a large four-quart, heavy-lidded pan.
3. Chop onion and add to heated olive oil, along with garlic. Cook until translucent and browned. Add ginger.
4. In the meantime, braise (on all four sides, about a minute a side) the short ribs in skillet with remaining olive oil. Remove to a plate or dish, if still doing sauce.
5. To the onion-garlic mixture, add 1 can diced tomatoes, with juice, as well as all seasonings.
6. Simmer for a minute and add 1/4 cup of the ginger soy dressing.
7. Place each rib on top of the sauce mixture (which should come up the sides of the beef ribs).
8. Cover with aluminum foil and seal with heavy lid.
9. Place in 300 degree oven and cook for 2 to 2.5 hours: slow and low!

Creamy-Cheesy Polenta

The flecks are the unexpected addition of buckwheat to this Italian polenta mixture.

Polenta is indescribably delicious and a rustic staple in Italian country cooking: it is creamy, warm, comforting and the perfect accompaniment to short ribs. And polenta is almost as easy––and fast––as making hot breakfast cereal (and just as inexpensive: after all, it's cornmeal!). I was surprised that one cup of cooked polenta makes four hearty portions or eight regular ones (we had a lot leftover after the four of us were finished).

• 1 cup polenta (or a good stoneground cornmeal will do nicely)
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 2 cups whole milk
• 1 Tbsp herb of choice (I used dried marjoram but most any herb works)
• 1 Tbsp butter
• 1/2 tsp salt
• fresh ground pepper
• 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese (or other dry, flavorful cheese)

1. On medium-high, bring milk and broth to almost a boil but not quite.
2. Add 1 cup polenta, and 1 Tbsp herb, and stir constantly until the boil.
3. Once it boils, turn heat to low and cook, while stirring, for 5-10 minutes. [You want it thick and porridgy and for the liquid to absorb.]
4. Stir in butter, salt, pepper and cheese. 
5. Keep warm until serving.

Pear Cobbler-ish

OK, I admit. I cheated. I had a can of Pillsbury® Cinnabon® rolls in the fridge that Henry got the other day. I won't do this again. It was "eh," especially as my husband removed the rolls and ate the pear filling underneath (which I would make again) and the boys ate the rolls. Either way, I'm not caving into Henry any more at the grocery store! The good news is that this took about five minutes to make and another 20 or so to bake. You can use any fruit, fresh, frozen (drain first) or canned.

• 1 quart canned pears in light sugar syrup (preferably homemade, no, I insist: HOMEMADE!)
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 can of biscuits or cinnamon rolls (or homemade shortbread biscuits: next time!)

1. Grease a 9x9 dish and set oven to 400 degrees.
2. Drain juice from pears into a saucepan (mine were done in a light syrup so I did not add extra sugar). 
3. Place pears at bottom of greased dish.
4. Stir cornstarch into heating juice and whisk until thickened (add a bit of water if too thick).
5. Add cinnamon to thickened juice.
6. Pour juice mixture over the pears.
7. Place biscuits or buns or what-have-you over fruit mixture.
8. Bake for 15-18 minutes. Serve warm with whipped cream, yogurt or ice cream.

 You come back when you're ready!

 Catherine

"The plums that were in the icebox..."

Stanley plums hang from a tree in Casey County in August.

This is why I preserve the fruits of summer: so I can enjoy them on a dreary day in February, when the only berries or fruits at the grocery store are Chilean, or bananas or citrus fruit that got boring back in December. 


Canning and freezing is a way of continuing to eat local produce year round. There is nothing better than opening a jar of peaches, plums or pears from your pantry after they've sat a bit in the refrigerator (or, as my husband and I grew up with,"icebox"–a term leftover from our parents and grandparents).

They are luscious, sweet, summery and worth every sweaty hour I took in the summer to put them up.

This Is Just To Say
by William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were so delicious
so sweet
and so cold




You come back when you're ready!

Catherine

Paula Deen is not the problem !

Paula represents all that is homey, buttery and sweet
in Southern cuisine. She is a true confection and even
preaches moderation. My one criticism is that she is often
too reliant upon cake mixes and canned soup in her recipes.

Food snobbery and elitism are alive and well in America. So Paula Deen has Type-2 diabetes. That's unfortunate, and curable, and she'll likely be making some lifestyle changes to try to reverse this: something from which everyone in her situation might also learn. Did she handle it well by announcing it with a commercial endorsement for a diabetes medication rather than coming out a few years ago when she was first diagnosed? Probably not and as a person in the food world that would have only helped her situation. (However no one is bashing Sally Field for needing and endorsing Boniva®) But to use this as fodder for more Paula bashing? Or the inevitable "See, we told you so-s!" or that Southern food is fat-laden, disease-creating poor man's slop? None of it is either accurate or fair.

This is like killing the messenger. Food has become a spectator sport in the United States and Food Network (and everything Martha Stewart) has helped fuel why we all love to watch food shows or read about food or photograph and blog about food. No wonder we are a nation of extremes in eating and food obsessives: denial, binge-eating, obesity and anorexia (or fitness anorexics) abound, there is gluten and lactose intolerance and diabetes is rampant. It's not because of the food but because of what's in the food (or that has been taken from the food). Since the middle of the last century, we've stripped our food down and filled or modified it with preservatives and chemicals and now we're reaping the consequences. Choice is also involved, too, but at the basis of this issue is our gradual departure from, and slow return to, whole and real food in the American diet. As a culture we also love to hate fat people: we applaud when someone loses the weight and then, just as easily, we turn on them for embracing their new bodies and being "all that." Or, just forever fat.

I come from a hale and hearty clan of German and Victorian era English-Americans from industrial Ohio on one side and mainline WASPs, via Boston and New York, on the other. Genetically, and in other ways, I am very much my father's daughter: clinically obese, stubby little elfin hands and feet, rather short and short-waisted. Could I be healthier? Yes. I'm sure I could fight my genetics kicking and screaming for hours each day by running or lifting weights. But in my life so far I've mostly chosen not to (and it's no surprise that I was never more fit before I owned a car and lived in Boston in fifth-floor walkups and still ate whatever I wanted, in moderation). I've never been athletic and I've always found comfort in food and in cooking or preparing it for my family and yes, even eating it. Unapologetically. I'm working on the "move more" part but I also realize, especially when looking at family photos, that I yam what I yam.

My father died in his mid-60s of complications that were surely triggered from decades of untreated sleep apnea. Most of my other relatives on his side lived into their 80s, 90s and beyond. Some died of cancer, from smoking, or from other reasons, but none related to their heftier genetic predispositions. Their hearts were strong! My father never had diabetes, despite his size, or high cholesterol or blood sugar or major heart trouble. In fact, I never heard of diabetes in my family. I am exactly the same as I approach fifty.

Meanwhile, my mother's side of the family is small and wiry. My maternal grandfather died at 63: he and my grandmother moved from suburban New York in post-war 1946 to live on a New England farm, raise their children and their own vegetables and farm-raised food. He was lean and fit, as were his six offspring. But he had a lifelong heart and cholesterol problem (I used to enable him when I learned to make chocolate chip cookies: he'd drive me uptown for the supplies on the down low!). My mother has inherited this, too, and had a massive heart attack in her late-50s. Now through exercise, diet and medication she is monitoring this disease. And yet in my family I've always been pointed towards as what you don't want to be: the poster child of the fat girl. Even as a teenager I was told, "Cathy, if you only lost 15-20 pounds..." Then what? If only I only had fifteen pounds to lose now!

Here in Kentucky we've befriended many in our local Old Order Mennonite community who still render their own lard, drink whole milk and make butter regularly from their own farms, make their own baked goods, and eat more than we do most of the time (large breakfasts and even larger noon dinners). They bake a lot of "treats" and don't eat fast food (perhaps an occasional special treat while shopping). They also grow most of their own produce and meat. So it is no surprise to me that they don't have a lot of obesity, or cancer or diabetes in their community. American farm families have traditionally been healthier when they eat their own food and often work it off, too, during the course of a day. Our big problem today in terms of health is inactivity and poor food choices. Not fat. It's just important to remember that not everyone gets fat, or diabetes, because they sit around all day, feasting on junk food, Coke and greasy main dishes (I am testament to that: we eat real food in our house and raise our own meat, eggs and some produce–or buy it locally). And we all know people who are thin and eat nothing but awful food.

Virginia Willis, an Atlanta-based chef and food writer, said it so beautifully in today's article on the subject in The New York Times:

"No one vilifies Michelin chefs for putting sticks of butter in their food," Ms. Willis said. "But when a Southern woman does it, that's tacky." (however) "Paula's food often reflects modern cooking and convenience foods more than Southern tradition...she feels like she cooks for 'real people' and for better or worse, that is how many people in this country chose to eat."

So the point of all of this is that we should not be quick to judge people based on their size or their diets or where they hail from in food world. There are plenty of healthy looking people out there who probably have all sorts of diseases based on their genetics and lifestyle choices (or addictions from alcoholism or smoking). I doubt Paula Deen eats fried chicken and three-layer frosted cakes 24/7 and lately, it would seem, that Ree Drummond, the Pioneer Woman blogger who now has her own Food Network show, is putting Paula to shame with all of her fatty, over-buttered recipes. (Do you think she really cooks for all of those ranch hands every day without additional staff?) Where is the outcry there? And no one is saying that Ina Garten should cut back on the rich foods in her kitchen or that Giada should maybe eat more. (And neither should they: Ina is a Food Goddess in my estimation and, like Paula, another self-made cook who started in the trenches of restaurants and catering.)

Food Network has become a circus and has only fed our food snobbery and elitist mindsets about the food foibles of American cuisine. If you want to read about the lusciousness of real food, without the guilt, anything by M.F.K Fisher, Julia Child, or Laurie Colwin, Alice Waters or Elizabeth David will fit the bill. They embraced, or still embrace, real food. Whole food. Good food–and usually without benefit of a sexy photo. [Further back there are the delightful Mrs. Appleyard books, the Blueberry Hill cookbooks by Elsie Masterston, and, of course, my particular favorites: those few books by Mary Mason Campbell, whom I hail in my book, The Pantry. And then there is the incomparable Della Lutes who wrote the best-selling classics The Country Kitchen, Home Grown and other books and domestic-related articles during, and before, the Great Depression.]

There's room for everyone in food world and I hope that this isn't just another excuse to beat on Southern cuisine from both coasts. Paula Deen has worked hard for her fame and fortune, starting from her own kitchen as an agoraphobic single mother peddling sandwiches. Let's cut her some slack and support her quest for better health as we all try to make our own lifestyle tweaks (or not). And if she has some fried chicken on occasion, so be it. Butter and lard and sugar are not the problem with the American diet: chemicals and preservatives and high fructose corn syrup have created the food crisis we are having now. And fast food super-sizing, no doubt. It's always about moderation in all things.

But well-intentioned home cooks who might happen to become food celebrities, who are just keeping it real in their kitchens and sharing the love, even if it involves a bit of fat and sugar on occasion? They will never be the problem with the American diet.

You come back when you're ready!

Catherine

Hearty Seafood Chowder

Being from New England, I have learned the fine, but easy art, of making chowder. Recently I wrote a guest blog for a fellow Kentucky Food Blogger, Mindy Wilson, while she is tripping around Europe, tasting Viennese pastries and all manner of wonderful foods, with her professor husband on a college class excursion. I had suggested corn chowder, knowing that January can often be perfect for such meals (well, at around 55 degrees until the past few days, it's actually been quite balmy). Click here for that recipe and blog post at The World in My Kitchen. [And yes, I really did spill chowder on the Mayor of Lincoln, England in my first, and last, catering attempt!]

It is versatile and the basic chowder can translate into corn, seafood, fish or clam. What was fun was writing down the recipe, at last, for Mindy's blog, and then realizing I could, with a few minor tweaks, make it into other chowders. While I made the corn chowder for The World in My Kitchen before Christmas, the other day I finally made our Christmas Eve Seafood Chowder (for New Year's instead). And, I was pleasantly surprised that about $15 worth of frozen seafood (cod, shrimp and scallops) at Walmart was practically indiscernible from using fresh (which would have been far more expensive here in Kentucky: although Lexington Seafood is the place to go for a fresh splurge, which we do about once a year).

This is a hearty milk-based soup with New England origins–perfect on a cold winter's day with a loaf of crusty bread (or better yet, oyster crackers). You can also use this recipe, with minor changes, to make any number of *chowders [see below]. In about an hour, from start until serving, you will have a big vat of chowder to feed many appetites––and, if you are lucky, you'll even have leftovers for the next day. Chowder is even better once the flavors have had a chance to meld.

The roux, as it is thickening, before transferring to a larger kettle.

Hearty Seafood Chowder

• 12 oz. (3/4 pound) diced bacon (we prefer using smoked bacon and usually our own)
• 1 heaping Tbsp. minced garlic
• 1 large sweet onion, chopped (you can add a bit of red onion, if desired)
• 1 cup celery, chopped (include some leaves)
• 1 cup diced red bell pepper (OPTIONAL: I did not add this because my husband does not care for red peppers)
• 1/3 cup chopped parsley
• 4 large baking-sized potatoes, peeled and diced
• 1 quart fish or lobster stock (if not, chicken stock will do)
• 1 Tbsp. Kosher salt
• lots of fresh ground pepper
• liberal dashes of sweet Hungarian paprika
• 3/4 cup flour, or more, depending on how thick you'd like it
• 6-8 cups whole milk (you could use other kinds of milk but whole works best)
• 2-3 pounds assorted fresh (or uncooked and previously frozen) seafood in any combination: scallops, shrimp, tilapia, cod, clams, lobster, etc.
• 1 cup heavy cream (or half-and-half, if you must)

1. On medium high heat in a Dutch oven, large skillet or heavy-duty stock pot, cook bacon, with garlic, until almost done and starting to crisp up a bit. Stir frequently and do not drain!
2. Add onions, celery, parsley (and red bell pepper, if desired) and cook until translucent.
3. Add salt and pepper. Stir.
4. Add diced potatoes. Stir for several minutes.
5. Add the flour (3/4 cup if you want a slightly thicker chowder) and stir well.
6. Add 1 quart chicken stock and stir until thickened and bubbly.
7. Add paprika (about one large teaspoon).
8. Set to low, stirring occasionally, until potatoes are done, but not too soft (about 15 minutes).
9. Transfer your chowder "roux" to a large 2-gallon kettle. 
10. Heat on low, with 6-8 cups whole milk until just before boiling (do not boil!). Stir well as mixture will start to thicken somewhat from the roux.
11. Add the seafood, chopped into bite-sized morsels (frozen is fine and you don't have to thaw it unless shelling the shrimp: the cod or tilapia will likely flake on their own).
12. Cook on low, stirring frequently, until nicely heated.
13. Shortly before serving, add heavy cream and stir in.
14. Serve with homemade croutons, a good crusty bread or old-fashioned oyster crackers.

I like to turn off the kettle when the chowder is done, cover it, and take it off the burner. This will keep it warm until supper but will assure that the soup doesn't boil. You can also freeze this. It makes almost two gallons, too, so perfect for a crowd or for a stretch of easy meals.

And remember, you can take the girl out of New England, but you can't take New England out of the girl!

NOTES:

*The wonderful beauty of this chowder is, with a few minor changes, you can readily make it into a Corn Chowder, New England Clam Chowder, or Fish Chowder (or any number of things: mushroom, hearty vegetable, etc.) Here's how:

• For CORN, use 1 quart chicken stock and eight cups canned, frozen or fresh corn (or a combination) in place of seafood;
• For CLAM, use 1 quart clam broth and 1-2 quarts fresh shucked clams (or canned);
• For FISH, use 1 quart fish stock and 2 pounds chopped up fresh (or frozen) fish (Cod works best as it holds up well in the soup).
• For OYSTER, use 1 quart fish stock (which can include the oyster "liquor") and 1 quart of fresh, frozen or canned oysters. Oyster Stew uses whole oysters without the potatoes and bacon etc. and Oyster Bisque is when the oysters have been cooked in their own broth, and milk, with a bit of seasoning, and then put through a blender: we always had this for the soup course at Christmas Eve at my grandparents' in Akron. Wonderful food memories there!

[You can also use chicken stock instead of fish stock, which can be harder to find and more expensive.]

You come back when you're ready! 

Catherine