sparrowgrass

Oreos are irresistable to me, too. I try not to buy them at all, but if I really get the jones on, I get the small packages that they have at the convenience store. Six cookies, gone instantly. No milk, no twisting them apart--just stuff one cookie into my mouth after another. Oh, I do love Oreos.

Another thing to remember when choosing produce is that some things will continue to ripen after picking, and some don't. Peaches, cantaloupes and tomatoes all have the potential, if they weren't ripped from the plant too early, to ripen and soften on the counter. Pineapples, strawberries and other berries cannot ripen after picking--what you see is what you get. Finding a ready to eat cantaloupe is a miracle, but 2 or 3 days on the counter can really sweeten one up.

Oh, hands down, the cabinet under the sink. It is a little mousie subway station--as long as the door is shut, they can't get into the rest of the kitchen, but I think they change trains down there. I have a big block of rat bait available to them at all times, but I haven't vacuumed down there all summer. Second ickiest are the cookie jars and other decorative items lined up on top of the upper cabinets. I have been fighting a bad knee for years now, and climbing the ladder is still not on my list of things I want to do, so they will just stay dirty for a while.

Wholemeal Crank--follow the directions and use a pressure canner for stocks. Gelatin (like the stuff in nice home-made stock) is used as a growth medium for bacteria in labs. Just sayin'.

Squeeze that garlic--it should be hard. Smell the peaches and cantaloupes--if you can't smell them, they will never be good. Look at the stem end of your cantaloupe--it should have a bowl shaped depression where the stem was attached. If there is still a bit of stem, it won't ripen. Pineapples should smell good, but watch out for brown soft spots--sometimes those pineapples will taste fermented. Broccoli heads should be tight and firm--look at the cut end, too. If it is dry, the broccoli is old. Cabbage also should be firm and tight. I have found that you just have to take your chances with watermelons--I don't think there is really any way to know.

I have lots of tomatoes coming in right now, and I am in the midst of canning sauce and salsa. Being an extremely lazy person, I hate standing over the stove and stirring a vat of bubbling sauce, and being spattered by plops of boiling tomato. So. . . .instead of simmering sauce to thicken it, I now take all the ingredients of my sauce (tomatoes, green peppers, onion, celery, garlic), chop them coarsely and spread them on oiled half sheet pans. I roast at 400 for an hour or more, until the tomatoes are bit browned around the edges. Then I scrape the veggies into a big pot, whiz them up with the stick blender, and can or freeze. No stirring, no scorching, no tomatoes cooked onto the top of the stove. The sauce is naturally sweet--sometimes so sweet that I have to add vinegar.

I grow my own, so I eat it all, thick or thin. I do prefer thick, and I never peel, because when you grow your own, you go out to the garden and break off the stalks--the woody part stays in the ground, and all you get is good, sweet, tender asparagus. I don't buy asparagus--I am spoiled, and store bought 'sparrowgrass' is never as good as fresh. I just eat it for a month or so in the spring, and then wait anxiously for April to roll around again.

Salmonella can come from dirty eggshells, but it can also be inside the egg. I always thought rinsing food was silly--if my kids came in from playing and rinsed their hands off in cold water, those grimy hands would not be clean. If you are not washing with soap/sanitizer, you are just spreading germs and dirt around.

Off the top of my head--day lilies, pansies (and their cousins, violets and johnny jump ups), roses and nasturtiums. And the herbs of course--chives, oregano, borage. Squash blossoms.

I have a love-hate relationship with their onion rings. They are real onion rings, unlike other fast food onion flavored rings, but the cornmeal batter is exceedingly sweet. I am glad they are not perfect--I don't need to eat onion rings very often.

Nakji, I eat a lot of it right out of the garden, steamed or grilled on the cob. I freeze some for winter, cutting it off the cob, and I generally just salt and butter it. It is so good that way, that I have never thought about doing anything else with it.

When I was a child visiting Grandma down on the farm, sometimes the uncles would run out in the cornfield across the road for "roasting ears"--field corn picked early enough to be edible. I remember loving it, but that was mostly because the ears were huge--a foot long or so--and we could have as many as we wanted, because they were "free". I grow Bodacious, Peaches and Cream and Candy Corn--all of them sweet, but not that cloying sweet stuff that tastes more like corn syrup than corn. They are SE (sugar enhanced) not the SH type.

I ate my second one this evening. The first one really didn't count--my propane tank for the kitchen stove was empty, so I started to grill it, only to run out of gas for the grill about 2/3 of the way thru the process. I nibbled some of the done bits, and threw the rest into the stock pot. The second one does count--I breaded and fried the legs, wings and back. I ate it with some cucumber from the garden, but it really called out for mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans with ham, and maybe lemon pie for dessert. Delicious flavor, and a whole different texture from storebought bird. The legs were not tough, but they did have some "chew" to them. (It is very, very quite outside, after a month of little roosters practicing their crowing. They were getting pretty damned good at it towards the end--what a cacaphony.)

I did end up ordering the cockerels for the freezer, and that is where they are!! I finished off the last five this morning. Not too bad of a job--takes me about 2 hours to do 5 by myself. If I do it again, I will order the chicks in August--it is too blessed hot to sit on the back porch plucking feathers this time of year. I have eaten a couple--they are a totally different animal from storebought chicken--more like a grouse or pheasant. Legs are tough, breasts and thighs are nice, and the soup is terrific. I even saved the feet! The pullets are thanking me--there was way too much rough sex going on, and they are too little to have to put up with that. I didn't save a rooster, so GRLZ RULE!

Hop a plane to St. Louis, and drive south about 70 miles, and I will let her help me kill the rest of the 25 cockerels that I bought as chicks a couple of months ago. My mom and I killed 9 on Sunday, and help is always necessary. The actual killing is not a big deal--they don't look up at you with big, brimming eyes and beg you for mercy, ya know. More practically, I think if your friend is willing to try, that should be enough. She understands that for a meat eater, something has to die to go on the table. Lots of folks really block that out of their minds.

Peter, you can probably grow peas all summer in your cool climate--mine are just about done for, temps in the 90's already.

Here is what I am having tonight--a big bowl of freshly shelled peas with a lump of butter. I eat them with a spoon so I don't miss a morsel.

I don't really know when I started cooking--cooking, like reading, just seems to be something I have always done. I guess I started with cookies and cakes when I was 8 or 10, much to the delight of my younger siblings. My mother went to work, on the evening shift, when I was 12, and I was in charge of dinner. I remember some dismal sloppy joes and chicken and dumplings, but I learned. I cooked every night for my husband and children, but my skills really started to improve when I divorced and began to live alone. For one thing, I bought good tools--knives, a food processor, a stand mixer--things that were considered frivolous when I was married. (Good tools were only necessary in the garage!) Because I didn't have to worry about kids who picked out every shred of green, I could be adventurous. I could add garlic and onion and herbs and lemon zest and wine and red pepper, and I did. I live way out in the country, so finding exotic ingredients can be difficult, but I stock up when I hit the big city. My garden supplies almost all the fresh, frozen and canned vegetables that I use, and of course, from the garden foods just taste better. I also added chickens to my menagerie--for real free range eggs and meat. My beef comes from a neighbor who uses no antibiotics or growth hormones. I love to cook, love to feed people--you all are invited, any time!!

I am another one with with a big herb garden but no herbs in my food. In my defense, in the summer I am too busy working in the garden to cook much, and Penzeys has all those lovely herbs all packaged up in neat little bottles for the wintertime. I hang my head. (Come on over if you want some thyme, sage, lavendar or rosemary. The basil, cilantro and sweet marjoram are still in the seedling stage, so give me a month or so before I start letting those go to waste.) I have a giant bed of leaf lettuce, too--but no time to clean it and make salads. And when I do go on a picking/cleaning spree, half of it rots in the bottom of the fridge.

When mine quits spraying, I fill it with the hottest water from the tap, add a couple of drops of dishwashing liquid, pump it up and let it spray until it sprays correctly. Then I empty it, fill it with plain water, and pump and spray until I am sure no soap remains in the pump mechanism. Then fill it with olive oil, pump and spray into the sink until the water is gone. Mine is several years old, and this treatment works every time. I use mine a lot--to flavor popcorn, mostly.

Peter, you are right about the pizza--I never buy frozen, so I didn't think of that.

I have a huge garden. I can green beans, tomato sauce and salsa, freeze corn and peppers and some tomatoes, I grow my own asparagus. A couple of years ago, the wild grapes were so big and abundant that I made jelly--my only cost was sugar and the propane to cook and process the jelly. I seem to spend a fortune every spring on plants and seeds, but I never buy any of the above produce from the grocery store. I also have herbs--oregano, chives, basil, cilantro, sage, etc--a plant from the garden store is about the same price as a bunch of herbs. I bake bread, and make my own pizza--I know that is cheaper (and better tasting) than store bought. I used to make my own wine and beer--also cheaper. I don't drink much any more, so that is not worth my time. Home baked cakes, pies, and cookies are cheaper than store bought--unless I get carried away and add macadamia nuts or primo chocolate. I bought 25 cockerels (male chicks) this spring, and will be putting them into the freezer in a month or so. I am pretty sure that will be more expensive than the $.69/pound leg quarters I buy at the supermarket, but I will know where my meat comes from, and what it has been eating. I also have hens--again, I don't really know the cost, but the cost of the feed is offset somewhat by the wonderful compost my girls make for me. And I sell most of the eggs, for $2 a dozen, but I am pretty sure I don't break even.

But do NOT--let me stress this--DO NOT use a pail that has previously contained dill pickles. No matter what you do to it, it will flavor its contents with dill and garlic. Not good, especially when you use it for iced tea.

My house was built in 1872 and the kitchen was actually a separate building with a porch, connected to the house by an open walkway. The walkway is enclosed and now is a bathroom and a wide hallway with a computer niche. The pillar with all the tools hanging on it was the separation between the kitchen building and what used to be a little porch off the east side of the kitchen--the little porch now holds the fridge and a hutch that for my home canned tomatoes and beans. The little eggs on the windowsill were laid by my hens when they were youngsters. I found that if I just set them on the windowsill they would dry out and be decorative.

Here is my rock, on the windowsill and under inspection by Stella the sorta Dalmation.