sparrowgrass

I have enough gadgets, too, though some good knives would nice, now that the kid is gone and there is no-one here to use them to pry the lids of paint cans. Can I use the rest of the 5K to put a new floor in the kitchen?

Gotta be those danged chickens. I know those eggs cost me a dollar a piece, never mind that I sell the extras for $1 a dozen. Feed, electric fence chargers, an incubator, the chicken house, the shock collar for the dogs , the ducks and geese I bought to feed the owls , blah, blah, blah. Probably the garden falls into the same category. Veggies are cheap: buying plants and seeds and roots and trellises and fencing and the "Hummer" model of tillers is expensive. Because the grocery store scene is so sad in this area, I am seldom tempted by 'spensive stuff like truffles and caviar.

My ex (AKA the Evil One) used to give me crap about celery. NO celery in tossed or tuna salad, or cooked in spaghetti or chicken noodle soup. I got myself in trouble last Thanksgiving. I bought the ingredients for stuffing, including, of course, a nice bag of celery. As I diced it for the stuffing, I pulled the inner, sweet, pale green crunchy center out and began to munch it down. About the time I started on the 3rd little stalk, my brother reached across the counter, smacked me on the top of the head and said, "Don't you think that is rude?" He wanted some too--first time I had had to share my celery center since I left home, I think. Evil One wouldn't eat raw carrots either, and gave me shit about being too sissy to eat hot things, until I began to like them, at which point he gave me shit about making things too hot for his poor tummy. Fuck him--I am pretty sure he is dead now. Run over by a steam roller, I think. Got his foot caught under it, and it rolled, slowly, slowly, all the way up til his eyeballs popped out. I could be wrong about that, but I hope not.

I second the Kalibur, from Guinness. I bought it by accident (teach me to go to the liquor store without my glasses) and drank a bottle before my son came home and asked me why I was drinking NA beer. It tasted very good. Also makes a mean pot roast.

I feel your pain--your kitchen is a lot like mine. At least your dishwasher is built in , and you don't have to roll it across the floor and tie up the sink for an hour. Can you buy one of those vent/microwaves that hang above the stove? That would free up some space. The toaster could sit on the breakfast table, if you have a plug handy. I have a slab of marble next to the stove to set hot pots on--bought it at the monument place for $20.

I once melted an aluminum pot all over an electric stove, while making iced tea. I use a timer.

Carrot Top, I will mail you all the purslane and sorrel you want--but the sparrowgrass is all mine.

Fifi, I am not in Texas, but I am a 4-H youth specialist, working for Extension in Missouri. Call your local extension office, usually located in the county seat. The agent/specialist who works with the 4-H kids works there, and she or he will be able to tell you if any kids have poultry projects. Also, many extension offices have access to lists of organic farmers--you might be able to buy your chickens that way.

Well, the first thing I see is the mountain of pumpkins I picked this week--pie for everyone. I have 30 of them, white ones and orange ones. I am not eating my chickens either--too old and stringy, but the duck and the goose look pretty tasty. I call this place "Sparrowgrass Hill"--lots of wild asparagus in the spring. Earlier in the summer, blackberries up on the hill are worth the chigger bites and the occasional frisson of seeing a snake. I stop and pick a pear and munch it while I mow, but the apple tree is pretty bare by now. If I was a good shot, I could have venison and turkey and a real mess of squirrel. I have sheep sorrel and purslane, wild garlic, day lilies, mulberries, hickory nuts, bushels of wild grapes and persimmons. I have an "oyster tree" at the bottom of the drive that produces big clumps of mushrooms after the rain. Neighbor Jack has cows and calves, but I believe he would fuss if one came up missing. I guess if the grocery trucks stopped coming into town, I could survive for a while.

And while we are at it, will someone please tell the Dairy Queen folks that chickens do not have fingers?

Anything that involves firing up the oven. I am in Missouri, and even with the air on, my kitchen is too hot for the oven. I am ready for Not-out-of-the-breadmachine bread Pot pie Baked potatoes--sweet and not And, someday soon, I will get my once a year craving for apple pie. I love to bake pies, but really don't care to eat them.

And communion wafers tasted just like the food I used to feed my gold fish--little flat wafers that you broke up and dropped in the water. Waffle cones, definitely.

I just did about 40 half pints of salsa and 10 quarts of pureed tomatoes, using my new kitchen-aid. It has a little bowl that sits inside the big bowl--very convenient and fast for chopping a couple cloves of garlic and/or an onion. And I can make the garlic/onions so fine they are almost invisible--for my picky, picky, picky son. Another thing I do--take some of peaches I froze earlier this year, add some sugar and a bit of vanilla, whir them up (I let them defrost just a little), stick them back in the freezer to harden up a bit--sweet, cold peachiness you can eat with a spoon. Have to do that when the kid is not home, or I don't get any. Mine also lives on the counter.

I don't think I would eat dinner in a place where a baby was changed on the kitchen table. I have pretty relaxed standards when it comes to sanitation, but that is a bit over the top.

The word botulism describes a type of poisoning. A strain of bacteria called Clostridium botulinum creates a protein called botulin, and this protein is the cause of botulism. Botulism spores are on the fruit or veggies. They are tough, so just washing or cooking doesn't kill them. The spores are not what hurts you--it is the toxin that develops as they multiply. Stomach acid and good bacteria in the intestines kill them, so you don't die from eating botulism spores themselves. This doesn't hold true for babies--they can get botulism from honey, apparently because their immature systems don't have the bacteria necessary to get rid of the spores. That botulin protein is denatured (made harmless) by boiling in an open kettle, so an infected jar of beans could be made safe that way, but because the toxin is so deadly, a splatter on the counter or the residue in the jar is very dangerous. Open kettle canning, where food is boiled and then put in jars which are sealed is dangerous because the spores float in the air, and may contaminate the food as it is being canned.

In my house, raisins are still zee-zees. The child who coined the word is now 6'2".

You might want to use a wooden spoon for this step. Even a tiny scratch or chip from a metal utensil can cause jars to break in the canner. Web sites: Ball Jars U of MO Extension Publications, Food preservation.

You are making jam--you are ok. Botulism can't survive in high acid or high sugar mixtures, so don't worry. You are doing everything right. Botulism is a problem in things without sugar or acid, like green beans or corn or meat. Botulism can survive boiling, but only for a while--that is why you must process low acid stuff in a pressure cooker (higher pressure means boiling water gets hotter than 212) for the stated amount of time, which varies with product being processed, jar size and altitude. If you (or anybody else) have any canning questions, PM me--I will look up the answers at work, or call our home economist if it is something more complex. Your family will love your jam--go, therefore, and make more.

The Ball Blue Book is the ultimate authority for canning--put out by the makers of Ball jars and lids, and using USDA specifications. I work for U. of Missouri Extension, and the Ball Blue Book is our source of information when folks ask us questions. Botulism is possible in foods improperly canned. It can survive boiling and the lack of oxygen in the jars, and even a tiny taste of improperly canned food can kill you. If you are interested in canning, your local extension office will have material to help you. Those canning jars are pretty, but way more expensive than Ball or Kerr jars from the supermarket or WalMart.

I just drove down to Martin Rice Farm in the Missouri Bootheel, and came back with 200 pounds, at 25 cents a pound. It is a long way down there--2 hours--and I take orders from all the folks up here and bring back a truck load. I bought basmati and jasmine, and it is a hard choice to pick which one to cook. I kept 25 pounds of each. Both are fragrant and very flavorful. They also have Baldo, which is a shorter grained rice, and Arborio.

I like to fry up a couple of pork chops, and then cook the canned hominy in the pork chop pan, with the pan drippings. Salt and lotsa pepper.

Maybe the Big Mac I sent out for after the birth of my first son. I was in labor for 20 hours with nothing to eat, so that smushy old midnight sandwich really tasted like heaven. Or maybe bacon and eggs the morning after a hard day of paddling and portaging, and a night in a sleeping bag. Cooked over a campfire, with the mist drifting off the lake, and the loons calling.

My situation was similar to Gifted Gourmet--I was married for 25 years to an ambitious fella (hereinafter to be known as "Evil One") who moved us every couple of years to various small towns, as he was promoted in the Forest Service. Well, he is dead now (nah, just wishful thinking ) and I have moved for the very last time. When I was moving, I had a couple of boxes that held kitchen essentials--last things packed from the old house, first things into the new house. Can opener, knives, paper plates, salt and pepper, couple of pots and pans, a sandwich toaster that opened up to grill burgers or steaks. I am not a list maker, but I did keep a list for the kitchen box. Because we moved to little rural places, often eating out was a choice of one greasy spoon or hotdogs from the convenience store, so it was important to have cooking supplies. No more moves ever again--I am going to be cremated and sprinkled in the vegetable garden, GG. That'll make the asparagus grow!

Didn't your mama show you how to make hollyhock dolls? Nest two blossoms together, then poke a toothpick thru the centers and into a bud (for the head of the doll.) I was picking half a bushel of tomatoes a day, but we are having that cool weather too. It is just not right to stand on the front porch on an August morning and see your breath. Especially not when you have just had a pool installed. Anyhow, I have canned a batch of pizza sauce, a batch of salsa, and I made 10 quarts of tomato juice last night. The garden is dry as a bone--I tried to till last night, but had to quit because of the clouds of dust I was raising. Not much left out there, anyway--okra and lots of pumpkins, white and orange, and tomatoes, of course.

Here is a tomato hornworm--a big guy, 2 or 3 inches wide. Might find it flying around your porch light at night. The worms will decimate your tomatoes--eating all the leaves and then starting on the fruit. Pick them off and mash them (eeeuuwww) or just drop them into a can of soapy water. The "horn" on the back is not a stinger--they can't hurt you. (They can, however, creep you out. I use gloves. ) edited to correct totally bogus information that I just made up off the top of my head. My bad.