Sweat and Sweet Potatoes

Dug them this morning by accident. One half dozen perfect sweet potatoes. I thought their vines were weeds. When I started to pull them the potatoes began to pop out of the soil like rubies. I will makde the sweet potato souffle on page 68 of CCC. MKR calls it luscious and utterly deadly. What more could one ask?

Seven City Citrus, my answer to Cross Creek

Black Bottom Pie NOT

Used MKR's crust ( 14 crisp ginger cookies 5 TBLS. melted butter) to form the base for my latest calamondine pie. Yum. The ginger sets off the citrus in a wonderful manner. I love the fact that Marjorie loved the original Blackbottom Pie recipe so much that she wanted to be " propped up on my dying bed and fed a generous portion."

Chili for the Chilly

Now that it is less than 100 degrees daily, I am looking through the cookbook for some cool weather food items. MKR's Chili Con Carne ( page 117) looks excellent and I think I will make it if and when the thermometer signals fall. I made it last year. Actually, I think I commingled her recipe with one of Bill Bellville's because it had habenero peppers in it.

I grow lots of habeneros without trying. They are beautiful to look at, resembling ruby red Christmas ornaments when they are ripe. Unfortunately, they are the atomic bomb of the pepper family and must be handled with care. MKR did not mention them in the cookbook. Her range of peppers is short...bell to datil.

Apologies to Miss Marjorie

I made homemade ice cream tonight. It was vaguely related to MKR's Fresh Peach Ice Cream on page 202 of Cross Creek Cookery. The weasel word here is vaguely. I threw a large container of French Vanilla yogurt in the wonderful ice cream maker then added two serious Georgia peaches which I had chopped in small pieces and left to sit in their own juice fortified with just a tiny bit of brown sugar and a little lemon juice. Finally, I pressed the start button and went back to reading the NY Times book review. In six minutes I had Fresh Peach Ice Cream. Not bad for someone without her own Dora.

Calamondines Keep Fallin' On My Head

Opening Marjorie's memory meals for the eighth season. So far we've celebrated with citrus, a calamondine tart for breakfast. The tiny tart citrus is making tree branches bend out by the river. I remember MKR's story about searching for the Seville orange tree on her Cross Creek property. Martha thought Marjorie wouldn't like the oranges because they were bitter sweet. I wonder if she knew about calamondines? My Cuban friends marinate pork loins in them. I make lemonade , cupcakes and cake out of them. They grow like weeds.

Made the first waffles, too. I love MKR's description of the correct waffle iron temperature, " smoking hot." Mine was. Yum.