A Calendar's Days are Numbered

Although I'm not in session until 1 October, I'm still eating quasi- Marjorie. Last week I tried an aspic. Yes, I know Julia C. scraped beef bones to make it jell, not moi. I open a tiny brown envelope of Knox. Not having any beef in the house for a decade makes a beef bone hard to come by.

Anyway, the aspic was cool and quivery. It was a gazpacho recipe that I have always loved. One that features summer time tomatoes , honey , whole lemons and a glug of red wine.With a slice of roast chicken and a two bite brownie, life was good.

I am reading Marjorie's letters again; the ones Gordon Biglow edited.I am struck by her " human habitation keeps a house standing." In an age of foreclosure, so many houses have been left with the doors swinging open.They don't seem alive anymore in the same way a loved one seems a stranger when the last breath goes.

Summer Time and the Living is....

The B&B has closed for the season. No more big breakfasts. Now I will just read her correspondence with Maxwell Perkins, her editor. What an incredible relationship they had.He knew how to honor her gift by asking just the right questions.

In her Nov. 4, 1931 letter she tells him about her fine stand of broccoli. I agree. Fla broccoli, even urban grown, is fine indeed. Last year I grew Goliath and fed the entire neighborhood. This year I am roasting the broccoli, carrots,and tiny potatoes in an olive oil rosemary mixture. 400 at 20 minutes. Yum.

Almost a Souffle

I cleaned out the weeds for the spring garden. Turning over the wonderful black dirt I discovered eight sweet potatoes. These were the remnants of an earlier harvest, bumpy little things with strange holes.

Took them inside, peeled them and drizzled them with olive oil. They roasted into golden coins of goodness. Lagniappe, yes !

Dash of Datil

The collard greens are a lush emerald carpet in the square foot beds. I harvested a double grocery bag of them and brought them in to cook for a departing artist, a Northerner who has spent enough time in the South to develop a taste for good greens. I don't boil them for the hour MKR mandates in CCC pg. 57. Rather, I chop them finely and saute with olive oil , bacon and pressed garlic. After They are limp for some time, I put in a cup of chicken broth and them cook the mixture down. Before I serve, I stir in a big spoonful of datil pepper jelly. YUM!

Pot of Tea and the Devil

" I liked to sit by the open hearth fire on a winter's day, about four in the afternoon, and eat a quarter of a devil's food cake,with a pot of tea or coffee." pg 149 CCC.

This is another quote that makes me feel one with MKR. I, too, love tea time cake rather than stuffing down dessert after a full meal. ( Although I can stuff if required.)

My favorite morsel is choco-banana bread which is simply any banana bread liberally embellished with chocolate chips. Somehow that bread seems less evil in the mid-afternoon that a pure slab of MKR's beloved devil's food. Just a bit anyway.

Peanut fed ham

According to MKR, peanut fed ham is the best possible ham because it is a juicy ham. This morning I tried a Black Forest ham to accompany the Cross Creek eggs. The Black Forest ham comes from a pure piglet, one who has had no antibiotics and no feedlot experience.

I love her CCC story of the party guest who hacked huge wedges of Kentucky country ham off and devoured them unaware of the fact that one is expected to nibble daintily on wafer thin pieces. Evidently he was removed from future guest lists.

New Grandchild

My son and my daughter-in-law just produced a bouncing baby boy. It took awhile( 36 hours) but they had a home birth just as they had planned.This morning I will whip up a stack of pecan waffles to celebrate the new arrival. I will follow MKR's guidelines " Pour the batter from a pitcher into a smoking hot waffle iron. Waffles are best when made at the table and eaten at once." That is so true. The best waffles I have ever eaten were made on smoking hot center table grills at a national park restaurant outside Deland. I don't remember the name but it featured a water wheel outside. Of course the waffles were eaten on day four of the ECG trip. That means we had already cycled over 100+ miles. Grilled shoe tongues might have tasted good by then.