Heading to the Holler

There’s an exact point on my drive back to Coker Creek from Atlanta where I begin to feel like I’m almost home. About ten miles before Coker Creek, the highway winds its way into a world of endless greens and dappled sunlight. There are no man-made buildings in sight – around every smooth turn in the road is another soothing scene of forest and stream. My van is my dance partner in my slow motion homecoming dream sequence.

It never ceases to amaze me that in less than two hours, I can drive between two completely opposite worlds. There are many areas of the interstate through Atlanta where you have to know several miles in advance where and in what direction you’re exiting because you have to make sure you’re in the correct lane of the six choices. And traffic is usually so fast that it’s breaking the sound barrier.

Tennessee Highway 68 going north from Georgia is mostly two lanes. The long series of nearly ninety-degree turns keeps speeds at an average of about forty miles per hour. This is a good speed for gawking, but only if you’re a passenger.Every trip is different on the drive through the Cherokee National Forest. Some trips are pale spring green; some are decorated with mountain laurel blooms; on some, the streams are very visible because there are few leaves on the trees. On this trip, the thistles were in bloom.

Atlanta is the epitome of progress. I think the whole Greater Atlanta area is a Wi-Fi hotspot; whereas, we don’t even have mobile phone service in Coker Creek. This is probably a good thing, given the nature of driving in the mountains. We barely have land line phone service. Talking on the phone to someone in Coker Creek is like talking in a sawmill. The phone service provider calls it “the Coker Creek buzz”.

Buzzing is a common sound in the holler. In addition to the buzz in the phone lines, there’s the buzzing of honey bees and the buzzing of far-off motorcycle engines as they negotiate the ever-popular Highway 68 curves. We notice these things because mostly the sounds are of leaves rustling the in the trees, horses whinnying in their pastures, birdsong, and dogs barking in the distance.

When I arrived at home, it was obvious that our house had also been abuzz -- with Richard getting prepared for my arrival. The bed was made; the bathrooms and the kitchen were clean; and the laundry was folded. Richard had made salads, and there was a pot of his paprika chicken in the refrigerator waiting to become our supper. He had also been to Mamie’s. Easily ten pounds of okra and an equal amount of tomatoes beckoned from the kitchen table.

It’s quite a comfort coming home to a tidy house, a clean kitchen, a familiar task -- and a man so happy to be allowed to stay home that he’s prepared for me a homecoming fit for a visiting dignitary. I don’t know if my absence makes his heart grow fonder, but I am planning to be away again in two weeks.

Cleaning the Kitchen

Many of you are probably horrified that I can turn the light off on the big mess I left in the kitchen. I like to think that I’m a better homemaker than I am a housekeeper, but someone always has to clean up the mess – eventually. If only the story of the Elves and the Shoemaker were to come to life in my kitchen…

No such luck. I awoke to as big a disaster as I had left. The directions for making grape jam had said to bring it to a rolling boil. Mine had been more a flying boil with a fireworks display. Grape jam spots covered everything within two feet of the stove: counters, walls, and floor. Big grapey pools had stained the countertops all over the kitchen. And I was on a deadline because I was due in Atlanta early that afternoon.

My friend Gayle once told me that she likes the “automatic” tasks like cleaning the kitchen to ease into her day without having to think about what she’s doing. Then again, Gayle probably never had to contend with shrapnel from a great grape grenade.

It’s a good thing that Richard’s attitude is, “We’re not here for the house; the house is here for us.” He also believes that cleaning up can be a pleasant experience if you focus on remembering the fun you had creating the mess, instead of focusing on the work that lies ahead. For a mess of this magnitude, I think I’ll have to remember how much fun it was to make the jam. And I’ll also look ahead to how many people will love receiving the jam at Christmas.

I know the house is still here -- somewhere. While hunting for supplies in the kitchen clutter, I came upon a plastic bag with several pairs of children’s swim goggles. Figuring they must have been left by the children of my niece Ginette when they visited two and a half months ago, I called Ginette. The fact that the goggles had been there for two and a half months before I found them gives some indication of where my homemaking priorities were not focused.

The goggles didn’t belong to Ginette’s kids, but calling her was a pleasant break between cleaning, more cooking, and final cleaning before my departure. Ginette said that reading the blog was making her wonder how long it will be before we start packing her Christmas package of goodies. Maybe I should start taking orders for folks’ favorites.

As soon as I found the countertops, I prepared the peppers and peas. The pointy ends of the banana peppers will be perfect for hors d’hoeuvre-sized stuffed peppers. The remainder will be divided into red and yellow varieties. The red will be made into red pepper jelly, and the yellow will be chopped and frozen as a substitute for bell pepper. The peas go will go to Rachel’s family.

I began slogging through the grape glop. I wanted to leave a clean kitchen for Richard. He’d need all the counter space he can get as he prepares Chicken Paprika and Cherry Queen of Hearts Crown Cake for upwards of thirty people who attend the every-other-Saturday’s bluegrass pickin’ at Charlie and Deborah’s Coker Creek Saloon.

Richard has a favorite joke about a man traveling through the countryside who comes upon a farmer with a three-legged pig. He stops to ask the farmer about the pig. Three times the man asks about what happened to the pig’s fourth leg. Each time, the farmer proceeds to tell the man about heroic deeds the pig has performed: Running for help when the farmer had been pinned under the tractor; Squealing loudly to wake the farmer’s family when the family home caught fire; Dragging the baby to safety and standing guard until help arrived when a wild dog came after the child. After the third try, the man became exasperated. “Okay, I understand that the pig is very heroic,” he said, “but what happened to his leg?” The farmer replied, “Oh, that. A great pig like that you don’t eat all at once.”

I got through the pots and pans, the stove, the walls, and even bleached out the stains on the countertops before I had to leave. I’ll try not to feel too bad about not getting to the floor before my departure for Atlanta. Ancient hunter-gatherers had dirt floors. The kitchen will still function heroically, even with a filthy floor.

I didn’t quite finish my task on schedule, but then “A great pig like that you don’t eat all at once.”

Joyful Jammin’

The process of making grape jam is so sensuous -- even if you don’t crush the grapes with your feet. The viscous velvet combination of juice and pulp is as royal a purple as you ever want to see. Add pectin and -- bubble, bubble, no toil, no trouble – dump in the sugar and stir until the sugar melts. This magic turns the mixture into clear liquid rubies. Boil for only one minute more, and voila! We’re now the proud parents of twenty-four jars of gorgeous grape jam -- And a kitchen that has been hit with a great big grape grenade.

I’m leaving town, so I’m getting desperate to finish up with this week’s harvest. What does one do with two and a half gallons of questionable corn, four dozen banana peppers, and a half dozen green bell peppers? I chickened out on canning the best of the corn because I was a little afraid of its quality after Jack said that it would be too tough to eat. And, I ran out of pint jars. I tested the texture in succotash for lunch. That went well, but I didn’t have any more limas, or any more pint jars. It was time to get creative with corn.

Don’t groan. I made only a small portion into maque choux, using one of our many peppers and several tomatoes. And I made a savory corn and pepper “pudding” (sort of like squash casserole, but with corn). Some pudding we’ll have for supper; some will go to Mamie and Jack; and some will go to Rachel’s family. I froze several quarts of corn, planning on months of corn puddings of various types. I’m especially interested in a corn and chorizo variation.

While I jammed in the kitchen, Richard ran over to Mamie’s to clear the weeds around our carrots and help her dig up her gladiola bulbs. He came home with tomatoes, field peas and okra. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry as we sat down to shell yet another passel of peas.

Gathering Grapes

While Richard tore out the old shelving from the root cellar, I ran over to Mamie’s for a visit. Writing a daily blog means that I have to look for something interesting every day, and Mamie is always interesting. And I wanted to harvest okra from the Baerreis’ plants. The Baerreises said that they have more okra than they can use – which I can’t even imagine. Rachel loves smothered okra, and I’ll be seeing her this week-end. Hence, the harvest.

Mamie returned some of my canning jars. She said she knew it was a shame that I gave them to her full of food, and she returned them empty. This led to a lot of laughs about our canning experiments that had failed. Like the time she decided that she didn’t need to process her green beans for as long as the book said, and the whole year’s crop of beans spoiled. And my first attempt at pressure canning green beans when I released the pressure on my pressure cooker by running it under cold water, like my mother had always done (Of course, she was cooking -- not canning.) I didn’t know that a sudden drop in pressure would boil the water right out of the jars. Seems that Mamie and I are both students of “The hurrier I go, the behinder I get” school.

When I whined about the grape shortage, she offered me a jar of her grape juice that I could turn into jelly. I declined because I didn’t want o be greedy. After all, I had already scored a jar of Shirley’s jam with my whining. I also asked Mamie about Sumac tea. She had never heard of it, and says that she thinks Sumac is poisonous. I’ll have to check out Sumac via the internet.

I was so surprised that grape harvesting had already come and gone, it had never occurred to me to check the areas on our own property where we had previously harvested wild purple grapes. Probably because we had cleared most of the creek banks last winter, and I thought we had destroyed all our grape vines. I don’t know why I always assume that I missed the boat just because other people have reported disappointing results in some of their adventures. It’s true that Charlie’s grapes will never make it into wine bottles or jelly jars and that Shirley’s brother Dean lost his grapes to the raccoons. (Oh, the perils of low-hanging fruit!) That shouldn’t mean that I automatically accept defeat.

When I finally got home, I decided to take a walk on the creek banks to see whether I could locate a couple of grapes. There was no low hanging fruit, but I spied some grapes on the ground. I looked up -- way up. Lo and behold! There were clusters of these marvelous mountain jewels in the treetops! I was able to pick up a pint or so from the ground, and I could reach maybe another quart of grapes. Last year, Richard had risked his life on a ladder picking grapes from the treetops. But he was busily loading the trailer for a run to the county dump and recycle center. I’m a total spastic, so I stay off ladders. What to do?

Just before Richard drove off, I asked him to do me the favor of bringing his chainsaw over to the creek bank. You see, a branch of an old scrub tree leaning beside the creek was loaded with grapes -- way out of my reach. Richard always loves to rev up his chainsaw, so I had him cut down the branch. I ended up with over a gallon of grapes. I don’t know if they’re fox grapes or concord grapes, but they’ll make great jam.

Upon his return from “downtown”, Richard helped me shuck the corn. Then he took over the kitchen to make one of his sumptuous salads. The kitchen floor was still full of bags and baskets of produce, waiting for my attention.

Since Richard was still working in the kitchen, I looked online for Sumac tea information. I came on this cool website http://www.jewishnaturecenter.org/ with all kinds of nature projects, including Sumac tea information and a recipe. It seems that Poison Sumac has white berries and only grows in boggy areas. And from http:www.countrysidemag.com/issues/87/87-4/Sam_Thayer.html, I learned that Sumac tea has been called sumac-ade, rhus-ade, sumac lemonade, Indian lemonade, sumac tea. I think I like the name Indian Lemonade best.

Once the salads were chilling in the refrigerator, I rose from my internet search and tackled the most perishable produce first – the grapes -- de-stemming, washing and boiling in preparation for grinding into pulp for jam. Next came corn. I grated, blanched, and creamed corn for two or so hours, then took a break for salad eating while the corn cooled.

Returning to the kitchen, I pressed the grapes through the foodmill, dying my hands a gangrenous deep purple, then turned back to the corn. I cut the plumper half the corn off the cob for use as canned corn and then ran out of steam (my steam, not pressure cooker steam). I stuffed everything into the refrigerator, and turned off the kitchen light. It was already way past my bedtime when I collapsed on the couch to watch NCIS.

Tomorrow, tomorrow, I’ll can tomorrow... It’s only a day away.

Wildflower Walk and Watermelon “Scent”

I went back to Cooper Hollow Road again yesterday to take photos of the wildflowers that Jack had pointed out on our wildflower walk of the day before. While snapping pictures, I ran into Jack’s friend Cotton. He wanted to know if I’d come to take pictures of the hog that had been stealing Jack’s watermelons. Cotton was in Jack’s field to get one of the few surviving watermelons to make “scent”.

When I expressed puzzlement, Cotton said that “scent” you buy is very high priced, so he figured he’d make his own by liquefying a watermelon in a food processor with a little alcohol to keep it from spoiling. I still couldn’t imagine why one would want this concoction. Cotton explained that after a hunter has been in a blind for a while, the smell of the hunter is blown all around the blind. The deer and hogs won’t come near enough to be shot, so the hunter has to trick the game with “scent”. You spray this “scent” all around the blind, and it masks the scent of the hunter (who, I presume, may be very odiferous after a few hours in the woods). I figure, if the watermelon “scent” doesn’t fool the deer or hog, Cotton can stay warm drinking the stuff.

I took leave of Cotton, finished taking my pictures, and went on to Jack’s. I wanted to harvest the corn left on the stalks before Jack and his brother Charles cut the stalks and bundled them into fodder shocks. Fodder shocks are those bunches of corn stalks that city folk use as fall decoration in their entryways. They were used as winter feed for livestock back when Coker Creek was corn-growing country, and most families kept livestock for food and work animals. While Jack and Charles create the shocks for nostalgic reasons, I want to experiment with the corn -- to see if it’s still good for human animal consumption.

As Charles cut the stalks with a machete-like corn knife, Jack helped me gather the corn. He suggested that the older, dryer corn would be good for “grated corn” for making “grated bread”. I looked for recipes for grated bread, and what I found is more like a corn pudding. I’ll have to ask Jack about that.

I sat down on the porch with Jack and recreated our wildflower walk with my pictures. Jack loves wildflowers and happily provided the local names for the profusion of blooms along our path. He had stopped to show me how the seeds of the Jewel Weed jump from place to place when stirred by a breeze or a passer-by. Golden Black-eyed Susan plants and several other bright yellow blooms tha Jack simply calls Sunflowers bloom profusely alongside the deep magenta of the New York Ironweed blossoms and the mauve Joe-Pye Weed. Jack said that his grandpa’s name for Joe-Pye Weed was Queen of the Meadow, the name he prefers because it has a royal bearing as it reigns over the surrounding foliage.

Jack talked about mountain mint -- which Cotton swears will repel gnats when rubbed on the skin. I don’t know if it repels gnats, but it sure attracts bees. This led to a discussion of different flavors of honey. Jack wondered if all the honey sold as Sourwood Honey is really made from sourwood. It seems that he’s been told that there’s not enough Sourwood trees in the country to produce all the honey sold as sourwood. He’s also has watched his Sourwood trees through a pair of binoculars and saw no bee activity. I’ll have to ask our local beekeepers at Seven Sisters Honey Acres about that.

Delicate deep pink blooms camouflage the pesky Velcro-like seed pods of the Beggars Lice which Jack says he removes from clothing by scraping them off with a knife. He had shown me the seed pods of a felled Sweet Gum tree, and told me how the women at the sewing factory used to paint them for Christmas ornaments. Then he talked about how he used to cut a gash in the bark of the tree to obtain the sap that local kids chewed before Juicyfruit came to these parts.

While Jack cut okra, I had spied a paper lantern-looking bud that opens into a beautiful blue and white flower that looks like a balloon flower and grows only in tilled fields. Jack’s grandmother called it Fly Poison. Jack had pointed out the brilliant red flowers that grow only on creek banks, saying that locals call them Cardinals. He had told me about the Bullweed along the path, and how much horses and cows like to eat it. He and Charles used to pick big bunches of it and take it with them to distract the cow while they milked her.

On our walk back to Jack’s house, I had asked about the tiny deep red berries on a plant that I recognized as something that grows on our land. Jack pulled a couple of berries and popped them in his mouth, explaining that mountain folk make beverages from the berries. I tasted the Sumac berries, and they were delicious – kind of tart/sweet like lemons. Jack wasn’t sure whether people cold or hot brewed the beverage, so I guess I’ll ask Mamie or Shirley.

Jack asked if I’d like to see the Wild Apricots growing on his fence. Apricot is one of my favorite fruits, so I was game. I was thrilled when we came on a fabulous Passion Flower vine in full bloom. When I exclaimed that passion flower was one of my favorite blossoms, Jack allowed that Passion Fruit is another name for wild apricot. He’s promised to call me when the fruit ripens.

Maybe I can make Passion Fruit jelly.

“Catching Up” on Canning

I caught up on canning yesterday (only because neither Richard nor I visited the garden yesterday). So, yesterday morning, I decided to bring samples of our canned creations to those who have been our greatest support network: To Mamie – Cherries Jubilee Sauce and some okra and tomatoes for her friend. To Jack – Carrots from Mamie’s garden, some field peas, and a jar of pickled beets. To Charlie and Deborah – Carrots, red and white potatoes, maque choux, green beans, and field peas. To our next-door-neighbor Shirley – A jar of okra and tomatoes that I had promised her at the spaghetti dinner benefit where I heard her and her family (the Daltons) sing last Saturday. To the Baerreis Family – wine and liquor bottles. I know --That’s not a canned creation, but I’ll explain later.

You may think we were kind of stingy with Mamie considering all Mamie does for us. But Mamie has dozens of cans of produce in her basement, and she’s began making her own okra and tomatoes last year after we gave her a sample. Mamie wasn’t home, so I dropped the goodies off in her egg refrigerator and went to the garden. I picked okra and tomatoes, and then headed over to Jack’s.

I had to return a notebook to Jack, and we sat on the porch discussing his recently published book, as well as his more recent writing about corn in Coker Creek. He also spoke of the wild hog that ate all his watermelons in his and his brother Charles’ big garden. Jack’s gold-hunter friend Cotton (who also hunts wild game) had spent the night in the field watching for that hog, but had fallen asleep on the job. As Cotton slept, the hog had come and gone; so Jack thought he ought to go check his field.

As I prepared to leave, Jack (as usual) offered to give me more tomatoes and peppers – an offer I can never pass up. I told him about the green pepper jelly I made with his last batch of peppers, two batches of which have to be reworked because they didn’t set. We agreed that reworking can wait until after all of the fresh produce is taken care of.

We picked all his red banana peppers to add to the ones already in my freezer from last year. These will become red pepper jelly. Now, pepper jelly is new to the mountain folks. They make jelly from every fruit, including tomatoes, but Mamie told me that the first time she read a recipe for pepper jelly she thought it was a joke. Then again, okra and tomatoes was new to them, and they sure have developed a taste for it.

As we spoke about all the okra and tomatoes I hoped to can this season, Jack asked if I wanted to go with him to his big field to pick okra. This field is about a half mile down the Cooper Hollow Road from Jack’s house. For a year, I had been meaning to have Jack take me for a wildflower walk. We grabbed a bag and started walking. The bag was full of okra when we returned.

As I headed to Charlie and Deborah’s my van looked like a produce vendor’s truck. Since Charlie and Deborah had given me several cases of canning jars – and since they host a bluegrass pickin’ session (to which we are invited) every other Saturday -- we thought it was only fair to share some of our garden bounty with them. Placing potatoes, peppers (from Jack), carrots, maque choux, and fields peas on their new granite countertop, I marveled once again at the great job Charlie did in remodeling their home.

Charlie is a real mountain man, cutting timber on his property and dressing it out for his building needs with his own sawmill. A great storyteller, he regaled me with the story of a realtor who used to take people to look at Coker Creek property, telling them about the gold-mining and panning history of the area. As the prospects walked with the realtor along the creeks, the realtor would remove a piece of fool’s gold from his pocket. Bending down and acting as if he found it in the creek, he’d announce, “Look at that. That’s the biggest nugget I’ve ever found.” The prospect would immediately sign a contract for the land. He also raises several kinds of grape. I was hoping to collect some of his concord and fox grapes for grape jam. Much to my chagrin, he informed me that all his grapes had rotted and fallen off the vine as soon as they ripened.

On the way “downtown” to pick up some prescriptions, I ran by Designs by Baerreis to drop off the wine and liquor bottles. Martha, Phil and Elisabeth Baerreis make wonderful treasures out of wood, glass, and clay. Their hardwood hair toys, sculptural boxes, kitchenware, toys and puzzle boxes, as well as their fused glass jewelry, and other glass and pottery objects de art and photography are prized by collectors around the world. They aforementioned bottles are turned from ordinary recyclables to unique cheese boards in the creative hands of Elisabeth. The Baerreises are also gardening at Mamie’s, so we traded garden tales and recipes.

My last stop was next door at Shirley’s. Shirley’s house is on land that used to be part of the parcel we bought. Her daddy was Rube Dalton, a well-known mountain musician. Shirley grew up on the land that we now own. I remembered that she had talked about the root cellar on out property, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask her advice on root cellaring in our cellar.

She gave me advice, and we talked for a while about her family’s musical talents. I presented her with her first-ever jar of okra and tomatoes to try and asked her if she knew anybody who had extra red grapes. She called her brother who said that the raccoons had gotten to his grapes, and that her own grapes had already been harvested. It was with a heavy heart that I realized that I wouldn’t be able to provide Richard with his favorite jam this year.

As I prepared to depart, I offered her some of my fresh tomatoes, which she accepted -- saying her tomatoes and her brother’s tomatoes were finished bearing. Shirley then excused herself, asking me to wait a minute. Oh, joy of joys! Upon her return, she held a precious jewel out to me – a jar of her mountain grape jam. My winter larder will now be complete.

And then, it was home to can tomatoes.

Garden Bounty Beddy-By

Harvesting of summer vegetables is almost complete. Now we have to master the art of the root cellar. Our property has a sure enough root cellar on it – even though it could be argued that it’s not a cellar since it’s above ground. We used it as the world’s biggest doghouse for the world’s biggest dog (Think a white version of Clifford.) until the dirt floor got saturated during our very rainy winter. Now that our dog has a cave in Richard’s work shed, we can rethink the root cellar.

So, I bought a book on root cellaring. Who knew that, not only are vegetables rather particular about their growing conditions, they’re also particular about where you put them to beddy-by. It seems that our carrots need a bedroom that’s cold and very moist. Our white and red potatoes like cold and moist, but never freezing -- and not too wet. None of these arrangements will do for our butternut squash and sweet potatoes; they like to rest in moderate warmth with very low humidity. In my family, we didn’t have separate bedrooms for each kid. Now I have to create separate bedrooms for my vegetables.

We thought we solved the problem of the things that like just cool and somewhat moist conditions (cucumbers, sweet peppers, watermelons, and ripe tomatoes) by either canning or eating them. But canned vegetables have their own set of rules. They not only require cool (but not freezing) temperatures, they also like darkness. And if you store them with your white potatoes, the tops will rust right through.

And the rules for canning…Oye Vey! Tomatoes can be either raw packed or hot packed If you hot pack them, they take less processing time than if you raw pack them. Depending on how acidic the tomatoes are, and what ingredients you add to the tomatoes, you may require either hot water bath processing or pressure canning. If you’re pressure canning, you must know the altitude of your kitchen and whether your pressure canner has a weighted-gauge or dial-gauge to ascertain correct processing times. And little did I know that you have to let the pressure come down gradually, or all your canned product will boil out of the jars. Talk about “The hurrier I go, the behinder I get.”

Mamie has a real cellar and a real garage for storage of her garden bounty. We’re trying to improvise with what we have. The butternut squash is now proudly displayed above our kitchen cabinets. Since our root cellar is above ground, we think we need a mattress and blanket to regulate the temperature of our “taters”, so they’re currently in mesh bags waiting for Richard to build a crib full of straw for them. The carrots are in our RV refrigerator. We’re considering making them into carrot cakes and dilled julienne carrots, then freezing them. And Richard is designing an insulated shelving unit for root cellaring of our canned goods. We have until first frost (usually mid-October) to create a sweet potato nursery.

Mamie was talking about some folks who raised chickens and foster children. She said that the chickens had nothing to drink but muddy water and that they could hardly eat because their beaks were trimmed too short. She observed that anybody who couldn’t raise a chicken shouldn’t be allowed to raise a child. I’m beginning to think that parenting classes should start with the care of a potato – or a tomato.