Cremation Cooking

Lilting laughter is the best way to spend a day, in the company of friends who work as hard as they play. Susan, Mark and I had a creative and luscious brunch at a Louisville restaurant called Wild Eggs. Many of the dishes were rather wild, but also delicious – like my Creole omelet with andouille sausage and Creole hollandaise sauce. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that Louisvillians can cook, like New Orleanians, they are proud to display the mark of French influence on their city in the form of the fleur de lis.

We discussed our belief systems, and shared our grief over our New Orleans losses. We also celebrated our great memories of that wonderfully crazy place, expressing hope that we’ll one day see it fully functional again. Susan and Mark have a son still there, so we spent a good deal of our time cooking up a scheme for regular Lucy/Ethel adventures to see our sons and the city we so love. Susan is the original Lucy/Ethel, so it’s only fitting that I share these adventures with her.

Susan took me on a grand tour of her hometown; this is a return to her roots. Louisville is a lovely city with a great variety of neighborhoods, and still much pastureland on the outskirts. There’s a great expanse of the Ohio River running through parts of it. And, as I find is typical of river towns, every kind of ethnic neighborhood and restaurant you can imagine.

Susan’s mother Eve lives just around a couple of corners from Susan. We picked up this magically effervescent lady and began laughing immediately. This light approach to even the deepest conversational subjects continued on through the trip to pick up Susan’s equally magical and talented daughter Katy. After a short tour of Katy’s new home, we headed to the primary destination of this trip, a presentation by the most magical of us all, Maya Angelou.

We laughed, we cried, and we cheered as Ms. Angelou wove a web of her troubles and triumphs around the audience. It is so inspirational to hear and see those who have succeeded against all odds and exceeded their own wildest dreams, especially when they can present their journeys with great humor, as well as great pain.
Susan is also quite a storyteller, and can usually find something funny in everything. At supper, her mother asked how dinner went the night before. This question was in reference to the delicious dinner Susan had served me. Susan admitted to her mother that the chicken had not cooperated in being the perfect broasted bird. Because Susan wasn’t used to her new convection oven, the skin was nicely browned while the breast had stayed relatively raw in places. This prompted Susan to regal us with her “cremation cooking” tale that is one of our favorites Lucy/ Ethel moments.

The four of us, Susan, Mark, Richard and I had gone on a supper cruise on Richard’s boat. The wind started to kick up on the lake, so we decided to head back to the marina and eat supper dockside. Susan and I were both good Girl Scouts, so we concocted a plan to cook beef stew in foil pouches placed on the cockpit deck barbeque grill. I got the coal lit; we placed the pouches on the grill rack, secured the lid, and away we went. We were thrilled with the prospect of dinner dockside as soon as we arrived in port.

When we opened the foil pouches, little remained but chunks of char. We should have factored in the convection factor, but we didn’t. It was like we had tried cooking dinner in a blacksmith’s fire with the bellows going full blast. That convection cooking can be a tricky thing.

Appalachia Awakening

The appeal of Appalachia is everywhere in the spring. All along the highway, the stages of earth awakening are absolutely breathtaking. It almost makes up for the difficult winter when we remember that the worse the winter the more spectacular the spring.

Although our early spring is almost over in Coker Creek, going north to Louisville, I was able to do spring all over in a backward progression. By the time I got to Berea, spring was barely breathing its first breath. The leaves weren’t yet in evidence on many varieties of trees, and the redbuds were still in their baby stages of blooming.

All this splendor growing out of the rocks and into the gorges put it in my mind that God must have created the Appalachias to have a permanent place for all these species of trees. We can’t cut down what we can’t climb to.

Berea is beautiful, no matter the season; it’s where I first saw, many years ago, the winter wonderland of ice-encrusted trees. There are signs everywhere proclaiming the presence of the arts in this area. I do wonder if the creative energy in places like Berea and Coker Creek is a result of all that waiting as winter tamps down activity, bursting forth into music, song, painting, pottery, textile, and all the other arts at which these artists excel.

Going toward Lexington, the mountains give way to the rolling hills of horse country. While the fenced and groomed pastureland is beautiful, especially when the horses are out on the greens, I still prefer the cradle of trees surrounding our holler home.

How fortunate I’ve been this spring to have the freedom to travel, experiencing the earth’s awakening from the flat Gulf Coast to the higher altitudes of the Appalachias!

Girl reporter Susan’s new home is in a suburb of Louisville, and backs up onto pristine forest land. I was greeted as I exited my van with the sights of the woods and the smells of home cooking. I already felt at home.

We had her house all to ourselves, as her husband was out with their daughter. We reminisced about our days together in pre-Katrina New Orleans, and made plans for future creative pursuits as partners in writing projects. We met at a writers’ group in New Orleans and both still have strong ties in the area, including each having a son there.

Scheming and dreaming, we had a wonderful herb-roasted chicken, sautéed crimini mushroom caps, and spicy stir-fried greens with sweet red peppers and onions. Susan is a great cook, and was my partner in a cookbook that never made it to the publisher. How nice it was for her to, not only cook for me, but to remember that I’m doing Atkins.

No matter how many years or how many moves have conspired to separate us geographically, friends don’t get any closer than this. I am one lucky lady.

Mistress of the Manor Mamie

Richard got instruction from Travis on how to use the tractor, and completed the tilling before lunch. We’re already a bit late getting in the “early crops,” and I’m leaving for Kentucky and Ohio for five days, starting Saturday. I really wanted to help get the planting done because I know a little more about gardening than Richard does, which isn’t saying a lot. But, more importantly -- unlike Richard -- I can communicate with Mamie.

Richard likes to converse in sequence, Mamie and I sort of bounce all over in and around issues until we’ve gathered whatever we’re trying to share. Mountaintop Mary calls this “going down bunny trails.” It may be more akin to chickens scratching in the dirt for some good grit. Combine Mamie’s conversation patterns with her hearing problems and Richard’s voice that he says, “doesn’t carry farther than my nose,” and communication can be decidedly difficult.

I had been telling Mamie that her contribution to the garden was going to be as a boss lady sitting in an easy chair, under an umbrella, with a cool drink in her hand. When we showed up at her house, ready to work, she admitted to me that she was “wore out” from doing so much already that day.

I told her that I had a chair with an umbrella all set up for her and that all she needed was the cool drink. I suggested that she drive down to the field with her beverage, but she’d have none of that. She grabbed her hoe and some seed and sashayed herself down to the newly tilled plot where she stood in the dirt, leaning on her hoe, waiting for an assignment.

Last year, the process began with eyeballing the rows, which created confusion when it came time for tilling between the rows. Tillers operate best in straight lines, not on random bunny trails. I took her aside and reminded her that Richard is a scientist, and likes to do everything in a measured manner. I admitted that it takes longer, and she added, “But it looks so much prettier.” This was a good enough reason for Richard’s rational approach in her mind, so we went with it.

As Richard measured and marked, Mamie sat with me discussing what should go where in the garden based on companion planting methods and the need to keep her chickens away from some crops. She was so cute sitting in the shade that I told her next time I’d bring a recliner for her to nap in. She insisted that she wasn’t sleepy, just “wore out” from working, and got up to go to the house for a glass of water. Next thing we knew, Mamie was back in her big white car with a pitcher of ice water and drinking cups for her farm hands.

She watched and advised, but I did catch her napping; so I took a picture of Richard in the foreground with her dozing in the background. I told her I need that photo to defend my honor when she tells everybody that whenever there’s work to be done, I leave town and leave the work to Richard. We got a good laugh over that.

We put in potatoes, carrots, beets, radishes, onions, spinach, and lettuce – in all twelve rows with ten varieties of vegetables. After Mamie went inside, I planted a few gladiola bulbs as summer surprises. We’ve completed our first crop creation foray this spring.

Travis-less Tractor

We went to Mamie’s to harrow the fields in preparation for planting. I set up camp chairs with umbrellas for me and Mamie to sit like ladies of leisure while Richard traversed the fields with Mamie’s tractor. The only problem was that we couldn’t figure out how to disconnect the plow and attach the harrow.

Mamie’s tractor is an oldie-but-goldie from the nineteen-fifties. There are several peculiarities to starting it when it has gas, but it was out of fuel. Richard remedied that situation with fuel from home, and returned ready to remedy the problem.

He was able to move the tractor into position for swapping the implements, and Mamie was sure that it was an easy fix to change them out. What had been easy for her son Frank and was still easy for her grandson Travis wasn’t so easy for those of us who had never done it. Richard decided to wait on Travis to tutor him in tractor transformation techniques; and Travis has a full-time job an hour away. So much for our plan du jour.

Mamie and I decided to run the roads together in search of seeds for our garden. She keeps seeds from year-to-year, but there are some vegetables from which she doesn’t collect seed, so we have to buy them every spring. We started at the hardware store in Tellico Plains, and made our way all over Monroe County from there.

Mamie is old school, from a depression-era economy. She doesn’t believe in paying for packaging when loose-pack seeds are less expensive. It doesn’t matter that we may have to spend all day and a tank of gas to find these bargains. It also doesn’t matter that we need very few seeds of any single vegetable for the three of us eating from our garden. A deal is a deal.

I was looking for lettuce of the romaine variety, and Mamie craved carrot seeds for extra large carrots. Our local hardware store had neither, so we set out for Sweetwater.

We did have a lovely day together, enjoying the roadside scenery on the way to Sweetwater. Mamie insisted on stopping for lunch at her favorite seafood place, Captain D’s. She grew up with fresh seafood on the Gulf Coast of Texas, and still craves seafood, even if it is from Captain D’s.

The Sweetwater vegetable market was bursting with colorful plants and so many seed varieties, but we couldn’t find carrot seeds. It was time to loop over to our last resort, Wal-Mart garden center. Success was ours at last. We headed home, but not without a stop on the way to pull up clumps of fern from one of Mamie’s properties for transplanting into our yards.

There are no dull days with my Mountain Mama Mamie. At ninety, she’s still up for adventure, and enthralled by all of nature and humanity. She’s proud of the fact that she only takes two pills per day. We should all be so successful at life.

Motel, Mountains, and Mamie

We woke in a nasty motel room from which we were anxious to make our escape -- but not nearly as anxious as we had been to bed down the night before. The sheets seemed clean so we stayed -- even after finding ashtrays on the dresser and burn holes on the bedspread – in a non-smoking room.

There was a desk and free wi-fi, but no electrical outlet free for plugging in anything without disconnecting a necessary light or refrigerator. It wasn’t until I went to potty at midnight that the toilet seat slipped off the handicap-height commode.

As we compared notes on the motel at breakfast (not at the motel, I should add), I pointed out to Richard that this had been a handicapped room. He suggested that I had misunderstood; that it was a room that, instead of catering to handicaps, caused them.

All was well as soon as we stepped out into the glorious spring day we were given for returning to our Tennessee Mountain Home. As we progressed into the higher elevations, we commented more times than I can count on how three-dimensional the mountains seem with the many shades of spring in their foregrounds and backdrops. As spring matures into summer, the wooded hills will become more uniformly dark, lush, forest green.

It’s amazing how much can be missed in one week away. Our dogwoods which hadn’t begun to show white had flowered and were now mostly leafy green with a few remaining blossoms. The very talented local artist and photographer, Judy, is faithfully photographing the progression of spring, so I am, thankfully, able to catch up with her postings of flower photos on facebook.

As soon as Richard unpacked the van, he headed over to Mamie’s. He was chomping at the bit to discuss the garden with her. Mamie continues to insist that the garden at her house is ours to do with as we wish; it looks like she may mean it. Apparently, Mamie was just waiting for our return to get the garden going; within a couple of hours of Richard’s visit, she called with news that her grandson had just plowed the plot.

We’re starting First Friday Coker Creek Community Suppers next month to take advantage of our excess garden production. We’ll be inviting others to contribute food, entertainment, and work fellowship. In addition to the free-for-the-taking produce that Ken leaves in front of the Welcome Center, and the excess production of many other residents who garden, there is a community garden going in at Coker Creek Village.

If we can’t get donations of meat, there’s always Lynda’s church’s Angel Food Ministries for purchasing it at a reduced price. We should be able to feed multitudes for very little cash outlay, and have a great time getting to know our neighbors.

What I miss most about south Louisiana is the sense of celebration. It’s time for me to stop whining and start slinging hash while bringing in singers and other entertainers to add a little more fun to the faith, family, and food that form the backbone of the value system in these hills.

Gayle, Gardens and Goodbyes

We had fun in our old stomping grounds
But it was now time to go.
As always there were last minute things
To share before we parted.

Gayle had gardened and took me on a
Nice tour of her handiwork.
We made Gayle some orange, ginger beef
Before we headed for home.

We drove flatlands of Mississippi --
The same in Alabama.
We’re looking forward to the forests
As we head for Tennessee.

Mamie and her garden are waiting
As are our two faithful pets.
Appalachian springtime beckons us;
Today we’ll make it home.

Goodies for Gayle -- and Chuck

We’re at Gayle’s to fill her freezer and pantry. Richard was also recruited by Chuck to help him stop the squirrel party going on in their attic. After the hole in the eave was patched, putting a dead end on the squirrel highway, Richard and I took over Gayle’s kitchen.

In the last three days, Richard has managed to bake five batches of biscotti, the last two for Gayle. These batches were a part of an experiment with alternatives to wheat flour for baking. Gayle was thrilled with this gift. Now that that project is complete, hopefully, we won’t be bandying that “B” word around for a while.

I worked on supper on the other side of Gayle’s kitchen. Once again, I did the slicing and dicing – and the whipping. The knife work was for Burgundy Beef, the last batch of which was made in the holler by Richard. There, we used whatever beef happened to be in our freezer, in that case stew meat. Knowing that Richard had done significant trim work to get the randomly chosen chunks of bovine to behave, I chose an easy-to-prep eye of round. The results weren’t nearly as flavorful as Richard’s batch; and here I was without my pantry of potions for flavor enhancing to remedy the situation.

I had promised Chuck a dessert of floating island, a lovely Julia Child concoction that requires a dozen egg whites to be beaten to soft peaks. This is baked into an “island” of meringue. Little did I know when planning the menu that any kitchen could exist without an electric mixer. I had to make do with a wire whisk. I must have beaten those egg whites for forty minutes before sliding them into a baking dish. Gayle said upon awakening that she thought the noise was squirrels caught in a trap in the attic, trying to make an escape – apparently with fancy footwork.

The second half of the dessert calls for a Crème Anglaise (otherwise known as custard sauce) for the island to float on. Gayle also can’t have dairy products, so another science experiment ensued. The first batch of sauce, I made with coconut cream, which turned out quite well. The second batch tasted delicious, but the texture was a bit too tight.

These culinary quirks don’t happen to Richard as often as they do to me because he knows he can’t multi-task, like walk and chew gum at the same time – or talk while tending a custard concoction. I act as if I can juggle tasks, but only end up renaming things that don’t come out right. I didn’t have to bother renaming this one. The island did float, even if it was on a slightly chunky sea. Besides, Chuck had never had this dessert before, and wasn’t any the wiser about my version’s variations.

Gayle loved her coconut cream Crème Anglaise which I had finished of with a sprinkling of toasted coconut flakes. Unfortunately, these weren’t the only flakes at the supper table that night.