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.

Birthday Boil and Bread Pudding

Saturday night we went to a real New Orleans style party. Karen’s fiftieth birthday
bash was held at a stately uptown mansion that is now used as a function hall. The food was all the stuff that made New Orleans famous for its food, oyster patties, mini-muffalettas, jambalaya, real Italian meatballs in red gravy, shrimp Bienville and gumbo over rice, to name a few of the items on the buffet tables. Karen and Mickey are fabulous dancers, and the band they had hired was up to the task of playing all manner of music for swinging and swaying.

When we arrived back at Elaine’s, her newly wed son Briton and his wife Jeanne were at her waterfront resort with plans to accompany us to Scott’s house for a birthday boil in my honor. We woke Sunday at a leisurely pace, sipping café au lait and reading the newspaper while luxuriating in the sight of the sun on the water.

The scene that greeted us at Scott’s house in Mississippi was a pool full of people playing with children of many ages. Melanie had her babies in the tanning ledge that they use as a baby pool. Mel’s husband, James, was tossing Miya’s new neighborhood friends into the air to the great gleeful sounds of laughter and splashes. Nick, Cole, and Clayton played tag around the pool’s perimeter.

When Miya’s friend Dakota came to me with word that Miya told her that I play board games, I told her we had much more important games to play in Miya’s kitchen. We headed inside where Miya and Dakota helped me measure eggs, sugar, vanilla, and milk into a Ziplock bag. After making sure that the zipper was very securely set, the girls tossed the bag back and forth to mix the ingredients. They then tore the bread into a bowl, at which point the whole mess was mixed together and poured into a pan. Thankfully, we didn’t have any disasters like the time that I was doing a similar kids-in-the-kitchen caper on television with another of my nieces, Alyssa.

I labeled the cooking demonstration “Mexican Hat Dance Bread Pudding” because I was going to have Alyssa assist me in breaking up the stale French bread by dancing on a bag of bread. All went well until the bag broke and bread was sent flying all over the studio set.

I knew that Julia Child had dropped much worse, like a whole raw turkey on the set of her show, so we simply picked up the bag with the remaining bread and proceeded to the kitchen. I told this tale to the girls as they played toss with the bulging bag. I figured that Dakota just as well find out up front that Miya’s Granny “ain’t right.”

We had all come together for the celebration of three birthdays. Fun in the sun and a backyard boil are the best ways we know how to celebrate on the Gulf Coast.

Water Ways

It’s hard to imagine a five-mile-long, flat expanse of concrete being beautiful, but the Twin Spans over Lake Pontchartrain were wonderful to me for two reasons. The first is that they are another sign of Louisiana, quite literally, rising above the devastation caused by Katrina. The second is that the bridge, unlike the roads leading to it, is smooth as glass, providing a nice quite, bump-free glide across the lake that I so love. This is the first bit of the drive to New Orleans from where we’re staying on the Northshore of the lake.

I was on my way to play Thelma and Louise (or maybe we were playing Lucy/Ethel) with my sister Michelle. We rented a ten-foot U-Haul truck to drive back across the lake to our niece Nik’s house where we were picking up a sofa to deliver to another niece, Melanie, in Mississippi.

Richard was spending the day at the World War II Museum where he’s been volunteering since before they officially opened, so I figured I’d take care of the sofa. It was a really large sectional sofa that Nik and Tom were generously donating to Mel, but Mel had no way to get it. Michelle and I wanted to spend the day visiting with each other; we combined the efforts, and away we went.

I really didn’t do the math before I reserved the truck, but, in my defense, I didn’t think I had a lot of options. Richard and I arrived in Louisiana in one vehicle. I figured that he would drop me at the truck rental facility, and the he’d head across the river (the Mississippi) to work. He’d then have to come get me when I got finished with the truck. These two facilities, even though separated by a river are only about five miles apart, so this made sense at the time – sort of.

As it turned out, while I was sleeping, and Richard was up baking biscotti, Bub offered Richard the use of his SUV. I could have rethought my plan, but noooo.

Michelle and I had a wonderful visit, and we were very successful at delighting Melanie and her family with their nearly-new sectional sofa. The only downside was that I had driven the truck almost three hundred miles, round-trip. And the rental companies do charge for mileage. I probably could have bought Melanie a sofa for what the truck rental cost, but it wouldn’t have been anywhere near as nice – and I wouldn’t have had Michelle as a captive audience for nearly as long.

Michelle was about to be in trouble with her husband by the time I dropped her off. She still had to change for a dinner engagement with the company that employs him; and they were due to leave in ten minutes. I hope she’s good at applying make-up in the car.

I headed back across the river and then across the lake to dress for the friend’s fiftieth birthday party that had precipitated our trip down – which was again across the lake, but not across the river, in Uptown New Orleans.

The Day's Delicacies

Richard’s biscotto baking is reaching epic proportions. It seems that every woman we know absolutely loves biscotti; and when they hear that Richard can make it, they absolutely need for him to bake them some. Richard has become quite proficient at baking, but this becomes a bit complicated when one is in a kitchen other than one’s own. Richard took on the making of four batches of this treat in Elaine’s kitchen on lake in Louisiana.

We had to search a bit for all the necessary baking implements, but by the time Richard got started, Elaine had arrived on the scene. I think Eda would have been amused that he had a real Sicilian assisting in the incorporation of just the right amount of flour before baking.

The sacrifice I had to make in all of this was that I lost my sous chef, and had to do all my own slicing and dicing for making the day’s delicacies. The ingredients for the shrimp and coconut soup with butternut squash were mostly pureed in the food processor, with the exception of the squash. If Richard had been on board for my prep work, every square of squash would be a uniform size and shape. But with me wielding the knives, the diners will have to settle for “wing-it woman” chunks.

The second dish I had decided to make was mu shu pork. I should have known better than to attempt this on my own! All Chinese food takes endless hours of slicing every morsel that will go into the wok into teeny tiny strips of uniform size. This is ostensibly because the Chinese believe that no one should have to work for their dinner once it reaches the table. Have you ever seen a table knife at a Chinese restaurant?

For hours, I accompanied Richard’s biscotti baking with various veggie tales. The crinkly cabbage of the Savoy variety was relatively easy to handle, while each scallion had to be individually sliced into pieces of precise dimensions. The mushrooms were supposed to be slivered. I was glad that these were the only three vegetables that needed my ministrations with a knife. This left me enough courage to tackle the pork.

Have you every tried to cut a piece of uncooked pork into matchstick–sized shreds? I can tell you that it’s not for the faint-of-heart. Pigs are wiggly, even when they’re called pork ribs. The strips did resemble matchstick dimensions when I finished cutting them, but they mutated when they hit the hot pan. They’re now more the size, color, and shape of fat earthworms (which are also sometimes referred to as wigglers).

Once I got it all together with a nice portion of homemade hoisin sauce, it’s all quite good, but it doesn’t look like any Chinese cook was in the kitchen doing the cutting. Last I looked, Richard was still rolling along with his biscotti baking, but I needed a nap.

Hearts and Highways

It’s quite remarkable that we can travel through so many diverse ecosystems and still be in the southern half of the United States; and that we can travel all this in less than half of a twenty-four hour day. On our way to Louisiana, we passed through Mississippi. We traveled several interstate highways, and rode from rolling hills to swamp land. The trip from our mountains to these flatlands is like that last hill on the way home on a roller coaster -- a rather thrilling ride, but glad to be still for a while when you get to the bottom.

Richard and I share driving when we’re both on these six- hundred-mile excursions. I spend most of my passenger time looking for items of interest for my blog. The interstates are generally not great places to find excitement of the local color kind, so I was busy recording the differences in wildflowers and their blooming seasons as we headed south-west from South East Tennessee.

There’s still a great deal of uninhabited earth between our two homes. While I suspect that the Central section of Mississippi and points south have much biodiversity, much of it is not in evidence from the interstates.

It seemed that most of the trees were pines planted after the forests had been clear cut for their timber. The lack of difficulty getting to the timber in land so flat must have made it very tempting to the land owners to sell every tree in sight – and you can see a long, long way in southern Mississippi.

Redbuds and dogwoods followed us almost all the way down, as did dandelions. Red clover and thistle, which we won’t see in bloom for several more weeks in the holler, are already glorious down south. Since we are in Mississippi, it’s not surprising that the trees that will soon bear the state’s flowers, the majestic magnolias, grow wild interspersed among the pines.

Something that let’s me know we’re getting close to my childhood home is the appearance of the yellow Carolina jasmine and the purple clusters of wisteria flowers, all growing up the pines and peeking out of hedgerows. It’s certainly a more welcome sight than the kudzu that is choking so many interstate byways.

However, my all-time favorite gift of the trees in the southern springtime would be the Tung tree bouquets. What extravagance! Every twig is adorned with a full bouquet of bold blooms of the palest ivory with deep, delicate throats of blushing peach.

The Tung oil that comes from the baseball-sized seeds pods was a major Mississippi cash crop from the nineteen thirties until the nineteen sixties. The orchards were wiped out in Hurricane Camille, but some trees have sprung up, especially against the fence lines.

We had a Tung tree in the yard of our New Orleans home. Just as the redbud signals spring in the mountains, our Tung tree blossoming said southern spring to me. It is only fitting that the blooms are followed by the heart-shaped leaves for which the tree is named; Tung is Chinese for heart.

These Magnificent Mountains

Carpets of color, violets and vinca
On the winding drive down Towee Falls Road.
The falls drop off to a cascading creek,
Lined with every sort of flowering tree.

The trees of Pear, Plum, Dogwood, and Cherry,
Are both weeping and otherwise growing.
The yellow daffodils -- mostly dying --
Bright blankets of phlox have taken their place.

Various turns in the tight forest roads
Reveal views of pastoral perfection:
Cattle and calves graze in green pastures with
A backdrop of mountain springtime grandeur.

Redbuds peek out of the waking landscape
With their pale purple lacy flower fronds,
Until we’re west of the Hiawassee
Where another nature treat lies in wait.

The highway to Chattanooga begins
A corridor of the colors of spring.
Every shade of new green and red oak bud
Is displayed on the mountainsides’ canvas.

The pastureland opens mountain murals
Extending as far as the eye can see,
And the redbuds, the resplendent redbuds
Beautify the boundaries of our high-way.

This is a sensational spring season,
Made more so by the bitter winter’s cold --
Reminding us that these mountains may be
The most magnificent places on earth.

Returning to Our Roots

We are hitting the road again;
We’ll be gone for a solid week.
It’s time to clean the fridge
Before the microbes reach their peak.

There’s lots of food for Mamie,
And lots of goodies for Jack.
This should tide them over
Until Richard and I get back.

Mary wanted potatoes that had
Begun sprouting out of their eyes.
I offered, in addition, a butternut squash
For its seeds, and as an edible prize.

Richard went over to Mamie’s to
Remove last year’s tomato cages.
In this gardening business everything
Has to be done in proper stages.

I hope that by the time we return
Richard will be able to plow --
That is, of course, if Mamie doesn’t
Decide it needs doing now.

Now that spring has sprung it’s hard to
Leave the Cherokee Forest splendor.
But with our roots growing deep here,
We feel like real community members.

We’ll have fun away with old friends
But we will surely be coming back.
None of them will ever replace
Mountain Mama Mamie or our Jack.