Talking About Tara

An absolutely perfect fall day in Atlanta,
Rocking on the veranda overlooking a manicured lawn.
Soaking up the ambiance that Scarlett must have enjoyed
Before Sherman burned the heart of Southern Hospitality.
Red beans cooking in the kettle in the perfect kitchen,
Everything in order, as in a Southern home it should be.

The busy Buckhead boulevard seems many miles away
From this backyard heaven under dogwood and magnolia trees.
What a gift I've been given to create my Cajun cooking
For the particular palate of my friend, an executive chef.
I like to think I'm Scarlett in this imaginary movie
But I know I'm more like Prissy just trying to do my best.

Commercial Kitchen Cooking

I'm hanging at a mansion today,
In the most perfect kitchen,
Feeling oh so wealthy,
And it won't cost me a thing.

Today we're making red beans,
With lots of Andouille sausage,
In a big steam kettle,
And I can hardly wait.

I'll love to be working
In a commercial kitchen,
Cooking up good things
For lots of folks to eat.

I'll hang out with Chef Holly,
Making her honey's favorites,
To feed all his friends
As we party him to paradise.

Luscious Lava

I feel fulfilled regarding chutney "needs" now, but I still have plenty of fruit for pear butter, waiting to be pressurized. Meanwhile, I've discovered a whole new pear passion.

Mamie has been talking with great enthusiasm about Esther's pear honey. I came across this concept several years ago while searching the internet for pear preservation recipes, but I had no need to try it until Mamie kept mentioning her longing.

I was at a pot luck lunch honoring one of our precious people who recently died, when I came upon Esther. We got to talking about this delicacy that Mamie so desired, so I asked Esther her secrets. After coming home with a basic list of ingredients, I went online and found proportions and procedures, just in case I had any extras of the pear pearls that Richard had peeled.

I did end up with a few cups of Richard's pear pearls waiting for a home, and Josie had handed me a ripe pineapple a few days ago. Why not try something new? With a bit of whirring in the food processor, the pineapple and pears were ready to be cooked down with sugar into the golden elixir called pear honey.

For those who have never made jams and jellies, cooking down jam is like living in a kitchen with a spitting volcano. The syrup is so thick that it becomes superheated on the bottom of the pot, so that every time a bubble or a stirring spoon breaks the surface, a few balls of the molten luscious lava fly onto everything in their path. This can cause some serious damage to the skin of anyone unwise enough to be within range. And if the temperature isn't regulated just so, the whole stove and floor surrounding it become a hardened lava field upon cooling.

The pear honey is as good as it looks, so I'm now anxious to get a taste test to Esther and Mamie. Will it pass the muster of the canning queens?

As for the pear butter, I just won't have time to finish it today because I'm going back to Atlanta to finish preparing for Don's Party Into Paradise. After pressurizing the pears, I'll simply stick them in the freezer. I will, hopefully have our Coker Creek Kitchen Club going at the Smoky Mountain Christian Camp very soon after I arrive back here. Then, all the parties interested in sharing methods for good old down-home cooperative cooking and other homey endeavors can congregate for some family-style fun.

Maybe it will be the beginning of our very own Coker Creek Creative Camp, sort of like Foxfire and other folk schools, but probably more full of fun.

Trying To Train a Chicken

I went to see Mountain Mama and was a bit alarmed by the long scratch from her ear, across her cheekbone, all the way to the bridge of her nose. It looked like she had been sword fighting like The Three Musketeers. She is ninety, after all, so we worry about her health. I asked her about it, and she started laughing.

It seems that she was trying to train one of her chickens. Mamie has very nice nesting boxes for her hens, so she makes every attempt to have them lay in them; but,she says that some chickens are rather opinionated about where they want to roost. One of her layers didn't agree with Mamie's motel plan, so she set herself up on the top of a door that is still opens to the outside.

Mamie was fed up with the cheekiness of this chicken, so she decided to give her a nudge in the right direction, which would have been down to her real roost. She shut the door, hoping to have the bird relocate herself to her proper place. This method sort of worked. The hen was dislodged; in her hurry, and with a flurry, she flew down to Mamie's head. Darkness had descended,so the hen apparently thought that Mamie's hair was a nice warm bed of straw at a comfortable height and distance for her to reach in one leap.

The startled Mamie didn't see the hen hopping off her perch; all she felt was something landing on her head. This led to the natural reaction of giving whatever it was the brush off. This hen was having no part of this, and grabbed Mamie's cheekbone with her claw, hanging on for dear life. Mamie's hand was already in brushing motion, so she's left with scar from her duel with a hen hanging on to her squatter's home.

Mamie's mountain daughter tended to her wound, and it seems to be healing nicely. But I am left wondering exactly who trained whom.

Three Cheers for Chutney

Richard peeled and diced pears with care
To give our gift stash a certain flair.
Chutney's better by far than any other spread
That competes for space under our bed.

I like pear butter; don't get me wrong,
But once I tried chutney, I sang a new song.
The complexity of flavor in this exotic mix
Makes my taste buds stand up and do flips.

It's hard to describe what makes it so tasty,
With firm morsels of pears, it's never pasty.
The ginger adds a certain spice,
And the tart cranberries are ever so nice.

I eat it on turkey, and pork roast, and ham;
For toast, it makes a really fine jam.
I like it alone, out of the jar with a spoon.
The flavor's so special, it makes me swoon.

We give it away as Christmas presents;
If the Magi had it, it would have been pleasant
To present some of this chutney to the Holy Family,
A little something as tasty as tasty can be.

For families that are holy and families that are not,
We like to give food gifts from our cook pot.
We love to play Santa for the adults kids,
While they're planning holidays that flip their lids.

A little something to soothe troubled souls
Is the object of our holiday goals.
If we can bring a smile to Santa's face
We feel that we've won the holiday race.

Muscadines and My Man

Talk about explosive personalities. Not only are my emotions land mines waiting to detonate, it seems that most things I touch are either going to explode or implode. I made such bilious green muscadine jam last year, that I decided to really be careful and create marvelous muscadine jam with this year's crop. Well, life is what happens when we're making other plans.

I had so many muscadines I could barely fit them in my largest pressure cooker. Being an impatient person, I still filled the cooker past the "legal" limit. I was actually pleasantly surprised when the pressure cooker neither exploded nor blew the pressure valve across the kitchen.

After a cool down period, I ground the mess through the food mill and came up with mud-colored mash. I pointed this out to Richard, who allowed as it looked like sick baby's poop. Upon reassuring him that Mamie said it would come out okay in the end, he quipped, "Most poop is better after it comes out of the end." So much for his culinary encouragement.

Because of Deborah's impromptu birthday bash and having to go to Atlanta for the second of Don's Party Into Paradise planning sessions, this was as far as the jam juice got before being refrigerated until a later date. Today was the day for jamming.

After a relatively event-less first batch, I had to remake the second round because I can never do any repetitive task the same way twice. I don't know at this point if it's my ADD or my senility.

Having come to the limit of my ability to concentrate, I decided to freeze the rest of the mash for future jam sessions. The stove was, at this point, beyond recognition from all the burned sugar and dribbled jam. This is where my major missteps came into play.

As is my habit, I labeled a couple of zipper closure bags with contents and date; I then ladled in pre-measured muscadine mash. After zipping, the bags would be ready for the freezer. Except for the little problem with the zipper on the first bag failing, spewing beige blobs all over the counter and stove-top. At least the closure on the second bag held, allowing me to gingerly carry it to the auxiliary freezer with which Richard shares his work-shed.

I so softly placed the bag on top of other frozen foods, being careful to lay it flat for efficient use of storage space. As I turned to close the freezer door and retreat from the shed, the dam (or is it "that damn zipper?")burst, spewing what looked like a mudslide all over me, my clothes and Richard's work-shed. Now, I had debris from two tsunamis to tackle.

I laughingly called Richard to see my latest "Perils of Pauline." Bless his heart, the same man who always told me that he'd call 911 if one of the grandchildren was left in his care and exploded in his or her diaper, calmly began cleaning the similar-looking mess out of his shed while he sent me to the showers to wash myself up. He didn't even laugh at me, just took out the hose and started spraying the
shed floor.

Chivalry comes in almost infinite incarnations.

A Gift of Soup, With Strings Attached

I cleaned the freezer out of last year's veggies,
Forgetting that the green beans had strings.
I made wonderful tasting vegetable soup,
With its own dental floss, of all things.

Richard suggested that I add some heft,
So I added a good bit of spaghetti.
The extra cooking softened the strings,
So I guessed the soup was then ready.

I gave some to Mountain Mama
Who said of strings, she's not afraid.
She liked the part about having built-in floss;
She is certainly not a bit staid.

Since we had about four gallons,
There's enough soup to be shared;
Although we'll have to be careful of those
Who of stringy beans might be scared.