Category: Rural life
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Fresh, fabulous figs
We waited longer for figs than for a baby. The latter took just under 3 years; the former, more than 25. And this year, booyah!, we have figs. Figs to eat out of hand, figs to freeze for making preserves and figs to cook. Assuming figs grew in Eden (fig leaves, remember?), why would anyone leave, […]
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Strawberry pie; pork and cabbage salad
At the tire store yesterday to get a pickup tire patched, I bought this spring’s first local strawberries. (Hey, in our neck of the woods, it can pay to listen to the old men chatting amongst themselves!) They were perfectly ripe and sweet, he obviously picked them before the drenching rains hit, and I had […]
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Best crockpot potatoes ever
Plug, plug, plug. This is what I do every day. Work at turning eating in a healthy way into a way of life. A lifestyle even. Keep track of my calories. Measure food with scales, cups and spoons. Exercise. Exercise more. Drink quarts and quarts of water. Sleep. On the plus side my flowers look […]
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Baby onions, grown-up onions
Baby onions have stems no bigger than the stick on a Q-tip. The easiest way to slip them to their 1-inch recommended depth is to use a dibble planter with inches marked on it (like the one made for me by my friend Jerry Keys out of poplar wood). Poke a hole to 1 inch, […]
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Spring is not for sissies, strawberry crisp
Somehow we associate baby pastels with springtime, yet when I look outside, I see primary colors: The sky, of course, is Carolina (ick, go NC State!) blue and the baby maple leaves, red before they’re green. The intense yellow of the wild mustard and forage turnips, blanketing Iredell pastures as well as the meadowlark breasts turned to […]
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Fiona, split pea soup
“…I think if you have the expectation that you’re going to be happy throughout your life — more to the point, if you have a need to be comfortable all the time — well, among other things, you have the makings of a classic drug addict or alcoholic.” From Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher (Simon […]
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Tryout, blowout
Some people drink when they’re nervous or pump themselves up with drugs. Some people just face their fears (imagine!). I ate malted milk Whoppers until I felt sick. Then I got up this morning and went outside and tried the new mare. She’s a 13-year-old quarterhorse, 16 hands tall and built like a supermodel, which means she’s […]
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Little House in the Piedmont, fried Oreos and Bambi
Kind of a Laura Ingalls Wilder weekend with some food adventures thrown in. Paul Bunyan kept working on the huge, old beech that fell near a friend’s deer stand. We cannot afford to heat by propane alone. He also pulled buckets of peppers before Friday night’s scattered frost. While I picked basil to make one […]