Summer's Sweet Bounty

One of my favorite things about summer is tomatoes.  Growing up in Florida, we always went tomato picking at least once a year.  We would eat them anyway imaginable; tomato sandwiches, sliced with onions in vinegar, and of course, in salad.  My mom would also can them for adding to spaghetti sauce or chili throughout the year.

It wasn’t until I moved to Atlanta that I realized just how lucky I had been to have fresh tomatoes.  Going to the supermarket I picked up “vine ripened” tomatoes still clinging to the vine and brought them home only to discover that while beautiful and near perfection in looks with their deep red, flawless skin, they lacked any semblance of flavor, none, nada.  I tried for a few years to condition myself to eating these poor substitutes for the tomatoes back home, but finally gave up buying them in Atlanta entirely.  Instead, every trip home had the potential for a side trip to the tomato field to pick as many as I could fit into my car.  We would eat as many fresh as we could, sharing with friends and neighbors, and canning what was left.


A couple years ago I planted the first tomatoes in my tiny garden and have increased the space and number each year since—this year planting 10 in the front yard.  And then, of course, there is the farm… working at Wolfscratch once a week has given me access to as many tomatoes as I could want, as well as a wide variety.  Heirlooms are my favorites, with their funny shapes and sweet flavor, especially Cherokee Purples, which are wonderfully sweet (my daughter likens them to watermelon).  These are closely followed by Yellow Pear tomatoes.  I can eat these straight from the vine.



Last week I came home with a box of yellow and red Roma tomatoes and a large amount of Cherry and Yellow Pear tomatoes.  I immediately began cooking the reds down to make a rich sauce, which I then froze in batches for future use, but I reserved the yellow for drying.  Lucky to have a “drying” setting on my convection oven, I cut them in half and without any accoutrement put them on makeshift drying racks (two cooling racks set over the oven racks to make a cross grid) and left them for 12 hours at 140 degrees.  This resulted in the most intensely flavorful tomatoes I’ve ever put into my mouth.


 


Next, I roasted the Cherries and Yellow Pears with a little salt and pepper, which I stored in olive oil in the refrigerator as well as preserving them with my handy “FoodSaver.”  This has become my favorite kitchen appliance of late.

This is Flea Marketing Heaven

I love flea markets.  I was raised on them so I guess you can say I come by it naturally. Growing up in Florida it was almost a weekly thing for my mom, younger brother and I to head to the local flea market on a Saturday morning.  So it's no wonder that the three of us wound up on a road trip for the “World’s Longest Yard Sale” again this year.  You can find just about anything along the way, from antique furniture to pottery; crocks, jugs and old ceramic bowls (a particular favorite of mine) to all manner of things rustic and sometimes just plain rusty.  Following Highway 127 along beautiful, winding roads from Alabama to Michigan, this is flea marketing heaven.

Last year the three of us piled into my Prius and while we were able to fit an amazing amount of stuff in the back along with our luggage, we soon realized that we needed a larger vehicle if we were going to take advantage of low prices on great pieces of furniture.  This year we rented a 15 passenger van, taking out the two back benches to create space that longed to be filled.


Our Chariot

Hitting the road on Thursday morning—a day earlier than last year—we headed over to Gadsden, Alabama where we traveled up Lookout Mountain Parkway toward Mentone.  Passing through Mentone last year we all agreed to and chose this for our first overnight this year.  Mentone is very quaint, with small shops, a couple restaurants, a Victorian hotel and the Mentone Inn; a charming B&B and our accommodations for the evening.  Each room has an in-suite bathroom, with claw-foot tub/shower, and the unusual feature of a tiny sink in your room.  The rooms need a little bit of paint here and there, but the beds were comfortable and the veranda was the perfect place to spend the evening after a day of driving and searching flea market stalls.

For breakfast, the Inn serves a huge country breakfast.  I’m talking scrambled eggs, sausage, grits, hash brown casserole, biscuits and gravy, fruit, and pancakes.  We ate until we were full and then climbed back into the van and headed down Lookout Mountain toward Chattanooga.

We refused to let a second day of intermittent rain dampen our spirits and crossing 68 onto AL 176 we were excited to spot a huge flea market we remembered from last year.  Parking out front was full, requiring a drive down a somewhat muddy lane to park in a large field.  We were in the process of buying Amish jams, pickles and cheese when the wind picked up and it began to rain very hard.  Waiting it out under the tent with the wind blowing a mist of rain inside, we found ourselves in the unusual situation of being cold in August.  This is when Troy made the decision to make a run for the van and pull around to pick us up.  Mom and I waited, and waited, the water slowly rising over our shoes.  I had a sinking feeling.  In all honesty I should have known from the moment we travelled that muddy drive into the field what would happen, but I ignored my better judgment, and sure enough we found him spinning the back tires in about six inches of mud, unable to move the van either forward or backward. 

Once the rain let up I borrowed a couple pieces of plywood to lodge under the back tires.  With me behind the wheel and Troy and my 76-year-old mother pushing  from behind (really, go ahead and laugh, it was and still is hilarious), we prayed for the mud to give.  Even with the help of a passerby who generously joined in the push unasked, we were unable to make any headway.  Finally, the manager of the flea market offered to call a tow truck for us.  We waited in the van as the rain began to come down hard again and worried about whether the tow truck would be able to rescue us… he wasn’t.  But, thanks to a vendor with a Ford 4x4 Dually and the chain from the tow truck we finally escaped the grip of the mud and after $25 and kiss blown to the 4x4 owner from my mother, we were once again on our way.

Later over lunch we were able laugh about this.  I got the giggles and couldn’t stop, which set my mother to laughing and there we were, three lunatics laughing hysterically.  I made sure to park on very solid ground the remainder of the trip, which was much less dramatic.  We each found a few “treasures”; for me this included a tiger oak chest of drawers, which I got for a steal at $70 and two chairs, both for $45.  I also found a couple pieces of McCoy, Camark and Roseville pottery, along with a couple old crocks and pitchers, and some really great glasses.

Old crocks and bowls



McCoy, Roseville & Camark pottery



I love this funky oil lamp and the silent butler, and believe

it or not, I have been seaching for a glove mold (at a reasonable

price) for a while.

We made it safety to Lexington Saturday night and headed home on Sunday morning, logging just under 1000 miles in four days.

Interacting with Dolphins

It’s been a while since I’ve posted; sometimes things happen that you can’t talk about, and yet they weigh so constant on your mind that it keeps you from writing about anything else.

On March 1st, my ex-husband Chip died (more on that later), and this past weekend Mr. Man, Amanda and I went to the Florida Keys to scatter his ashes in the ocean he so loved, on what would have been his 51st birthday. While we were there, we spent time with a group of people who were, up to that point, strangers to us. This could have gone any number of ways; it could have been awkward or uncomfortable and possibly even confrontational; it wasn’t. Far from it, by the end of the first day we felt we had known each other for years, we all just connected.
 

Mr. Man, Lynn, Me, Amanda & Peggy

On Saturday we spent the morning at the Dolphin Research Center on Grassy Key where Peggy (an ex-girlfriend of Chip’s) works. Peggy is a truly remarkable, kind and genuine person. I think we were all a little nervous to be meeting for the aforementioned reasons, but we all hugged each other and immediately felt it was going to be okay. Peggy showed us around and went out of her way to make sure we had a good time; even getting us a private session with some dolphins and a trainer. This was an incredible experience for us all. The closest we’ve ever been to a dolphin is watching them swim off the shore of St. George Island in the Gulf of Mexico. How many times have I fantasized about swimming out to them; I’m sure I’m not alone in that regard.

Santini

Santini & her trainer

The dolphins are so eager to learn and respond to the encouragement of their human audience. We applauded, and laughed, and smiled until our faces hurt. We watched as Santini, a 24-year-old female born at DRC, interacted with small children and did tricks for us; jumping through the air, standing tall in the water, and speeding backwards on her tail. She was awesome! Her trainer would ask her to imitate us and then directed us to spin around; Tini spun around. We bent our knees and bobbed up and down; Tini bobbed up and down. We could have watched her all day.


Santini watches to see what we will do next

Did you know that dolphins make all sounds through their blowhole? They only open their mouths when making sounds in imitation of humans. And you would never hear a dolphin call or make sounds above water in the wild.

During our private interaction, we met Merina and her seven-month-old son Flagler. If a dolphin isn’t enough to make you act like a drooling idiot, a baby dolphin certainly will. So cute! Everything the trainer asked Merina to do, Flagler would tag along and come back to the trainer for a reward of fish alongside his mother, squealing excitedly. He kept coming up to Amanda nose first and it was so hard for her to resist touching him as he was just inches away and so obviously wanted her attention, but the trainer asked that we refrain so that he can learn the proper way to approach a guest. Amanda showed great restraint and loved leaning down to talk to him almost nose-to-nose. We were able to touch Merina—they have a rather rubbery feel—as she passed under our hands. It was over all too quickly and we will forever be grateful to Peggy for adding beauty and friendship to what would have otherwise been a somber occasion.

Merina & Flagler

The center has a young male dolphin that was rescued from the BP oil leak in Louisiana—appropriately named Louie—injured and covered in oil. He was given only a 5% chance of survival but we watched as he worked with his trainer learning signals and seemed in excellent health. The center does great rehabilitation and research, and you can see just how much everyone loves these incredible animals.


Louie learns the ropes



Walking the Talk: How Many People Would Eat Meat if They Had to Kill it Themselves?

Today Mr. Man and I headed out to Wolfscratch to help process chickens.  “Why would we do this?” you might ask.  Well, we’ve been on a path the last couple of years.  Eating things in season—you can’t imagine how sick of carrots and root vegetables you can get during the winter months—that are locally (or at least regionally) grown and organic, and only buying/eating pasture-raised meat (this includes at restaurants, which means I order a lot of seafood when we go out unless we are at a farm-to-table restaurant).  So, helping to process chickens was an opportunity and a test to our commitment to getting closer to our food that couldn’t be passed up.

Six-week old Cornish-Cross chickens

Wolfscratch recently acquired 150 Cornish-cross chickens (these are the same pasture-raised chickens you buy at supermarkets or organic food stores) and they needed to be “harvested” within a couple weeks; personally, I hate the term harvest when used in reference to killing animals.  These birds are cross-bred to have the larger breast of one chicken and larger legs of another.  They grow every fast; at 5 weeks—when they are ready to process—they are huge and walk with the wide-stanced lumber of a toddler.  When I first saw them they were lumbering around the pasture looking for bugs, and I felt an overwhelming sense of sadness knowing their fate.  But, I was committed.  If I’m going to eat meat, I should be willing to kill it.

Please don’t think this means I looked forward to it, I didn’t.  And I didn’t enjoy it, I can’t imagine anyone would.

After we set up our processing station with cones for holding the chickens, hot water bath, plucker (handmade by Michael of Blackwell Farm) and stainless steel tables for evisceration, we all looked each other in the eye, the unspoken question “Are we sure we want to do this?” hanging in the air, and took a deep breath before turning our attention to the lesson of killing chickens in the most humane way possible.  I watched intently as I didn’t want to mess up when it came my turn to take the knife.  I must confess, once the deed was done, tears welled up in my eyes and I had to walk away to collect myself before rejoining the others to continue the lesson.  Needing to get it out of the way, I volunteered to kill the next set of birds.  I whispered my thanks and killed them quickly and cleanly.

Handmade Plucker

We managed to get about 30 chickens processed in the next couple of hours, after which time we had had enough of killing and cleaning.  On the way home I again felt a deep sadness and thought for the first time seriously about the benefits of vegetarianism.  I believe everyone who eats meat should have to kill their own at least once.  If we can’t do it, perhaps we shouldn’t eat meat.  We have become too removed from our food, so much so that we shut our eyes and plug our ears to the horrors of industrial food production or CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feed Operations).  I prefer to know where my food comes from, what it eats, and how it’s raised.