JUNE’S ENDURING JOYS
First—an apology. This newsletter is shamefully late for the simple reason yours truly got preoccupied with other things, mostly connected to book projects, and delayed getting it to webmaster Tipper Pressley until month’s end. She was on a richly deserved camping trip/vacation at a wonderful spot alongside a mountain stream, so that delayed things even more—strictly my fault, because she is so hardworking and efficient it’s almost scary. Still, late though it may be, for better or worse here it is, and I’ll try to be a bit less laggardly in July.
*******************************************************************************
June isn’t my favorite month of the year—May and October vie for the top spot—but it is nonetheless a month filled with marvels and memories. Here are some of the many features of June, in yesteryear and today, that tickle my fancy.
*Memories of running around barefooted and carefree, with the soles of my feet sufficiently toughened up to withstand pretty much anything short of a honey locust thorn or a shard of glass. Today I have to tiptoe around although I do try to get some flesh-to-ground connection through what is known as “earthing.” It’s supposed to be good for neuropathy. I don’t know about that, but I sure do like the slightly spongy feel of grass against my feet or dew drenching my toes in the early morning.
*Picking blueberries from the bushes in my side and back yard, with the original number of perhaps two dozen plants having expanded considerably thanks to “plantings” by birds. Not all those gifts from the avians who dine on my berries are first-rate, but arguably the single finest tasting berries I have come from one of them. This month’s recipes focus on that wonderfully tasty and healthy treat (see below), and it’s pure delight to saunter out into the yard in the early morning dew or in the cool of the evening (although right now “cool” is a relative term since we having a spate of days hotter than the hinges of the gates to Hades) and do some grazing.
*Enjoying blackberries fresh from the briars while simultaneously reveling in memories of days long gone when I picked blackberries in great quantities and sold them for a whopping 25 cents a gallon. I saw some in the store the other day (the pantywaist pretender type that grow on thornless vines), did a bit of quick math in my head, and figured out that a gallon of them would cost $25. Talk about inflation.
*Doing that math evoked another thought, one soon reinforced when the young adult at the checkout counter was completely lost when my total came to $30.56. I handed her two $20 bills along with $.56 in change I dug out of my pocket. She was lost and said: “You don’t need the change.” I tried to explain that I was giving in to her so I could get a $10 bill back. She didn’t have a clue. It was something the machine apparently couldn’t handle, and certainly she couldn’t. In the end it was necessary to get a manager to help. He didn’t say anything but I’m afraid I muttered, in the decidedly undiplomatic fashion that has been a part of my persona all my life, “They don’t teach math the way the used to.”
*June in my youth meant skinny dipping, and if you are a male who didn’t indulge in some naked water sport in your boyhood yours has been a life marked by a bit of deprivation.
*Tubing in mountain creeks. My adolescence was a time when vehicle tires still featured inner tubes, and an old one, duly patched up and pumped up, just begged to be ridden down rushing mountains creeks.
*Those self-same inner tubes had another use. They furnished one essential raw material for crafting a slingshot (in some parts of the country they are called flips), and making “weaponry” was a grand part of my boyhood. The search for just the right shaped fork from a dogwood tree or rhododendron bush was almost second nature whenever a boy was wandering about, and if you could find an inner tube made of red rubber (rather than the standard black), the gates to a boy’s Fort Knox for handcrafting weapons had been opened. I don’t what the difference was, but the red rubber lasted longer and had more “fire power” than the black.
*Slingshots weren’t the only hand-crafted weapons. Rudimentary but surprisingly effective bow-and-arrow outfit also entered the picture. I never tried to make a blowgun, but the Cherokees in the area where I grew up had once used them with considerable effectiveness. Somewhere in my mess of a study I have a photo of a genuinely interesting local fellow from my boyhood, Dr. Kelly E. Bennett, equipped with such a blowgun. He was always keenly interested in things of this nature and, better still, he took thousands of photographs capturing aspects of mountain life in the middle of the last century. Incidentally, he will be the subject of a chapter in my forthcoming book, “Profiles in Mountain Character,” and a number of his images will be featured in a book my brother Don and I are doing on Bryson City, NC (our hometown) in the “Images of America” Series from The History Press.
*Those long ago June days featured the “military” side of boyhood in another way. That took the form of building forts or looking for ideal spots for an ambush. Never mind that no invaders ever came and that the only sniper activity involved shooting at targets envisioned as imaginary enemy soldiers, it was a wonderful way to while away the hours. How I’d love to be able to capture in person, as opposed to doing so in print, the carefree moments of those boyhood days.
*Fishing. Whether fly fishing for trout or going after catfish, bream, and other finny creatures in the nearby river, I spent many a wonderful day with a rod or pole in hand. I reckon my days of wading rushing, rocky mountain streams are over, although I’m doing a regular regimen of physical therapy in hopes of improving balance badly affected by neuropathy. Still, I have to reckon I got in my fair share of casting to trout and a bunch more, and I now know that I was truly blessed to grow up in a place where I could literally walk to waters holding wild trout.
*The goodness of gardening. Maybe because growing a garden was something pretty much everyone did when I was a lad, I always associate June with the beginning of the earth giving forth goodness earned with many a push of a hand plow and many a chop from a weeding hoe. Gardens were hard work but also a source of pride, rich rewards, and for many (including my parents) a necessity for putting good food on the table.
*Playing games of rolly-bat, pitch-and-catch, marbles, or just riding about on a bike (in my case a $15 used girl’s version, but it functioned and got me where I wanted to go) cost nothing and got a youngster outdoors.
*On those relatively rare days when what Grandpa Joe called a “setting in” rain occurred (he’d say, “It’s a-setting in to rain all day.”), there was always the comforting companionship of a book. We didn’t have a TV, the phone was a party line shared with three other homes and wasn’t to be used for idle chitchat by kids, but the local library had books aplenty. That’s one youthful pleasure that I can still indulge in (and do) with enduring joy.
*The chores and jobs of summer—mowing our lawn and once I was 10 or 11 years of age, mowing some others; wielding a mowing scythe to keep weeds at bay in our tiny orchard; helping Grandpa Joe hoe his garden; gathering food from the garden and helping ready it for canning; caddying and the local golf course—meant a bit of cash money in some cases and constant contact with a firm work ethic in every instance. Once I reached my teens there was more regular work in the form of mowing the fairways at the local golf course with gang mowers pulled by an ancient tractor than hand a crank starter or employment at one of the many businesses in nearby Cherokee catering to the tourist trade. Work was an integral and important part of my youth, and in my opinion the youngsters of today who aren’t getting a good dose of it are being short-changed when it comes to lessons for life.
Those are but some of the endless pleasures June afforded in yesteryear and/or today and maybe it’s appropriate to wrap up with some warm reflection on June from a broader perspective. June is a month for rising before dawn and greeting a new day outdoors. Doing so lets you enjoy morning song as birds herald another day with a varied chorus that collectively entrances if only you have sufficient presence of mind to listen. While doing so you can savor the smell of earth’s exuberance—the perfume of honeysuckle blooms wafting seductively through the air or the elusive but real aroma of the natural world. It’s there. You just have to pay attention.
Maybe you’ll come across a terrapin making his slow way some place or see a humming bird dipping into the bright orange flowers of trumpet creeper. Or perhaps, if you are particularly fortunate, you’ll see newly born creatures of the wild in this season of procreation—birds just out of the nest and learning to fly, turkey poults bouncing around like puff balls while their busy mother tries to keep them in order and safe, or a deer fawn still wearing spots and a bit gawky as it gambols about. Those are moments of pure joy, and June has lots of them.
JIM’S DOIN’S
In recent weeks I’ve mostly been busy with book projects. I have the copyedited proofs of my forthcoming book from the University of Tennessee Press, Profiles in Mountain Character, in hand and am in the process of going through them with a fine-tooth comb. One of the great advantages of working with a university press is that the copyediting of one’s material is invariably meticulous, and in the present case the individual who did the work is outstanding. He’s caught lots of little stylistic inconsistencies, asks questions at points where some clarification is needed (I am all too prone to think “mountain talk” is something familiar to everyone, for example), and just makes things cleaner overall. The book is scheduled for publication in spring, 2027 (as I’ve said before, the process is a slow one with academic publishers).
I’m also in the short rows with a book bringing together food-related columns and recipes from the great North Carolina mountain scribe, John Parris, with supplemental recipes and editorial commentary from yours truly and a great deal of help from the wizard who brings you this newsletter, my webmaster Tipper Pressley. She’s a fine food photographer and has helped a lot on that front. I’m hoping this book will be available later this year and I’ll keep you informed.
The third book I have in progress is being done in tandem with my brother, Don. It’s a collection of vintage photographs of Bryson City and Swain County, the place of our raising, with some accompanying narrative material. It should be finished and in the publisher’s hands in the next couple of months.
I continue to write at pretty much my normal pace when it comes to magazine articles and newspaper pieces. For recent weeks, and this will continue for several weeks more, my column in the Smoky Mountain Times has been devoted to “A Reader’s Guide to Swain County Writers.” My recently published pieces, in addition to those weekly newspaper offerings, include “Negley Farson: Forgotten Giant of the Angling World,” “Sporting Classics Daily,” May 22, 2026; ”Cane Pole Days: A Vanishing Southern Scene,” Columbia Metro, June, 2026, pp. 36-41; “The Heavenly Strawberry,” Smoky Mountain Living, June/July, 2026, pp. 7-9; ”The Grandfather Factor,” Sporting Classics, Spring, 2026, pp. 44-48; Zane Grey: American Sportsman,” “Sporting Classics Daily,” June 9, 2026; and “Those Were the Days: Where Is the Boy with the Slingshot?,” “Blind Pig and the Acorn,” June 25, 2026.
THIS MONTH’S BOOK SPECIALS
The heat and humidity of summer lend themselves to reading on a shady porch in the mountains or in a breeze-cooled chair at the beach; or, for that matter, anywhere else. It’s also a fine time to enjoy some of the bounty of the season, and both of this month’s special offerings, in keeping with the season and the recipes offered below, invite pleasant reading in the folkways of food lore that is accompanied by some scrumptious recipes. That’s exactly what you’ll find in Celebrating Southern Appalachian Food and Fishing for Chickens: A Smokies Food Memoir. The former book, co-written with Tipper Pressley, has been one of the most popular offerings from the publisher, The History Press, since it first appeared. It is $20 for a signed and inscribed copy and I’ll take care of the postage. The second comes from the University of Georgia Press and is $24. Again, I’ll take care of the shipping. Payment by money order or check (no PayPal orders) to Jim Casada, 1250 Yorkdale Drive, Rock Hill, SC 29730.
RECIPES: A JUNE BLUEBERRY BONANZA
Before getting into some specific recipes featuring blueberries, here are a number of ideas for use of this versatile delight.
*Blueberries are a great health food, thanks in large measure to being loaded with anti-oxidants.
*Add blueberries to your favorite muffin, cake, pancake or waffle batter.
*Serve kids a purple cow by whirling milk, berries, and sugar together in a blender (I guess in today’s lingo it would be a smoothie).
*Stir blueberries into plain or vanilla ice cream. Better still, make a run of home-made berry ice cream.
*Add blueberries to a melon medley of watermelon, honeydew, and cantaloupe.
*Make a blueberry trifle using an old-fashioned pound cake.
*Partially fill an ice cream cone with blueberries then top off with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Tell children (or the young at heart no matter what their age) they are eating an ice cream surprise and let them discover the surprise in the form of berries as they get into the cone.
*Make a pan of snow cream and sprinkle it liberally with frozen blueberries.
BLUEBERRY BACKSTRAP
We normally think of blueberries as a fresh fruit to be eaten alone, adorn cereal, or something of that nature, but they also partner wonderfully well with meat. Should you be so blessed as to have the backstraps or tenderloins from a deer, those tastiest of venison cuts go wonderfully well with blueberries. This recipe offers a fine example.
2 tablespoons butter, melted
4 venison loin steaks, cut a half inch thick (half of one backstrap or a pair of tenderloins will be enough meat)
Juice and peel of one fresh lemon (about 2 tablespoons)
1 cup chicken broth
4 tablespoons butter
1 cup fresh blueberries
Several generous dashes ground cinnamon
Several dashes ground gingerroot
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Melt to tablespoons butter in a large skillet and cook venison loin steaks until medium-rare and browned on both sides. Place on platter and keep warm. De-glaze skillet with lemon juice, lemon peel, and chicken broth. Cook over high heat to reduce liquid to about half a cup. Lower heat to medium and add four tablespoons butter, whisking in one tablespoon at a time. Add blueberries, cinnamon, ginger, salt, and pepper. Pour blueberry sauce over steaks and serve immediately. Serves four.
BERRY LARRUP
As a boy I would occasionally hear some dish, usually a dessert, described as “larruping good.” That was high praise and perhaps explains the derivation of berry dishes known simply as larrup. Almost any berry, not just blueberries but strawberries, blackberries, dewberries, raspberries, elderberries, or mulberries—could be used to make larrup. This basic recipe will work for any of them.
4 cups (or more) of berries
1 cup sugar for every four cups of berries
1/3 cup flour for every four cups of berries (a bit less cornstarch can be substituted for the flour if desired)
In a large saucepan bring the berries to a full boil and then add the sugar and flour. Stir steadily at a slow boil for five to seven minutes. Serve hot as a topping for buttered biscuits, on pancakes, or with homemade ice cream.
BLUEBERRY SALAD
2 cups blueberries
1 (six-ounce) package black cherry gelatin
1 cup water
1 (8 1/2 –ounce) can crushed pineapple, undrained
1 small carton whipped cream
1 (3-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
½ cup finely chopped pecans
Place one cup berries in a saucepan, cover with water and simmer until berries are tender. Drain and reserve the juice. Add enough water to the blueberry juice to make two cups. Heat juice to boiling and add gelatin; stir until gelatin is dissolved. Add one cup cold water, pineapple, cooked blueberries, and a cup of uncooked blueberries. Pour into a 9 x 13-inch dish and refrigerate until firm.
Beat softened cream cheese, add nuts and fold in whipped topping. Mix well. Spread over congealed salad and chill for at least two hours before serving.
TIPPER’S BLUEBERRY PIE
This comes from my dear friend, co-author, and webmaster Tipper Pressley. She’s one more fine cook and you can count on anything she prepares meriting descriptions such as delicious, scrumptious, or tummy pleasing.
2 cups of blueberries
2 tablespoon water
¾ cup sugar
½ stick butter
1 tablespoon of all purpose flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon salt
1 egg slightly beaten
1 unbaked pie shell
Place blueberries in a small sauce pot with 2 tablespoons of water. Cook for 5 minutes with lid on, checking to make sure they don’t scorch.
Pour cooked blueberries and liquid into unbaked pie shell. Melt butter, remove from heat and stir in sugar, flour, cinnamon, salt and slightly beaten egg. Pour mixture over blueberries. Bake in a 350 oven for 35 minutes.
BLUEBERRY PIZZA
For a delightfully different if somewhat offbeat dessert, make a blueberry “pizza.” Prepare a sugar cookie dough topped with sweetened cream cheese and a layer of blueberry sauce made from two cups of berries and two-thirds cup of sugar thickened with cornstarch. Form into a pizza-like shape and bake at 400 degrees (watch carefully, because baking time, which won’t be long, will depend on whether your want a thin crust or a thick one) until lightly browned. Remove from oven, cut, allow to cool a bit, and top with fresh blueberries.