July 2012 Newsletter
Click here to view this newsletter in a .pdf with a white background for easy
printing.
July—hotter than . . . or just the good old
summertime?
|
As I’m writing this newsletter (on July 1) it is witheringly hot
in my part of the world. We’ve had two days of triple digit
temperatures and at least two more are predicted before we get
some slight relief. I had been taking a three to four mile walk
every day at dawn and for much of June those occurred in quite
comfortable temperatures. That has come to a screeching halt and
this is the second consecutive day I decided it was simply too
hot to undertake the exercise regimen. In fact, my daily turn in
the garden gathering veggies, picking berries, pulling weeds,
tending flowers, suckering and tying tomatoes, and the like have
been about all I wanted. Yesterday I was back in the house by
10:00 a.m. soaking wet and slap dab worn out.
All this heat, along with a blog about it on my good friend
Tipper Pressley’s daily “Blind Pig & the Acorn: offerings, set
my mind wandering down all kinds of avenues. Mind you, it
doesn’t take much to do that, and if an active mind is a good
sign as one grows old, I reckon I qualify in spades. First of
all, my thoughts turned to expressions I’ve heard over the years
describing heat. Most, though not all, are similes, and I’ll
share some of them. Chances are you will recognize many of them
while others will like be new. Most are associated with hell or
things from the animal kingdom.
-
Hotter than a two-dollar pistol.
-
Hotter than the hinges of Hades.
-
Hotter than Beelzebub’s belt bucket.
-
Hotter than Satan’s shins.
-
Hotter than Lucifer’s legs.
-
Hotter than the Fourth of July.
-
Hotter than melted asphalt.
-
Hot enough to fry an egg.
-
So hot trees are paying dogs to do their business.
-
So hot the egg’s cooked soon as it leaves the hen.
-
Hotter than a summer kitchen with a wood burning stove.
-
So hot that I saw a rabbit race with the cottontail and the
beagles just walking.
Think about these “sayings” for a moment and chances are you can
add to them . Colloquialisms of this sort give spirit and
meaning to our language, and I suspect every region of the
country has its own particular way of describing heat. I might
note that there are a couple of other similes I’ve heard often
over the years, but they simply won’t pass muster on the
political correctness front (I’m talking about “correct” in the
sense of being risqué, not politics, because when it comes to
the latter I’ll say flat out I’m more worried about our country
and more dismay with our national leadership that at any time in
my life). Enough of that though, for thinking along such lines
for too long a time can lead to a state of depression or
elevated blood pressure. I’d rather think about good things,
good experiences, and good people associated with the good old
summertime. |
Special Summer Offer
As most of you likely
know, the good Miz Ann and I have written a number of cookbooks and
contributed to others. All focus primarily on the good earth and its
wild bounty, and all feature precisely the kind of fixin’s we enjoy on a
daily basis.
One of these cookbooks
is Field to Feast: The Remington Cookbook. It is beautifully
illustrated (in color) using original art work held in the Remington
Collection at their Madison, N.C., headquarters. Scores of recipes for
everything from small game bird and animals to big game are included,
along with suggested foods for campers and a number of full menus. In
terms of format, materials, and printing, the book was “done right.” It
is in hard cover with wrap-around spiral binding. That means that it is
durable yet will lie flat on a table or counter top for ease of use.
The book’s chapters
cover “Venison,” “Waterfowl,” “Wild Turkey,” “Upland Game,” “Foods from
Nature,” “Recipes from the Folks at Remington,” “A Dozen Menus for Great
Meals,” and “Camp Cookery.” I include narrative material at the start of
each chapter.
The
book’s original suggested retail price was $29.95, but thanks to a
“deal” I got as co-author, I’m able to share copies as long as I have
them in stock at a special price. Send me $15 and the book is yours—I’ll
tote the postage costs.
All of the recipes at
the conclusion of this month’s newsletter come from
Field to Feast.
|
Back to Top
Hot weather takes me back to boyhood and the ways we dealt with it then.
Air conditioning was unheard of in the North Carolina mountains where I
grew up in the late 1940s and 1950s, and while I think Al Gore is a
bloated buffoon full of himself and the kind of material we used to
fertilize the garden, I will admit this is the hottest it has been in my
lifetime. On the other hand, I don’t ever remember a finer June with
more moderate temperatures, and to my way of think global warming, at
least insofar as being caused by mankind, is a monstrous fraud. Enough
of that though, let’s talk about pleasant things like “doings” in
summertimes of yesteryear.
-
Ice cream cranking. There may be a few things which taste better on
a hot summer day than a creamy dish of hand-churned ice cream, but
to my way of thinking they are mighty few. In fact, the next two
items mentioned below are the only ones I personally consider to be
in the ball game. I think part of the delight of homemade ice cream
is that it features fresh ingredients (I particularly like peach)
and the fact that it involves real “hands on” work. When it gets so
stiff that every turn of the handle requires real effort, and when
you’ve got sweat beading on your brow from the cranking, you know
you have earned your treat. Maybe the only thing better than a
brimming bow full is being able to lick the dasher where all those
wonderful bits of fruit have accumulated.
-
An ice-cold watermelon. If there has ever been a soul on God’s green
earth who enjoyed watermelon more than my Grandpa Joe, I haven’t met
him. After an arduous session of hoeing out row after row of corn or
maybe pulling so many weeds it seemed to a youngster that the garden
stretched over five acres, Grandpa would pull one of his endless
rabbits out of a hat. “Son,” he’d say, “I reckon it’s time we rested
from our labors. Your Grandma Minnie won’t want us underfoot in the
house, but this morning I put a big old cannonball watermelon in a
washtub filled with ice. It’s sitting out behind the cannery in the
shade and ought to be cold enough to set your teeth on edge. Let’s
check it out.”
We would proceed to do just that, and the sound and sight of a
dead-ripe watermelon splitting wide open as soon as the knife is
inserted remains as satisfying to me now as it did more than a half
century ago. I don’t know what the proper name for a cannonball
watermelon was, but I do know you never see them today. A good one
weighed 50 to 75 pounds, had a rind which was so dark green it
seemed almost black, and the bottom where it had rested on the
ground would be a deep yellow when it was fully ripe. They might not
have been as round as a cannonball, but they weren’t too far from
it. There was nothing sissy about a cannonball watermelon. It had
plenty of sizeable seeds for spitting (or saving for planting if it
was a sure ‘nuff prize), and when it came to taste these fancy
little seedless things you find today simply can’t compare.
I could eat watermelon (and still can) to the point where my bladder
felt fit to burst, but Grandpa was in a class by himself. My, did
that man love his food, and he had a cast-iron stomach which could
eat anything it seemed. He’d cut a big slice for both of us, and we
ate it the way watermelon was meant to be eaten—holding the slice in
both hands, working from one end to the other like you do with an
ear of corn, and spitting out the seeds as you went. It was a
glorious mess, but we could always clean up when sated to our
heart’s content. The only real “rule” other than eating it the
messy, seed-spitting, had to be outdoors way was that we saved the
rinds. Most of the time they went straight to the slop bucket for
the hogs, but occasionally Grandma Minnie had left instructions to
save the rinds. She would use them to make a run of watermelon
pickles, which were in their own right a treat on the summertime
table.
-
Cobblers. While I can do some damage to a properly made lemon chess
or brown sugar pie, and while there’s a lot to be said for a pecan
pie absolutely coated with nut halves or for a deep-dish apple pie
with homemade crust, my druthers run distinctly in the direction of
cobblers. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a berry cobbler (think
blackberries, strawberries, raspberries, elderberries, dewberries,
blueberries, or huckleberries) or one made from apples or peaches,
give me a cobbler with plenty of crust, hot in the bowl and swimming
in “real” milk (I mean milk with the cream still present), just give
me room and turn me loose. Lots of years as a trencherman and too
much indulgence mean I need to watch myself with such dangerous
delights, but fortunately you can substitute Splenda for sugar and
pretty much get by. I had a blackberry cobbler earlier this week,
and since peaches are now available in a big-time way I reckon that
will be next on the menu.
-
One final food memory and then will see if we can find a path
leading to another rabbit hole or two from days gone by. By my
standards of raising, dinner was the meal you ate in the middle of
the day and supper was the one in the evening. Lunch wasn’t on the
menu or in the mountain vocabulary when it came to practical usage.
Dinner was the big meal of the day, especially during the summer.
While the fare varied, it was overall pretty predictable and leaned
heavily towards produce from the garden. Standard menu items
included green beans cooked with streaked meat (also known as
fatback or side meat and sold in grocery stores today as salt pork),
corn (either on the cob or creamed), slice tomatoes and cucumbers,
squash cooked in any number of ways (fried, stuffed with a cornbread
and bacon mix, stewed, or prepared in a casserole with plenty of
cheese), slices of raw onion, fried okra, butterbeans or crowder
peas, greens, an assortment of pickles (watermelon pickles,
sweet-and-sour, pickled okra, and the like), sliced cantaloupe, and
always a big pone of cornbread. There might or might not be meat,
although if it formed part of the meal it came in a frugal form such
as hamburger gravy or slices of streaked meat fried to the point
they were so crisp every bit crunched in a most satisfying fashion.
Some sort of scrumptious dessert such as those mentioned above would
round things out quite nicely, and after a morning of hard work in
the garden or corn field every calorie was fully earned. Milk or ice
tea washed everything down in a most satisfactory fashion.
Supper was simpler. It would normally be leftovers from lunch or,
often as not, just a big chunk of cold cornbread along with a big
glass of sweet milk or buttermilk. There was always some kind of
dessert to satisfy the sweet tooth, and both Mom’s and Grandma’s
refrigerators held plenty of delights for a greedy gut boy who just
might get peckish somewhere between meals.
-
Along with work there was plenty of play. I reckon that there’s a
bit of an engineer in every boy. My brother took it from youthful
pleasures to a career, while it became pretty obvious somewhere in
my teens that I lacked the mental skills, the mindset, and the
motivation to go down that road. Meanwhile though, there were plenty
of construction and engineering projects in boyhood days.
There were two branches, both of them only two or three feet in
width, within a few hundred yards of my home. They were perfect for
dam construction, rechanneling efforts, and the like. Water
containment and redirection efforts in Bryson Branch and Toot Hollow
Branch may have been a far cry from the building of Boulder Dam, but
in a boy’s mind it was big stuff. Along with water-related projects
it was, of course, necessary to construct some forts in case members
of the nearby Cherokee tribe should rise up and go on the warpath
(never mind they had suffered the agonies of the Trail of Tears more
than a century before), a bunch of outlaws suddenly appeared on the
local scene, or a mythical gang of bad boys somehow became reality.
Dams involved rock moving and forts cutting down of saplings, and
there was also more than a little digging. After all, any
red-blooded youngster needed at least one hidey-hole that resembled
a cave, and if you could figure out how to re-route a small mountain
stream it was a disgrace. Assorted with these engineering activities
was expenditure of lots of energy, plenty of target practice with BB
guns, lobbing cones from white pines or magnolia trees and
pretending they were grenades, construction of bows and arrows and
slingshots to round out our artillery, and plain, innocent fun.
-
Bike riding also loomed large. This was well before the days of
multi-speed bikes with gear systems, and you applied the brakes with
pressure on the foot pedals, not by squeezing levers with your
hands. My trusty little 26-inch bike took me pretty much everywhere
I was allowed to go and where roadways or paths made it possible
(although a great deal of my adolescent travel was by shank’s mare).
All sorts of bike adventures come to mind. One time the highway
department strung one of those traffic counters across the road
leading to our house. I have no idea whether a bike exerted
sufficient pressure to record as a vehicular passage, but if it did
there had to have been some head scratching at the highway
department in regard to traffic on a dead-end street. I rode my bike
(by count) back and forth over the strip a full 500 times.
Then there were the occasions—two of them—when I had an abrupt
collision with a car door downtown. Bryson City, my boyhood home,
runs to precisely two streets of substance now as it did then. That
is to say, there are two streets where most of the local businesses
are situated and where there is parallel parking. I rode my bike on
them regularly, but somehow folks getting out of parked cars never
bothered to look for oncoming traffic as small as a bike. Once I
plowed squarely into a just opened door without much damage to
anything but my pride. The other time though, a decidedly portly
gentleman opened his door and emerged with singularly bad timing. I
plowed into him at a pretty good pace, and after he regained his
equilibrium he was furious. He lit into me verbally like nobody’s
business and threatened me with bodily harm. That was as far as
matters got because this happened within 30 yards or so of Loafer’s
Glory, the local hangout for elderly gentlemen and tellers of tales.
The poor victim of my bike was a flatlander, which didn’t exactly
redound to his advantage in this situation, and his threats to a
12-year-old youngster just didn’t go over well with the Loafer’s
Glory crowd. A couple of the elderly loafers sauntered over to
assess the situation, and pretty soon one of them had heard enough.
He told the fellow, in no uncertain terms: “You need to shut your
pie hole. Most fools would have checked to see if anyone was coming
before they opened their door, and if that had been a car instead of
a bike, you’d be a greasy spot on the street.” Things got tense for
a moment, but when the man realized that the fellow who was speaking
may have been on the elderly side but he had a bunch of back up.
That pretty much ended matters, and I rode away with ruffled
feathers, a slightly bend front bike fender, and the stuff of a tale
to tell many decades later.
-
Fishing of course figured mightily in my summers, and I did a world
of it. I’ve written about trout, catfish, and the like before, but
there was one special joy which normally was available only once or
twice a summer. This came when there would be a major rainstorm and
rainfall of three or four inches in a short period of time. The
creeks and river would get up, and this was all the excuse needed
for a rambunctious inner tube ride down Deep Creek or maybe a night
of bank fishing. The flooding often put the fish on the prod and you
never knew what you might catch—trout, redeyes, knottyheads,
suckers, redhorse, or bream. The rainfall also brought water snakes
out in droves, and riding an inner tube down the creek knowing that
a snake might fall from any limb was exciting indeed (we called them
moccasins but there were no cottonmouths within a couple hundred
miles, although copperheads and rattlesnakes were plentiful).
-
I’ll finish by running through a whole bunch of other summer
activities in a hurry. All were pure joy. There were “wars” using
maypops (the fruit of the passion fruit flower) as weapons,
slingshot shooting contests, throwing rocks using corn stalks as a
sort of homemade atlatl (Grandpa Joe taught me that trick, but the
educational experience cost me a week of pulling weeds to slop the
hogs—I simply couldn’t believe a man of his age could throw a rock
as far as he did), making war clubs and spears from hickory sprouts
or a sassafras root and stump, building rabbit gums for use come
late fall, skipping stones across the river, making popguns from
elder sprouts, gigging frogs, gathering all kinds of natural fish
bait and sometimes selling it, training to be frog men by seeing how
long we could hold our breath in the old swimming hole, savoring a
twenty-cent milkshake on that rather rare occasion when two dimes
burned my pocket, raiding watermelon patches like some band of
desperate pirates (I’m pretty sure the owner knew of our
depredations, and he raised enough a few melons going to wayward
boys didn’t matter), smoking and choking on rabbit tobacco, and just
being a boy. It was a good time of simpler days and simpler ways. I
know now that mine was a singularly privileged boyhood, never mind
that we were anything but wealthy. My riches were measured in the
treasure of pleasure, not in the form of goods or money. They’ve
endured and those joys are there to be resurrected from the vaults
of my mind at any time. That’s true wealth.
Back to Top
Recipes From Field To Feast: The Remington Cookbook
SHRIMP STUFFED VENISON TENDERLOIN
1 whole venison tenderloin
1/2-1 cup Italian salad dressing
12 large whole shrimp, cooked and peeled
1 tablespoon butter, melted
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1-2 slices bacon
WINE SAUCE
1/2 cup butter (use real butter)
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
1/2 cup sliced mushrooms
1/2 large garlic cloves, minced
1/2 cup white wine
1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
Cut loin lengthwise to within 1/4-1/2 inch of bottom to butterfly. Place
loin in Italian dressing to marinate for at least four hours. Cook
shrimp in water seasoned with Old Bay and lemon peel. Place shrimp end
to end inside loin. Melt butter in a microwave and add lemon juice;
drizzle over shrimp. Close meat around shrimp and secure with toothpicks
(or string). Place bacon strips over shrimp and secure with toothpicks.
Place loin on a rack in broiler pan and roast at 400 degrees for about
40 minutes or until rare (an instant-read thermometer is most helpful).
Meanwhile prepare wine sauce. Melt butter. Sauté onion, mushrooms and
garlic until tender. Add wine and Worcestershire sauce and simmer slowly
to reduce to about half. To serve, slice loin, remove toothpicks, and
spoon on wine sauce.
VENISON MEATBALL LASAGNA
MEATBALLS
1 – 1
1/2 pounds
ground venison
1/4 cup finely minced onion
1 garlic clove, finely minced
1/2 cup quick-cooking oats, uncooked
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/2 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon dried Italian seasoning
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/3 cup flour
1 teaspoon paprika
Combine first nine ingredients. Mix gently and shape into one-inch
balls. Chill meatballs for at least 30 minutes. Mix flour and paprika;
gently roll meatballs in flour mixture and place on a lightly greased
rack in a 9 x 13-inch pan. Bake at 400 degrees for 15-30 minutes. Drain
on paper towels if needed.
LASAGNA
1 (15 ounce) container ricotta cheese
1 (8 ounce) container soft onion & chive cream cheese
1 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
3 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
1 1/2 cups Parmesan cheese
2 (26 ounces each) jars tomato-basil pasta sauce
1 (9 ounce) package no boil lasagna noodles
50-60 cooked venison meatballs
Stir together first five ingredients until blended. Stir in half cup
mozzarella cheese and half cup Parmesan cheese; set aside. Spread 1 cup
pasta sauce in bottom of a lightly greased 9 x 13-inch baking dish.
Place four lasagna noodles over pasta sauce. Top with meatballs. Spoon
three cups pasta sauce over meatballs; sprinkle with three-quarters cup
mozzarella cheese. Arrange four more noodles evenly over mozzarella
cheese. Spread ricotta cheese mixture evenly over noodles. Top with four
more noodles and pasta sauce. Bake, covered, at 350 degrees for one
hour. Top with remaining mozzarella cheese and Parmesan cheese. Bake,
uncovered, fifteen more minutes or until cheese melts and is slightly
browned. Let stand for 15-20 minutes before serving.
NOTE:
these baked meatballs
are quite versatile. It is handy to keep several batches in the freezer.
To freeze, cool completely and seal in an airtight container. Use in
lasagna, pasta sauce with spaghetti, meatball subs or as an appetizer
with your favorite sauce.
MEXICAN BURGERS
1 pound ground venison
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
1/2-1 teaspoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon finely minced jalapeno pepper (or to taste)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
Combine all ingredients and shape into four patties (quantities can be
doubled or tripled for a larger group). Grill, broil or pan fry to
desired doneness. Serve burgers on tortillas (cut in half for a better
fit), pita bread, or hamburger buns with traditional taco toppings of
your choice. They might include salsa, shredded cheese, guacamole, sour
cream, lettuce, tomato, or diced green onions.
Back to Top
Thank you for subscribing to the
Jim Casada Outdoors
newsletter.
Feel free to contact Jim with your comments, questions
or suggestions at jc@jimcasadaoutdoors.com.
|