From Unc's Kitchen

Now, I know all you young whippersnappers are poking around my pantry looking for some of my special lemonade. Well, you aint gettin any. Instead, we're making pickles again. This is a simple recipe for dills. They're easy and a damn fine pickle, too.

Boil and cool:
1 qt. cider vinegar
3 qts. water
1 cup salt
1 T. alum

Put cucumbers in jars ( wide mouth quarts probably best) with a dill head and a clove of garlic.
Pour cooled liquid over cukes and cap jars.
Best in about a month.

Soon it will be time to start preparing the feast for the Equinox. Stay tuned.

What Tags Along With Fall

Yea Summer!

2nd Hay, Take 1

We baled a 2nd crop of hay yesterday, but the yield being a tad disappointing , we're planning to do the whole thing again on the other half of the field just as soon as we get 3 days of drying weather, which gets harder all the time as the days grow shorter. We'll keep you posted. Maybe by then I will have figured out how to move pictures around. Drives me crazy!

From Unc's Kitchen

Overrun with cucumbers from the garden? Here's a fairly easy solution for your bountiful harvest and makes the worlds best sweet pickles:

Ruth Luzzi's Brine Pickles
(from an old friend of Chris' in Delaware)

As written:
6 lbs. cucumbers
1 qt. cider vinegar
8 cups sugar
2 2"cinamon sticks
1 T. whole cloves
2 T. alum

1. Put cucumbers in a brine solution that will float an egg for 2 weeks. (soaking solution gets pretty scuzzy in 2 weeks but will wash off)
2. After 2 weeks, drain and rinse cukes. Cut into strips or chunks as desired. Cover with cold water and add 2 T. alum and let stand overnight.
3. Next day drain and rinse cukes. Mix the syrup (sugar/vinegar/spices). Boil and pour over the cucumber pieces.
4. The next 3 days, drain the syrup and reheat and pour over the cukes again.
5. On the 4th day, put pickles pieces into jars, boil the syrup again, pour over pickles and seal the jars.
6. Enjoy!

Like dill pickles, too? Keep watching for an even easier dill recipe.

1.

I read once that the sound level in the passenger cabin of airliners is scientifically designed to give a consistant "airline experiance" to sooth the tattered nerves of the unfortunate souls who find themselves trapped in the sealed pressure vessel, not unlike the San Quentin gas chamber, filled with irritating children with Game Boys and the airsick elderly. This is much the same as how your allocation of mustard on your McBurger is the same in Duluth as it is in Tierra Del Fuego. Comforting.

"Just another way the airlines mess with your head" I thought as I fumbled with the controls on my Gulf Air business class fully reclining vibrating seat featuring a personal entertainment centre. I thought that was the vibrating system.

Fully reclined, the seat was oddly cozy but I wouldn't be down here for long. My hand was gently trembling on the "Lo" setting as I reached along the second tier of the service cart over the warm cans of flat Coke into the tray where they kept the bourbon. Empty! Damn! The cart sped away so quickly I was lucky to get away with the minor injury I did let alone get the chance to check for gin.

It looked like things were hoppin' back in the smoking section where the cart and nearly half my arm was headed. They seemed a rather vulgar lot; joking, laughing, pretending to have a good time, all the while not realizing that unsynchronized vibration causes a condition known as fretting corrosion on fasteners in stressed skin eventually leading to failure and there were probably 50 passengers with a certain contented grin in my section alone pulsing to different beats just humming along the friendly skies. Who could blame the smoking section for drinking all the whiskey.

My arm started throbbing with a deep joint pain and I was certain it was a pressure drop from shearing rivets but instead it was the band on the Rolex watch I had gotten a good price on in Rio cutting off the circulation in my already traumatized hand. I wish I had remembered those seditives I got from the vet when my dog had surgery. It was going to be a long trip to Dubai. But why? Dubai? A Woman.

Secret Formula Revealed

After being overwhelmed by requests for the Corn Pudding recipe, for which a written recipe does not exist, here you go:

1 can whole kernel corn, drained
1 can tomatoes, drained
1 can cream corn
About 1 cup brown sugar. More if desired
About 1 cup chopped sweet pepper
About 1 cup chopped onion
Good dose favorite hot sauce to taste

Mix all together in baking pan. Should be "sweet/hot"
Cook until done. I usually start at about 400 until it starts to bubble then turn it down to 350 or so and cook until it is thickened but not (too) gooey. Should take 1-2 hours.

Recipe can be increased proportionally as required.
If using home canned vegetables, just wing it.

This is an easy "shure hit" side dish. Bon Appetite!

Lughnassadh Feast Report

After a night of violent thunderstorms, damaging winds and a much needed rain, Saturday dawned bright and clear and became a beautiful Maine summer day. Chris and I headed out to camp early to prepare the feast and assure that the horseshoe pit conformed to the Marquis of Queensbury specifications. Chris then threatened to "whup yo butt" in a warmup game. Giddy with anticipation of that prospect, she was on. I took an early lead then with a double ringer Chris began to catch up. And then, the first of the revelers began to arrive. Drat.

The day being so lovely, it just didn't seem right drinking beer and pitching horseshoes. So, everyone grabbed their boat and went drinking beer and kayaking. Everybody except Bruce and Marcel ("Mack"). They decided to go fishing aboard the Miss Inclined, our new multi purpose watercraft. This wasn't all that much fun. Mack is a fairly hyperkinetic individual and put a fly rod in his hands and keep your head down. The flaying of the line overhead with barbed steel hook was downright dangerous. With my face flat on the deck I convinced Mack that we had to go back and light the fire. The battery status lights on the electric motor were on the "head to shore" level and we were still several hundred yards through the lilly pads to home port. Finally, the propeller stopped turning. and we were dead in the water. We hollered to Margaret on the dock to bring us some paddles and out she came with two kayak paddles lashed to her boat and we were able to row ourselves home. Sans fish.

This would normally be about all the fun I could handle but this was a cross quarter day of some importance. So, with the fire lit the feasting began. Our corn offerings for the first harvest meal were Chris' old family corn bread, my old family corn pudding and corn chips. Also featured were Maine red hot dogs. I don't know why since we basically live meatless. But it just seemed like the thing for a picnic.

I guess I just can't think of anything else exciting that happened. The evening wound down with everyone enjoying Chris' "Rafting Guides Brownies" under the gaze of my latest birthday present, a mounted buck Jackalope. After bidding everyone farewell and be careful, Chris and I reposed upstairs and watched as a bright orange waxing gibbous moon rose over the lake. Very cool.

So now we have until the Equinox to regroup and prepare for the next gathering. I hope you'll all be there!