If you want to start an argument, ask who is the comic GOAT (greatest of all time). Evidence submitted: Richard Pryor. As comedy fans know, Pryor once set himself on fire while free-basing cocaine. His response was to turn it it into a comedy routine involving milk and cookies.
Let me tell you what really happened… Every night before I go to bed, I have milk and cookies. One night I mixed some low-fat milk and some pasteurized, then I dipped my cookie in and the shit blew up.
Richard Pryor
He had a zinger to finish this bit:
I’m not addicted to coke, i just love the way it smells
Above is an impressive specimen of the Florida Flame Azalea (Rhododendron austrinum) that is estimated to be somewhere between 15 to 18 feet tall. Its native range is southern Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and northern Florida. Despite its Deep South home, it is hardy all the way into USDA hardiness zone 6a.
This plant is just off of the northern side of our deck, which is about twelve feet tall above the patio below. It is good couple to five feet above that level, which is the basis for the estimated height. I planted it around twenty years ago.
Unlike many native azaleas, these are reliable bloomers year after year–none of that one year on, one year off behavior. It only needs a little supplementary water every summer in order to be happy. And when it is happy, every Spring you will be happy as well.
We have a new winner for the earliest blooming native Rhododendron, Oconee Azalea (Rhododendron Flammeum). The usual winner, year after year, is the pink to white Piedmont Azalea (Rhododendron canescens). This year, it was a virtual tie.
Why this year? We had a cold spell in mid February which set back the Piedmont azaleas. Then we had a warm March which brought the Oconee azaleas on fast. Another factor could be the placement of this particular Oconee azalea. It’s very sheltered from the north by a large Camellia, and from the east by our brick oven. To the northwest is our tall house. There could hardly be a location better than that.
Time for a close up:
The color is not quite as red as the picture, but it is pretty close. Our other Oconees, which are about to bloom, are more orange and yellow than this one. However, as red is my favorite color, this blooming first gets Spring off with a bang.
My late, lamented Mother in Law Agnes Olga always had the same question for us during any February visit—“Do you have your potatoes in the ground yet?” She always had the same look of disappointment when we answered no.
This year I finally got organized and planted potatoes early, on Groundhog’s Day. (For any foreigners, that’s on February 2.) We had a couple of hard freezes after that, but nothing a row cover couldn’t handle.
These two ten gallon grow bags are Russet (large) potatoes. We have an additional three grow bags of fingerling potatoes, two of which are also coming up. The third can’t be far behind.
These potatoes should be enough to get us through the summer. There will be some sorely disappointed farmers at the Festhalle farmer’s market.
This year’s Trout Lily (Erythronium americanum) bloom in our rock garden is quite spectacular. Each bloom is from a separate plant, though all have divided from one single transplant. That is, over a space of about ten years.
High temps next week will be near 80 degrees F, and vegetable seeds are germinating like crazy. Spring is here, and goodbye to Winter.
Melanie Jane has been permanently rusticated by her corporate masters, and needed a well organized home office. For two years she has been working under a pair of bookshelves that were completed loaded with cookbooks, including one pile that was headed for the ceiling–and we have ceilings ten feet high.
The solution was to take a trip to my local lumber mill, Rustic Lodge Works, and check on their inventory. To my surprise, they had a large stock of local Ash lumber, and at a reasonable price. This kiln-dried lumber was just the ticket.
I designed this case to be cookbook sized, with the largest books on the bottom, and increasingly smaller books as the shelves rise. The top is designated for odd sized books and specialty books. It was built to fit into a limited space–not too wide, not too high.
Construction is typical bookcase–shelves in dadoes (grooves cut into the wood), hidden by some homemade trim. There’s no glue in the case proper, as it is held together by some fancy French made nails. They are functional and decorative at the same time, like the nails in Craftsman furniture.
The back is solid ash as well, though it is made of beaded tongue and groove. Altogether, this bookcase is full of heaviosity, and should be around for as long as someone likes to cook.
We’ve grown Basil for decades, but have branched out from just Sweet Basil to local Italian varieties, such as basilico Genovese, the type used to make the most famous pesto. This beast is a new one this year—basilico Toscano, or Tuscan basil. It turned out to be even larger than advertised.
We ran across this variety when shopping in the OF Richter herb website. Strangely enough, Melanie also has a relative named OF Richter, but he ives in Alabama, not Canada. The description said leavers up to five inches long. Maybe in Canada, but would you believe eight here in the South?
Ocular Proof
Good thing I’m making Creole Sauce tonight–Basil will come in handy.
I stumbled across this design after buying a used copy of Early American Wooden Ware for $1 from an Amazon seller. It was first published in 1942, but I have the revised edition done twenty years later. This well illustrated book was written by Mary Earle Gould.
The squeezer was an industrial design from the time when lard rendering was a standard farm household affair. The hinge at the top is a scrap piece of leather, nailed to the two boards. The process is simple enough–heat the pork fat on low heat, and squeeze the fat out with the gizmo. It works inpressively well.
According to the French, there are five varieties of pork fat. Those include leaf lard, back fat, bacon fat, caul fat, and scraps. The finest is leaf lard, internal fat from near the kidneys. Two and a half pounds of local leaf lard yeilded three pints of lard.
I really used primarily one tool making these–a spokeshave. It is a quick and easy project, which will make you free from buying disgusting supermarket lard ever again.
If you made it through all that, you have probably determined that Middle English is a transitional form between Anglo Saxon (Old English), and Modern English. It is essentially a language with Germanic grammar and a mostly French vocabulary, courtesy of the Norman French conquest of England. The catch here is that all words are pronounced exactly as they are spelled. A long vowel is designated by a double vowel–“oo” is pronounced as a long o, and single vowels are short vowels. All this changed with the introduction of movable type, followed in England by the great vowel shift, which meant that not all words in modern English are pronounced as spelled. An expanded explanation would take a few pages, so I’ll stop right there.
Ok, it isn’t meteorological Spring yet, but don’t tell that to the native plants, because they don’t care. Here we have a Trout Lily (Erythroniumamericanum), the first of the native perennials to bloom in the Southern Appalachians. This is a signal to go trout fishing, traditionally, as the Dogwood blooms are a sign to go bass fishing. I’m down with both of those.
The temp this morning is exactly 32 degrees F, and whether it gets below that again this Spring is unknown. Our last frost date varies from February to March normally, and I already have cold hardy vegetables growing. And I also have a few potatoes in the ground. Even without a groundhog to help, I’m thinking this is going to be an early Spring.
When people involved in Sloyd (crafts) work hear the name of the central Swedish town of Mora, they immediately think of knives. Though Mora knives are made for just about every purpose knives can be used for, from Culinary to Military, they are best known for their woodcarving knives. The use of laminated steel blades in wood carving knives has been at the top of the Mora innovations.
Pictured above are three different generations of Mora knives, and from two different categories. From top to bottom they are as follows: the top knife is an older Mora utility knife, roughly of the length of the current No. 2 knife; the middle knife is the No. 106 carving knife; and the bottom one is the No. 120 carving knife. The differences are as follows.
The #2 knife is a dual purpose craft/utility knife that has a 4 1/4″ long blade. This older model, which I am guessing is 15+ years old, has a laminated blade with a very hard (harder than stainless) carbon steel middle layer. Such a hardened metal by itself would be exceedingly brittle and prone to breaking, hence the two softer and more flexible outside layers. I made the Black Cherry handle–more about that later. Newer versions of the #2 do not have the laminated blade.
The #106 carving knife is brand new, and a perfect length 3 1/4″ carving specialist. The homemade handle is a piece of Black Walnut crotch, with contrary grain that should be just about indestructible. The new brand name the blank is sold under is Morakniv, following the merger of the two leading knife making companies of the town.
The small #120 detail knife has a blade 2 1/4″ long. This version has the standard factory made Birch handle, a signature of Mora knives. This knife is somewhere between the vintage of the other two, and has the name Erik Frost-Mora, on the blade. The birch handled knives are sold around the globe.
Other items pictured are some bevel edged chisels and an Arkansas stone. The Arkansas stone is of the translucent grade, with a grit rating of 1200+. This or some similar sharpening device is absolutely vital to keeping a carving quality edge sharp. A good strop also helps.
If you would like to undertake handle making for your carving knives, these two chisels are the ticket. The narrow one is 2mm, and the wider one is 6mm. The 2mm chisel is the primary mortising tool, and the 6mm is a supplement. These are old German made Spannsäge chisels, though said company has been bought out, but the two sizes are still manufactured by Kirschen (“Two Cherries” in English), and are readily available.
Lastly, there are the homemade sheaths. The top one is a traditional design, sewn around a plastic insert, and the last is a rough and ready cover made to keep my fingers safe when the knife is in its tool roll. I should have included my cut resistant gloves as well, but all carvers know about those.
Southern Fusion Cooking 