Great Barbecue for a Purpose

 Pioneers Inc. of Hopkinsville, KY

Summer wouldn't be complete without barbecue, and I love the barbecue made by Pioneers, Inc. in Hopkinsville. Keely drives by their billboard on North Main Street as she goes to work, so she keeps me updated on their barbecue schedule -- always on Friday, but not every Friday.

Pioneers Inc. is a busy volunteer group, and barbecue is one of their fund-raising activities. The Pioneers are locally famous for delicious, homestyle food. If you ever have the good fortune to be invited to an event that they cater, you would be a fool to refuse the invitation.

The line for barbecue at the Pioneers' Smith Pavilion is always an interesting cross-section of the local population. A volunteer behind the window at left takes orders and payments. Then the customers wait a few minutes for their orders to be handed to them through the window at right.  It's not a fast process, but the line does move, and the wait is absolutely worthwhile.

The menu has a variety of sandwiches, sides, and meats for carry-out or eat-in (at the picnic tables.) I usually get a pound or two of the barbecued pork to take home. Keely and Taurus like to keep some Pioneers barbecue sauce on hand.

At work, earlier in the day that I took these pictures, an elderly lady told me that she was expecting overnight guests. She described all the work she had done to get her house ready, and I asked her if she was doing a lot of cooking, too. "No," she said. "I've already made potato salad, and I'm going to buy a pound of barbecue."

"Are you going to get some Pioneers?" I asked her. "Oh, I wish I could!  That would be so nice!" she said. "Are they cooking this weekend?" I assured her that they were, and she thanked me profusely. She even came by a few days later to thank me again.  "Thank the Pioneers, not me," I told her. That's the sort of respect that Pioneers' barbecue gets around here.

Pioneers Inc., a civic group of Christian black men, was organized in 1952. The income from their projects goes to college scholarships, Christmas gifts and food baskets for needy families, and other community projects and needs. I think of their barbecue as one more nice thing that they do for the community.

Homemade "Gourmet" Pretzels

Double-dipped decadence!

I'm going to take these to a potluck tomorrow, and I hope they will be a success. Sometimes I have trouble with potlucks.

The white ones were dipped in melted peanut butter chips, then in white almond bark. Their toppings are walnut chips and mini-M&Ms.

The chocolate ones were dipped in melted Kraft caramels (what a mess--next time I'm using butterscotch chips, instead!), then dipped in chocolate almond bark, and then sprinkled with Heath brickle or crushed Chick-o-Stick.

Better Bread = Less Divorce

Dr. Harvey M. Wiley, food purity crusader

Atlantic City, N.J., July 16, 1908
Dr. Wiley of the Government's "Poison Squad," Talks of Foods.

"Better bread making would lead to fewer divorces," said Dr. H. M. Wiley, of the government's "poison squad" in an address before the American Biscuit Makers association.

"Good bread, in my opinion," he added, "would help solve the American evil of divorce. If the bakers make good bread and they educate the people to buy it, the great destroyer of domestic happiness, dyspesia, would be removed and we will hear no more of the divorce problem."

Quoted from the Lewiston Evening Journal, Lewiston, Maine, July 16, 1908, page 1, column 3.

Ah, dyspesia, the wrecker of marriages! Apparently, "dyspesia" is an old-time medical term that encompassed a list of indigestive symptoms: gas, bloating, belching, nausea, heartburn, etc. I agree with the doctor that it would be a very good thing indeed to eliminate those things from marriage.

I'm smiling at the thought of Victorian spouses enduring each other's dyspesia, but I'm also remembering that food purity regulation was in its infancy in 1908. Contaminated, spoiled, and unsafe ingredients were a huge problem.

Dr. Harvey Washington Wiley, (1844-1930) was the Dr. Wiley of the newspaper story I quoted above. He was the chief chemist of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) from 1882-1912. His research into food safety changed the lives of Americans then and still affects us today.

Dr. Wiley in his laboratory at the USDA

When asked by Congress to help determine the safety of food preservatives, Dr. Wiley developed a battery of tests to detect and measure the amount being used in foods. Then he organized "Poison Squads" of volunteers who ate a diet containing controlled amounts of the four food preservatives that Wiley considered most dangerous: borax, salicylic acid, formaldehyde, and copper sulfate. Careful records were kept of the amount of these preservatives the men consumed, the amount that was excreted, and the condition of their health.

Because of the publicity generated by Dr. Wiley and the Poison Squads, the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 was passed by Congress and signed by President Theodore Roosevelt. Surprisingly, this act did not eliminate the food preservatives mentioned above.

 "While Wiley agreed that small amounts of preservatives were harmless and could slow food spoilage, he also argued that the accumulation of additives posed a public health threat, because it was not possible to control how much a person ate over time. He was ultimately unsuccessful in fighting food preservatives, but borax, salicylic acid, formaldehyde, and copper sulfate fell out of use." (Source: "Pioneering Consumer Advocate Gave Rise to FDA")

After Dr. Wiley left the USDA in 1912, he accepted a position with Good Housekeeping magazine, where he founded the Good Housekeeping laboratories and the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval and continued his crusade for safer food.

In honor of his many years of public service and his pioneering work in food safety, Dr. Wiley is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. 

Homemade Dinner Rolls Recipe

With helpful hints for beginning bread bakers

We had a potluck at work last week, and I made sandwich buns for it. They were nothing special, really -- just my usual sandwich buns -- but some of those people had never eaten homemade bread before. They were so impressed that it amused me. I guess that they previously thought that hot restaurant rolls were the ultimate in "home-baked" bread. (Although, speaking of restaurant bread, I must say that Panera Bread is good.)

Several of the girls expressed doubt that they could ever bake anything that had yeast in it. A few of them said they'd tried baking bread before and it went badly. And a couple of the young girls asked for the recipe and said they'd like to try it.

So tonight, I typed up my "Never Fail Dinner Rolls" recipe for my adventurous young colleagues to try, and I printed a few extra copies in case the previously-disappointed bread bakers want to try again. I'm actually going to offer them two different editions of the recipe -- the short version and a longer version that I wrote with extra instructions to help beginning bread bakers (below.)

Five-year-old Fruit Cake and Other Delicacies

Dinner Party Menu, 1892

On January 4, 1892, Mr. and Mrs. Sam E. Stegar of Trenton, Kentucky, had a Leap Year dinner party, Fifteen unmarried couples and a few extra guys attended the event. The party was such a social success that it even made the news in Hopkinsville, a few train stops west of Trenton.

The entire four-course menu of the Stegar's party was included in the article that appeared in the Hopkinsville Kentuckian. It was interesting. I've presented it below with some links to recipes and other background information from the period.

First Course

Florida Oranges
Bananas
Figs
Pears
Malaga, Concord, and Catawba Grapes

Second Course

Turkey and Ham
Sauce
Roast Mallard Ducks
Oyster, Egg and Chicken Salad
Oysters
Salmon
Sardines

A careless typesetter may have changed "Oyster, Egg and Chicken Salads" to "Oyster, Egg and Chicken Salad." The salmon, sardines, and oysters could have been fresh, brought by refrigerated railroad car to Trenton.

Celery (a palate cleanser after the meat course)


Third Course

Cream
Vanilla Sherbert
Lemon Pudding
Bisque
Fruit Cake, 5 years old and layered  with lemon icing. One layer was citron with vanilla, another layer was chocolate. (This fruit cake was the most interesting thing in the entire menu!)

Fourth Course

Cheese
Doughnuts
Pretzelettes Chocolata (Menier and Van Houten's Cocoa)
Coffee

After this feast, the guests "engaged in original wit and humor and all the latest games of fascination, until the late hour of 1 o'clock, when the weather becoming very inclement, the party adjourned." Since it was a Leap Year party, the young ladies escorted the young gentlemen safely to their homes, before heading for home themselves.

Source: Hopkinsville Kentuckian, January 1, 1892, page 2.

Kolaches: Czech Pastries of the Great Plains

Trying another recipe today

Last Christmas, one of my Facebook friends from Nebraska posted that someone had brought her a plate of kolaches, and she had already eaten one with blueberry filling, which was so good that she wanted to post about it. I thought I knew that kolaches were round, baked yeast rolls with a fruit filling in the center, but I searched for some recipes to confirm what I thought, and sure enough, I was right.

Tradiční české koláčky: Kolackys as made
in the Czech Republic. Image from Wikimedia.

About a month ago, I tried a kolache recipe that came from the website of a butter company. It called for 2-1/4 cups of butter in total, so I cut that back quite a bit, but otherwise, I followed the recipe fairly closely. Dennis became a huge fan of kolaches, as soon as he tried one.

Today I'm making kolaches for the second time, and I'm using a recipe for a folded kolache. It has a spicy dough that's made with a more reasonable ratio of shortening (oil) to flour. I have the dough resting in the refrigerator right now, and late tonight or early tomorrow morning, I will assemble and bake the kolaches.

This recipe is from the Smithsonian Folklife Cookbook by Katherine S. Kirlin and Thomas M. Kirlin, published in 1991 by the Smithsonian Institution Press in Washington and London. I got my copy at a local thrift shop. The recipe is credited to Genevieve Trinka of Lidgerwood, North Dakota.

KOLACHE DOUGH

Combine in a small bowl and set aside to soften:
3 tablespoons dry yeast
1/2 cup lukewarm water
1 teaspoon sugar.

Combine in a large mixing bowl:
2 cups warm milk (scalded and slightly cooled if raw)
3/4 cup sugar (I used half Splenda)
2 teaspoons salt (I cut this back to 1 teaspoon)
1/2 cup oil
1/2 teaspoon mace
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg (I had no mace so I used 1 teaspoon nutmeg)
1 tablespoon grated lemon peel
2 tablespoons lemon juice
3 eggs, well-beaten

Add:
2 cups flour
The yeast mixture that you set aside, above

Beat well, and add a little at a time:
5 cups flour  (I used white whole wheat flour.)

This makes a very soft dough. Grease a large bowl, scoop the dough into it, cover, and place in the refrigerator overnight. I've had to stir it down twice now because it had risen over the top of the bowl, but surely the yeast process will slow down now that the dough is chilled completely.

FILLING

Here's what I'll be doing later.

The next day (or after the dough has chilled 8 or more hours,) get your filling and glaze ready. I'm going to use canned blueberry pie filling because I have some on hand, but many recipe websites have directions for making homemade fruit fillings. (For example, here are recipes for nine different kolache fillings.)

According to the Smithsonian cookbook and according to what I've read around the internet, prune, apricot, and poppy seed fillings are traditional. My mother would probably have called these fruit pockets and filled them with spicy applesauce. She loved applesauce as an old-timey fruit filling.

A folded kolatsche from Austria. Image from Wikimedia.
My kolaches will be folded something like this, but
I don't think the filling will be completely covered.

GLAZE

Here is the recipe for egg glaze that the recipe book gives. I have not decided if I'll use this glaze, or just drizzle a little powdered-sugar glaze on them after they've baked. Or maybe I'll brush the hot kolaches with a little melted butter and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup flour
2 tablespoons butter, softened.

To assemble the kolaches, place some of the dough on a well-floured surface and pat it out to about 1/2 inch thick. Then cut it into 2 inch squares. Take a square, flatten it a little more, and place 1 teaspoon fruit filling in the center of it. Join diagonal corners of the square and squeeze the dough together a little to fasten at the center of the kolache. (Repeat for the other two corners.)

Brush tops of the kolaches with the egg glaze. Place on a well-greased cookie sheet. Let them rise. Bake at 350° until lightly-browned.

These are kolache recipes I'm going to try in the future:

• http://www.angelfire.com/tx5/texasczech/kolaches/Kolache%20recipe.htm
• http://czechmatediary.com/2007/05/18/kolache-recipe/
• http://www.toledoblade.com/Food/2012/02/05/Dinner-Tonight-Kolaches.html

Kolaches from a Texas bakery. Flikr photo.

The Whistle Stop

And the old freight depot

Whistle Stop Donuts in Hopkinsville (KY) now has two buildings, near each other and (of course) near the train tracks. (In this photo, you can't see the original little Whistle Stop that's right next to the tracks, but it's marked by the yellow sign.). I don't know if they're going to move everything to the building on the left which has a larger parking lot, or if they're going to keep both locations.

On the other side of the train that's whizzing through town, you can see some scaffolding on the old freight depot. The exterior of the building is being restored to its original appearance. Jim Coursey, a local architect and historian, recently wrote in  the Kentucky New Era that the depot is still structurally sound -- in fact, as solid as when it was first built. The metal roof on the building dates back to its construction in 1905, and it still doesn't leak. The Hopkinsville water department owns the property.

It Begins

The first signs of Thanksgiving

This is Keely, your on-the-scene reporter, interrupting my mother's regularly scheduled blogging to bring you this update on how early preparations Thanksgiving are coming along here in the Netz Family. As you can see, cooking fans, today was the first big push for the big day, as indicated by the commencement of bread baking.

As you can see, the photograph above is of the bread in its rising state. I decided to get an early start on it this year because for some reason completely unknown to me, I have it in my head that baking bread takes 4 hours. I don't know where I got this from at all. This usually means that I start bread the night before Thanksgiving at about 8 PM, and then realize that I'm missing a key ingredient, generally something that can't be faked from the usual kitchen supplies. Year before last, I went to the grocery store the Wednesday before Thanksgiving not just once, but twice. Not my bright shining moment.

The bread (and bread dough) shown is this recipe from King Arthur Flour. I've made it once before and I really like it, but I will say two things about it. First, when I make it, it takes about 2/3 that much flour, for whatever reason. Second, I, at least, have to make the rolls smaller than I think I should.

Well, I guess I actually have one more thing to say, which is that you should make sure you have powdered milk and potato flakes before you start this. This was something I failed miserably at the first time (please, see above about realizing that I don't have everything after it's too late).

Also, also (I seem to have a lot to say about this recipe for only having two things to say), I don't in fact melt the butter and apply it with a pastry brush. I just use a stick of butter and apply it directly. That's just laziness, though, and not actually something that should make any difference whatsoever.

Anyway (apparently I'm a rambling reporter), Thanksgiving preparations are swimming along fairly well here, but I've left out one of the surest signs that Thanksgiving is on it's way.

This is my Christmas cactus. As you can see, the poor dear thing is clearly confused and every year, it blooms at Thanksgiving, instead of at Christmas. Well, it's about to bloom again, clearly signifying that the season is upon us, and also signifying that my plant, unsurprisingly, doesn't know what day of the year it is.

Well, I guess your reporter is signing off. I hope all of you have a wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving, and I hope that your preparations are going at least as well as mine. Hopefully, yours are going without the part where you run out of everything, or the part where you set the oven on fire - twice (I'll tell you all about that one another time. That story is also known as "The Reason that Taurus is in Charge of Cooking the Turkey"). Have a blessed holiday, everyone.

Sonic of Hopkinsville

Space-age drive-in on the Boulevard

Sonic Drive-in on Fort Campbell Blvd., Hopkinsville, KY

I enjoy the 1950s-futuristic look of our Sonic Drive-in. I think George Jetson could fly his little space car into a parking place at Sonic, and it would be so totally in sync with the architecture that no one would give him a second look.

Our Sonic has Happy Hour from 2 PM. until 4 PM. When I work mornings, I sometimes go to Sonic after work and treat myself to a Route 44 (extra large) Diet Limeade for half price. They're good, and I like them even better after learning that the Route 44 Lime Slush has (gasp!) 680 calories in it, but the same size of Diet Limeade has only 16 calories.

A Trip to Patti's 1880's Settlement

Porkchop and pie highly recommended

On the porch of one the Patti's 1880's Settlement shops

I was supposed to go up in a hot-air balloon last Friday with my 84-year-old neighbor Miss M. and her daughter Sally. This was going to be a birthday celebration for Miss M. However, because of the very hot weather, the balloon ride is postponed until October. We went to Patti's 1880's Settlement at Grand Rivers (KY) for a birthday lunch, instead.

Grand Rivers is located just north of Land Between the Lakes and just below the dam that creates Lake Barkeley. Patti's 1880's Settlement is a restaurant and more. The Settlement includes a half-dozen  log-cabin gift shops, set into a nicely landscaped garden under tall trees. In keeping with the 1880's theme, all the employees who serve the public in the Settlement wear 1880's garb. And beyond Patti's, the village of Grand Rivers has more shops where a tourist can buy antiques, gifts, and souvenirs.

Patti's 1880's Settlement has such good food that it has even been featured in Southern Living magazine. My son has been to Patti's a time or two, and I've heard plenty of talk about the place, but this was my first visit. My lady friends were aghast at my lack of experience in fine dining -- but that's not new. They're always shocked at the restaurants I haven't visited. They enjoy educating me.

Idea for a Cute Birthday "Cake"

No-bake birthday cake!

My friend at work, Lisa, made this birthday "cake" for a lady she knows. Lisa said she has made several of these, but this is her best one yet. The individually-wrapped pieces of candy are hot-glued to a styrofoam base. Pretty cute, huh?

The recipient of the cake was an older, single lady who probably wouldn't want a big cake all to herself, anyhow. She can enjoy this cake a little at a time, over a period of time.

Joys of Cathood

Curling up with a good book

Skittles has a good idea about how to spend a cold winter day. I would like to do just that (take a nap), but I will be making Christmas candy. I'm getting Grandma Netz's annual box of homemade sweets ready to ship.

So far, I've only made chocolate covered peanuts. Today, I hope to make cherry bonbons and some peanut butter and chocolate fudge. Tomorrow, I hope to dip some pretzels and send the box. Sometime after that, I will clean up the chocolate dribbles and splashes in the kitchen.

Related candy posts:
Conflicted about Christmas Candy
Homemade Christmas Candy
Ghosts of Christmas Past 3

Related cat posts:
The Life of Skittles
Strolls with Skittles
Safe and Secure From All Alarms

Christian County Wines and Whiskeys

Local winery and distillery

The last time I had an alcoholic drink was about 7 years ago, and it was the first drink I'd had in a long while. I'm not a drinker at all. However, I visited a liquor store with Keely, just before Thanksgiving. She wanted a bottle of white wine for cooking her turkey.

It was interesting to see some Bravard wines on the liquor store shelves. We know Jim and Janet Bravard, the owners and operators of the Bravard Winery. They live on a farm just off Highway 800 in northeastern Christian County (KY).

Around 20 years ago, we learned that my husband's employer (AAFES) was sending us to Fort Campbell, KY.  We were in Berlin at that time, and one of my husband's co-workers said, "You should look up my sister at Hopkinsville, when you get there." The sister turned out to be Janet Bravard. Jim was selling real estate at that time, and he helped us buy our house. They were very kind to us as newcomers, and their kids and our kids have been friendly ever since.

The Bravards have worked hard on their winery, improving their facilities little by little, planting more varieties of grapes, and producing more wines. Please note the name on the bottle on the right. If I were going to buy a bottle of wine, that would definitely be my choice!

Christian County now has a whiskey distillery, too. It opened for business a few weeks ago. It's located on a former Amish farm on Barker Mill Road, just east of St. Elmo in southeastern Christian County. The owner is Paul Tomaszewski, and his wife's name is Merry Beth Roland. (Is it a coincidence that the distillery is named MB Roland? I doubt it.)

I read in the Kentucky New Era* that MB Roland is distilling White Dog from white corn and Black Dog from white corn that has been dark fired in a tobacco barn. The MB Roland website mentions another whiskey, True Kentucky Shine, that is made with a traditional moonshine recipe and methods.  The website also says that they've made a couple of rums. These are the first locally-produced hard liquors in around a century, according to our county historian, William Turner -- not counting moonshine, of course.

There is very little chance that I will ever taste the White Dog, the Black Dog, the Shine, or the rums. I'm not curious about their flavors. I decided a long time ago that I don't like whiskey or rum. However, I am curious about the distillery, and I might visit someday, just to see how these spirits are made.

*"13 Cats and a Still" by Kevin Hoffman, Kentucky New Era, October 10, 2009. (Subscription may be required.)

When Fat Was Healthy

How ideas about being fat have changed

"Get fat; get nice and plump... ," an advertisement from an old newspaper urges. Cod liver oil was just the product to help put on some fat for winter in 1900. A good layer of fat would help one ward off sickness and make it through to spring.

When we read old advertisements like this, we should remember that a century ago, people didn't have many effective drugs to fight off sickness. A bad cold could kill, if pneumonia developed. There were no antibiotics or sulfur drugs. Even aspirin had not yet been invented. To recover from an illness, a person needed all the strength he could muster -- and some cod liver oil and a bit of extra fat on his bones might help.

My goodness, how our ideas and living conditions have changed! Today, most of us don't need any help getting fat. On the contrary, we struggle to avoid gaining weight. In the mass media of our day, we see dozens of advertisements for weight-loss products.

I'm reminded of a fellow whom I once heard talking on the radio. Mr. Jones (or whatever his name was) told how he took a job in a small Japanese town after World War II and stayed there for many years.

At first, he was astonished when the natives complimented him frequently on his more-than-ample girth. "Oh, Mr. Jones, you are so fat."  They admired his pudgy physique because it was a symbol of wealth. Poor people were always thin.

Mr. Jones said that he was never quite comfortable with their admiration of his obesity. As he ate the local cuisine over the years, he gradually lost a lot of weight. His admirers were a little disappointed in him, but he was happy when his size was not so showy as it had once been.

I am fortunate to have plenty to eat, and I don't need any cod liver oil to help me put on extra fat for the winter. To be honest, this topic is making me feel a little guilty about the abundance I enjoy while some in this world are hungry. I looked up Feed the Children and made a donation. Maybe you can afford a few dollars for them too.

Let's Cook

1950s 4H recipe book for beginning cooks

In 1959, I joined the Rose Scouts 4-H Club and signed up for my first 4-H project: Let's Cook. To complete the project, I had to prepare each of the following, two times:

Cocoa and Cinnamon Toast
Fruit Desserts (Ambrosia or Apple Crisp)
Raw Vegetable Plate and Sandwiches
Cookies and Lemonade
Hamburgers

As you can see, the cover art on the Let's Cook booklet  is slightly misleading. None of the recipes in the booklet required the use of a rolling pin.

The girl looks cheerful, though. She's dressed for the job. and she knows what she's doing with the various utensils on her work surface. Utensils were very important in Let's Cook. They were listed in every recipe right beside the ingredients.

I was 8 years old, the summer that I completed the Let's Cook project. My mother was in the hayfield most of every day, mowing. Grandma Nora was staying with us to help with the cooking and housework and to watch my sister and me.

In the afternoons after the dishes were done, Grandma Nora and I had some fun and excitement with the Let's Cook booklet. I had fun, and Grandma tried to keep me from getting too excited.

Grandma had her own ideas about some of the techniques in the book. She wasn't too adventurous. She didn't approve of sifting flour, cocoa, and such onto a square of waxed paper; she insisted on sifting it into a bowl. She didn't see any need to squish a stick of butter into a measuring cup, when she already knew it was half a cup.

The booklet had a short list of procedures for washing dishes. It didn't seem very important to me, but Grandma thought dish-washing was part of every recipe. "Cleaning up the mess is half of it!" she told me, again and again. Grandma's been gone since 1980, but when I'm working in my kitchen, I still hear her saying those words.

The oatmeal cookie recipe in Let's Cook became my favorite recipe to bake for a year or two. Then I discovered that I could make the cookie recipes in my mother's cookbooks, and I forgot about the simple little recipe in my 4-H booklet. Mama was more adventurous about letting me experiment in the kitchen than Grandma was, even though she wanted me to clean up my messes, too.

In the next ten years, I completed six more food preparation and preservation courses in 4-H. I still have their booklets, too. but Let's Cook is the one that I remember with affection.

"Cooking is an adventure. It's fun to put together shortening and sugar and flour and turn out yummy cookies. It's exciting to see how meat and vegetables and salad become supper on the table... "


(Opening sentences of Let's Cook, an undated, unattributed publication of the University of Nebraska Extension Service, circa 1959.)

Melon Months of Summer

One good reason for hot weather

I don't like hot summer weather, but melons do, and I like melons. In fact, melons are one of the few things about hot weather that I anticipate happily.

When I had a bigger garden, I grew melons myself. I had my best success with cantaloupe, mainly because it's easy to tell when cantaloupe are ripe. Several years, I grew more cantaloupe than we could eat and Dennis took gave them away at work. This made him quite popular through the melon months of summer.

My favorite cantaloupes to grow from seed were Burpee Hybrids. They are just too delicious for words.

I didn't have enough luck with watermelons to decide that I liked to grow any particular variety. My biggest problem was knowing when to pick them. If I didn't pick them too green, I waited until they were too ripe.  After a few years, I decided I had better luck picking a ripe watermelon at the produce stand.

One summer after I gave up growing watermelons, a watermelon seed sprouted in my compost pile. The vine meandered out into the garden, and I decided not to pull it up. It grew one big, delicious melon before frost. It was one of the best watermelons I've ever tasted.  It must have been the compost. Somehow, I managed to pick it at the perfect peak of ripeness.

In one of my first gardens, I grew some honeydew melons that were particularly green and sweet. I picked the first one and we really enjoyed it .

When I went to the garden to pick the next ripe one, it had a hole chewed in the side of it. I was disgusted, but I cut off the damaged side of the melon, and we ate some of the undamaged side.

My garden intruder liked his taste of honeydew, and decided to have some more. He wasn't a bit careful about just eating the ripe ones, either. After he damaged a dozen or more, I finally caught him in the act. It was a turtle. I took him up the road a mile, and we had no more holes in the honeydews after that.

Nowadays, we buy melons at the grocery store in early summer. Then, about the first of July, our Mennonite neighbor starts selling homegrown cantaloupe at his produce stand.  I bought a couple of cantaloupe there last week, and I'm going to stop by tomorrow on my way home from work and get a couple more. The watermelon will be ready soon, he says. I'm glad to hear it.

Our neighbor's produce stand: Homegrown cantaloupe and 

flower baskets outside. And inside, tomatoes, cabbage,

squash, zucchini, and bunches of big green onions

Quick and Easy Ice Cream Cake

Simple summer dessert

Guys, this recipe is for you, too. It came from my sister Charlotte, and she learned it from her sons, Clifford and Ben, when they had an apartment together. It takes maybe 10 minutes to put together.

Ingredients:
2 boxes of 12 ice cream sandwiches (24 sandwiches total)
1 large tub of Cool Whip, thawed
Chocolate sprinkles

Directions:
Unwrap the first box of ice cream sandwiches and cover the bottom of a 9x13" baking dish with them. Spread about half of the Cool Whip over them. Unwrap the second box of ice cream sandwiches and cover the layer of Cool Whip with them. Cover and place in freezer. When ready to serve, slice the "cake" and top each serving with Cool Whip and chocolate sprinkles.

I made this a few minutes ago and put it in the freezer. Our weekend company is arriving tomorrow evening, and I'll serve this for supper dessert. I have to work tomorrow, so I'm trying to keep everything as simple as I can.

And if this sounds like redneck cuisine -- well, you aren't too surprised, surely.

Happy 4th of July, everyone. Have a safe holiday!

Homemade Orange Julius

Slush fun

These smoothies will really cool you down on a hot day.

Combine the following ingredients in a 6-cup blender:

Ice cubes to the 3-cup mark
6 ounces frozen orange juice concentrate
2 rounded tablespoons sugar or Splenda
2 cups milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 banana (if desired)
1/2 teaspoon coconut extract (if desired)
Enough regular orange juice (not concentrate) to fill the blender to the top mark.

Put on the lid and blend on high speed until the slush is smooth. Serve immediately in glasses with straws.  Enjoy with a clear conscience -- orange juice, milk and water are good for you, and the banana is good for you too, if you added it.

Suggestion: While you have all the ingredients out, make a second batch of the recipe to freeze. Pour into styrofoam coffee cups; cover each cup with plastic wrap held in place by a rubber band. Place in freezer until solid. Serve the frozen ices with a spoon -- they are very similar to the "Frozen Lemonades" found in grocery freezer sections.

The 2 Kates at Elkton, KY

Eating Out in Elkton

A few weeks ago, two of my lady friends took me out to eat in Elkton. We went to The 2 Kates on the square. It's located across the street from the Jefferson Davis Hotel in an old building that used to be a drugstore (as I recall.)

The room is filled with interesting things to see and buy. There are fine antiques, jewelry, little dresses and gowns for children that appear hand-sewn, gift items of all sorts, and works by local artists and artisans. These items are displayed at the front of the room and along the walls. The dining tables are in the back of the room, behind a large, antique cabinet that serves as a room divider.

I had a small bowl of the best tomato soup I've ever eaten. Then I had a great salad and a Kentucky Legend ham sandwich. The sandwich had thin slices of apple in it. Everything was delicious.

Plan ahead if you decide to visit The 2 Kates. The hours are limited.

Soul Food for a Cold January Night

Staying warm as winter strengthens

January is upon us. Even in the upper South, we are feeling the polar air mass that's moving across the continent.

Tonight's low is supposed to be +11° with a wind chill of -10°, and tomorrow night, the forecast predicts +2°, again with wind. Those numbers may not sound extreme to people who endure subzero temperatures frequently, but it's cold for this area.

We're hoping that this is our worst cold spell of the winter, but it might not be. One frigid night during the early 1990s, the temperature dropped to -10°-- the coldest temperature I've seen in Kentucky so far.

Tonight, we brought in some of the good hickory firewood that we've been saving for a cold spell. As it burns, blue flames bloom over the logs, and when the flames die down, the logs crumble into a hot pile of coals that glow for hours.

The gas heater will come on if the wood stove needs some assistance overnight, but so far tonight, the wood stove has been doing the job alone.

Dennis, Isaac, and I were all at home and able to have supper together tonight. I made potato soup. To me, it's a comfort food -- warming to both body and soul.

I can't write an exact recipe for the soup, but this is how I made it:

• Boiled about 2 quarts of peeled, cubed potatoes with some minced garlic until the potatoes were soft.
  
• Diced 2 stalks of celery and an onion and cooked it in a little water in the microwave until soft.
  
• Diced a couple of thick slices of ham.
  
• Made about 3 cups of thick white sauce in a big soup pot.
  
• Melted a cup of shredded cheddar cheese in the white sauce.
  
• Added some chicken soup base dissolved in hot water.
  
• Mashed a few of the potatoes;  added all the potatoes to the soup pot with their water.
  
• Added the hot onions and celery with their water.
• Added the ham.
  
• Thinned the soup with some milk, and then ...
  
• Thickened it up just a little with some instant mashed potato flakes.
  

This soup wasn't much like the potato soup I ate when I was growing up. My mother and father liked dumplings in their potato soup -- not southern dumplings which are really just extra wide noodles, but northern dumplings which are made by dropping spoonfuls of dough into the hot soup to cook.

I suspect that the dumpling idea came from my mother who had a strong German influence on her upbringing. Her soup was a lot like this recipe for German potato soup with dumplings.