Reporting a BIG Breakthrough!

Missy & Rocky & I go to the pond puddle pasture nearly every morning. Missy can't be off her leash yet, except in the fenced in pasture (too easily distracted), and although Rocky can be, he walks on a leash to the pasture so that we can practice "Heel." This means that, except when Mr. Big Food joins us, nearly every morning I go to the pond puddle pasture twice. I don't mind-- it's a nice pasture and I enjoy looking out for the fire ant hills and checking myself for ticks every couple of minutes and mopping sweat from my brow before 8am. And I really do love watching them play by themselves. But it is the end of July and it is Mississippi and I do have things to do and Lord knows I don't need any more exercise. So...

This morning I took them both to the pasture, together, myself! All that "Heel!" stuff we've been working on actually worked (sort of). BIG breakthrough.

"The Privilege of Being American"

Over the next days (weeks?) I'm going to post some quotes from a crappy old book of very short essays written by a man my father admired greatly.  These quotes have nothing to do explicitly with BIG Food or BIG Gardens. But they do-- explicitly and implicitly-- have something to do with living a BIG Life.

Although I take care to properly cite what I quote-- I hate a thief and plagiarism is a form of theft-- I am not going to attribute these quotes just yet because I want this man's words to be what you read, should you care to read them. (Ha. I just searched the title of the essay. This wasn't written by Geithner.)

The Privilege of Being American

I AM CONCERNED, as I know you are, too, with the fact that many of us are losing sight of what I call the main road of American progress-- the exercising of individual initiative, the assuming of individual responsibility. We have let ourselves stray a long way on a side road, by gradually, almost imperceptibly, relinquishing our privilege to do a job for ourselves.

Maybe it seems strange to you, my using the word "privilege" in such a sense. Privilege, to most people means something-for-nothing, an unearned opportunity. ...

Breaking!

Mississippi native Brett Favre will become an assistant football coach at Oak Grove High School in Hattiesburg. He will not be paid.

The Kitchen Table / That's Right

The peppers are beginning to come in!

While diddling around I stumbled across a cute joke at Daniel J. Mitchell.

You may have heard on the news about a southern California man put under 72-hour psychiatric observation when it was found he owned 100 guns and allegedly had (by rough estimate) 100,000 rounds of ammunition stored in his home. The house also featured a secret escape tunnel.

My favorite quote from the dimwit television reporter: “Wow! He has about a quarter million machine gun bullets.” The headline referred to it as a “massive weapons cache”.

Keep reading-- it's pretty funny.

July 24th

Mr. Big Food and I are going out for dinner tonight!

Foods and Beverages for Invalids

According to 

(1892)

an invalid is 

1. a person who is weak and infirm; a person sickly or indisposed.
2. a person who is infirm, wounded, maimed or otherwise disabled for active service. The hospitals for invalids at Chelsea and Greenwich, in England, are institutions honorable to the English nation.

I understand a great many folks have become "disabled for active service" in recent days, and so I thought I'd pass along some useful information-- as well as a few recipes-- for those of you who are  responsible for "ministering to the needs" of an invalid.

The American Woman's Cookbook edited and revised by Ruth Berolzheimer, Director, Culinary Arts Institute (1946)

 To begin...

A DOCTOR'S advise is necessary in planning the diet for an invalid, as each case must be considered individually. The following general suggestions are intended to help the housewife who, in addition to her other work, has the duty of ministering to the needs of the sick and convalescent.

 Here are the bullet points:

• ... [before serving the meal] remove all bottles and suggestions of medicine from the room...
• ... serve everything as nicely as possible...
• ... the patient should not be consulted about the food to be brought to him [but] his likes and dislikes should be considered as far as possible.
• ... be sure the patient is ready for [the meal], with hands and face washed...
• The tray should be covered with a clean napkin or tray cover, and the dishes and serving should be very dainty.
• Invalids will often take liquid diet through a straw... 
• In contagious diseases, sterilize everything ... by boiling in water for ten minutes.

 A few of my favorite recipes for invalids below the fold. (Do look, you'll be glad you did.)

Recipe: Cocktail Wieners and Variations

Photo here-- but you've probably seen these before! The recipe is easily halved or doubled.

“College Party Special”

COCKTAIL WIENERS AND VARIATION

Serves 30

3 lbs wieners (any variety)

1 ½ C chili sauce

1 ½ C beer

Cut wieners into bite-sized pieces. Mix chili sauce and beer in large cooking pot. Simmer wieners in mixture about 15 minutes or until heated through. Serve from chafing dish with toothpicks.

VARIATION

“1 pound wieners cut into bite-sized pieces. Cook slowly for 20 minutes in mixture of ¾ C catsup [or chili sauce, and either preferably homemade—see recipes in Basics section], ¼ C brown sugar, 3 ounces bourbon and 1 teaspoon lemon juice. Serve hot with picks.”

Recipe: Batter Fried Zucchini Sticks

These were my favorite from last evening's supper of appetizers. Mr. Big Food used baby round zucchini. (Photo at the link.)

BATTER FRIED ZUCCHINI STICKS

Makes 2 dozen

1 C sifted flour

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

1 egg, beaten lightly

1 C milk

2 Tbsp oil, plus more for deep frying

1 lb zucchini, cut into 3-4 inch strips

Flour (for dredging zucchini strips, if desired)

Sift flour with baking powder and salt. Combine egg, milk, and 2 Tbsp oil, and slowly add to dry ingredients, beating until smooth. Pat zucchini strips very dry and, if desired, dredge lightly in flour. Heat oil in deep fryer to 375^o. Dip zucchini pieces one at a time in batter and fry 1-2 minutes or until golden brown. Drain on paper towels.

Recipe: Stuffed jalapeños

These are cute as the dickens! Since I am not keen on hot peppers (except true Hungarian peppers) Mr. Big Food adapted the recipe and used fresh sweet marconi and immature pablanos I'd picked earlier in the day. They reheat nicely in a skillet. 

Photo here. Recipe below.

Flower Power

Zinnia

Okra

Banana squash (male)

It's rather warm this morning.

I'm about to lapse into a food coma

Photos with no captions

In the late summer of 2001, Shandra Levy (sp?) went missing, and sharks off the Florida Coast were attacking people in the water. That was the news.

Just sharin'

the sentiment of a fellow Mississippian,

Marshall Ramsey.

Marshall's sentiment at the link.

Recipe: Deviled Round Steak and Variation

Mr. Big Food made the variation for me. I do not care for peas all that much.

This was last night's supper. After the steak is browned in the iron skillet, and the remaining ingredients added, it bakes for two hours, affording Mr. Big Food and I the opportunity to fix ourselves an adult beverage, move the little speakers to the patio, plug in the mp3 player, listen to some of The Redneck Collection, and chat about America & how glad we are we made the move to rural Mississippi & how funny the dogs are & this week's menu which begins tonight with an assortment of appetizers for supper.

BIG LIFE!

Recipe below.

Iron skillet

Yes. Yes. I'll clean the stove tomorrow.

And then you wait around for two hours while it bakes in a low temperature oven.

I didn't build that.

Someone else did that. Thank you, Someone Else!
~~
As long time readers know, Friday is 'Venture off The Farm, Go to Starkvegas Day.' And although it didn't work out quite as I had planned-- I was running behind and didn't get a single shot of Dunn (Main) Street-- I did manage to snap a photo or two of folks I want to thank for building my little corner of America.

Long layers, $9

All of the photos below were taken while I was driving. There is no Law against photographing and driving.

Stewart's Body Shop

We get the oil in the truck changed here. Clay is a good guy. When we got the new truck, and needed  a new hitch thingy, Clay turned us on to the 3-way hitch.

"The store" with a restaurant. I do not want to see the nutritional labeling on the menu.

Turner Fence

White's Welding. It gets hot in there in the summer what with all that welding.

Mary & Jesse White made the grills that began this blog.

Nu-Way Hardware is overpriced, but convenient. The folks are super helpful. One taught me how to snake a toilet.

Jim's Auto Parts is priced right. The folks at Jim's can convert British (English?) to metric.

Southern Belle is a T-Shirt company specializing in T-Shirts which appeal to Southern Belles.

I haven't even made it to the highway yet. ...

Recipe: Creative Cooking Chicken Salad with Bacon

Dang good food

for a Friday night supper.

I'm not kidding. This has got to be one of the best chicken salads I've ever had.

We substituted New Zealand Spinach-- which I picked after we got home from Starkvagas-- for iceberg lettuce, and used the California Red French Dressing Mr. Big Food had made a few days ago for the oil/vinegar the recipe called for. It was a meal.

A hearty, make-ahead dish, Chicken Salad with Bacon combines the meal’s salad, vegetable and meat courses in one bowl—so convenient for picnic or a quick luncheon dish.”—The Creative Cooking Course (1982)

And of course, cucumber and green pepper picked this morning.

Recipe below.

Recipe: Dilled Pot Roast

Last night's supper-- so I may update with a photo of leftover dilled pot roast.

This is a slow cooker meal, served over noodles. It cooks for 11 hours. At about hour #2 you can begin to enjoy what you'll be really enjoying later. 

Recipe below.

Recipe: Baked Lasagne Supreme

Sorry no photo.

This is one of the best lasagnes ever. Mr. Big Food substituted homemade Italian sausage for ground beef, and of course he used homemade stewed tomatoes rather that canned, and all fresh seasonings. If we were to have a lasagne contest, this would be my #1.

Recipe below.

Recipe: Zucchini Nut Bread

Zucchini nut bread-- without nuts-- slathered with cream cheese

This is one delicious zucchini bread! Quite different than the others we've baked in that it's lighter, both in color and texture. Perfect for a snack with a cup of iced coffee, as the recipe begins:

“Serve this marvelous bread in many different ways: hot with coffee for breakfast or a brunch, cold with cheese as a snack, at mealtime to children as a vegetable.”—Winifred Green Cheney, The Southern Hospitality Cookbook (1976)

Recipe below.

Lima beans

Last evening as we were preparing a truly delicious-- and simple-- meal, I looked in the pantry and asked Mr. Big Food, "Do you know we still have dried lima beans from last year's garden?"

Mr Big Food responded, "Yes. Good thing, too."

~~

Via Instapundit:

CHANGE: Corn and soybeans hit record highs, stir food crisis fear. “Corn prices crossed into uncharted territory above $8 per bushel — about three-and-a-half times the average price 10 years ago of $2.28. Soybeans punched past $17 for the first time — also three-and-a-half times the 2002 average. Analysts said that while forecasts for continued dry weather are expected to sustain the rally, corn prices could be vulnerable to any move by the government to lower the amount of corn-based ethanol blenders are required to mix with gasoline. Even as chatter about a possible revision of the ethanol mandate has escalated, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, the former governor of top farm state Iowa, has ruled out such a move.”

Related: World Braced for New Food Crisis.

The drought in the US, which supplies nearly half the world’s exports of corn and much of its soyabeans and wheat, will reverberate well beyond its borders, affecting consumers from Egypt to China.

“I’ve been in the business more than 30 years and this is by far and away the most serious weather issue and supply and demand problem that I have seen by a mile,” said a senior executive at a trading house. “It’s not even comparable to 2007-08.”

David Nelson, global strategist at Rabobank, added: “Today the [US crop] disaster is real, whereas to some degree the big run-up in prices in 2008 was speculatively driven.”

Oh, goody.

 It's not too late to think about putting in a fall garden. More here, and here.

~~

HOLY COW! IT'S RAINING!

File this under "Is There Anything 'Normal' about Missisippi weather'?"

For the third night in a row-- in JULY in MISSISSIPPI-- I've opened one of the Den windows.

And it rained!

Important Stuff

Rocky

Missy

And now... doggy nap time.

One Mississippi, Two Mississippi...

Poor quality photo. Sorry. She won't sit still in front of the camera and I have a hard time changing the settings in the dark.

Who here remembers the seat of your pants light speed to sound speed to distance conversion factor, with respect to lightening & thunder and miles?

See a flash. Start counting, "One Mississippi, two Mississippi... " Hear the thunder. The number of Mississippis you've counted to between the flash and the thunder = the number of miles away from the lightening strikes you are.

It's good enough for government work.

A nice storm rolled through here this evening. I had opened a window. We could see it coming.

One Missis...

BOOM.

Big Life. 

A Force of Character

While on a break from garden work, I came across this:

One of the many great things about Paul Johnson’s magisterial A History of the American People is that he begins that history in the Sixteenth Century. There was an identifiable, culturally distinguishable American People long before there was a Revolutionary War, a Constitution, or a central government. The American People, by their industry and ingenuity, didn’t just build successful businesses… they built the most successful nation in history — and all, somehow, without HUD, Fannie, Freddie, the EPA, OSHA…

[my emphasis]

From Andrew McCarthy's article up at PJMedia today. I don't know the book to which he refers (which was copyright 1985) but that second sentence reminded me of one of my favorite quotes from The Beards' Basic History of the United States (1944):

Years marked by wars, religious controversies and persecutions, political disputes, and royal despotism lay behind the decision to leave Europe and migrate to the English colonies. But there was something in the spirit of those who made the break-- a force of character not simply determined by economic, political, or religious conditions-- that made them different from their neighbors who remained in the turmoil and poverty of the Old World.

[my emphasis]

If I recall my basic population genetics correctly, we'd call this a 'founder effect.' Those with a force of character put an ocean between themselves and their weaker neighbors.

~~

By the way, you can purchase a used copy of The Beards' book for one red cent at Amazon. But don't get the one their son edited that came out in 1960 unless you want to see how easy it is to re-write history.

The sky is blue

and it was over 80 degrees-- in the shade-- before 8:30. We have yard/garden work to do.

We'll be taking a lot of breaks!

I FOUND IT!

Over a month ago, I realized I didn't know where my Little Orange Book was. I looked, I asked, and yes, I accused. Who would have stolen my Little Orange Book from me?

Today, I am pleased to report that my Little Orange Book has been found and retrieved from behind the bookshelf thanks to  

• large barbeque tongs (not pictured; didn't work), 
• a dry-wall square (not pictured; used to push it to the other side of the bookshelf where the gap is larger), 
• carpenters' square (lever to raise it to where the gap is large enough for my hand), 
• flashlight (obvious), and 
• if I do say so myself, 

some good old fashioned America ingenuity.

It's much oranger than it appears. (Photo taken with the camera I hate.)

Cooler Corn & Cardboard Cookin' / Let's Play Redneck

Two great ideas for when the lights go out, or when you just want to play like a Redneck. 

The first, Cooler Corn, comes via an email from Mr. Big Food's Dad who I think gets more emails each day than Mr. Big Food (who gets a lot). The second, Cardboard Box Solar Oven, comes from Anita Evangelista's Backwoods Home Magazine article, "How do you live without electricity?" (issue 73: Jan/Feb 2002).

Just add boiling water!

Call Me Pavlov

There are times I need them to calm down but don't want to restrain/restrict their movements too much. It's their attitude, not their behavior, I want to affect. And I want them to learn.

Toward this end, we've tried a number of behavior modifications treats things over these last few months. The one that works the best, and is currently in favor, is Chewies. Chewies are semi-squares/rectangles of rawhide, "processed in the USA or Mexico."

For BIG dogs

It's taken a couple of weeks, but when I now say, "Chewie!" they behave appropriately. Missy jumps up on the couch-- this is all taking place in the Den and it really messes them up when I give them a chewie in the living room-- and Rocky assumes the seated alertly position on the floor beside her. He's protecting her in a certain male-y sort of way.

Yes. That is a small bag of some Dollar General mid-priced puppy food. (It's funny to think them as puppies. But they still are.) That's not what they eat on a regular basis.

suek-- this is for you!

Let's take a drive

down the Natchez Trace Parkway between Tupelo and Mathiston. We'll see some lovely countryside and some of the damage done to it by tornadoes in April, 2011.

A few tings before we get going...

1) No commercial vehicles allowed. But recreational vehicles are okay.

2) Speed limit 50mph. But 60mph is okay.

3) Guns are okay.

As of February 22, 2010, a new federal law allows people who can legally possess firearms under applicable federal, state, and local laws, to legally possess firearms in this park.

In Mississippi, your truck is your castle so you can carry your gun in your truck even if you don't have a concealed carry permit.

4) Mind the bicyclists (although we saw none today).

5) I took 71 photos and whittled them down to 23. To give a sense of distance, each photo's caption gives the time. For uploading purposes, I resized them.

Here we go! 1:28:36

"Summer Activities"

Check yourself, your family and your pets regularly for ticks. If someone gets bit, ice the bite and call a vet or doctor, they may want to check for lyme disease or other infections.

At AccuWeather.

Yesterday, as I was ripping out the last of yellow squash, I noticed a tick on my leg-- a fairly large one, at that! So I ran into the house, got some ice, and called my vet. They didn't want to check for anything, but I insisted because, you know, I have a right. And when they-- that's my vet-- still wouldn't check for anything, I had a tantrum. used my needle nosed pliers to pick it off and went on about the business of ripping out squash.

Dominance

I am doing everything I can think of to do to help Rocky continue to assert his dominance over Missy.

[Diagram that!]

It ain't easy.  

Inside the Life of a Corn Cob

The silk is almost as pink as...

Inside the Life of a Pumpkin

It's got a ways to go.

Because you can never have too many copies of the Declaration of Independence,

I bought two more yesterday.

$4.63 to the children; $0.32 to the state

I love The Palmer House Thrift Store where every penny I spend except those that go to the Sovereign State of Mississippi goes to The Palmer Home for Children in Columbus, Mississippi. I buy a lot of books there.

Palmer Home for Children is today an independent institution governed by an unpaid, volunteer Board of Directors. But we are proud of our Presbyterian heritage and maintain close ties with Presbyterian and other churches as well as interested friends concerned about family breakup and the plight of fatherless children.

[Incidentally, according to Off the Beaten Path Mississippi,  Mississippians give more per capital to charity than citizens of any other state. I tried to verify this independently but was not able to do so. It does make sense, though, given Mississippians' acquaintance with tornadoes and hurricanes, and our tendency to go to church. As my father would often say, "There but for the Grace of God go I."

Oh look. It's raining.]

The Palmer Thrift Store was having a 1/2 price sale on books! And yes, that is Ronald Regan who once said,

... On my way to the hall, a fellow recognized me and asked what I was doing in Las Vegas.... I told him what I was here for, and he said, "What are a bunch of farmers doing in Las Vegas?" I couldn't resist. I said, "Buster, they are in a business that makes a Las Vegas crap table look like a guaranteed annual income!" --Remarks to state officers of the Future Farmers of America, July 29, 1987

From The Quotable Ronald Regan compiled and edited by Peter Hannaford, copyright 1998 published by Regnery Publishing, Inc. It's for Mr. Big Food's bookshelf.

Lydia Pickham is Her Name (1949) is not a work of fiction! 

Well this is different.

It's going to rain.

As I predicted, the bugs and fungi are experiencing a period of rapid growth following the rainy cool weather we had. It's warming up now, but "they" are predicting rain into the foreseeable future. 

And Good Lord! You should see how many blackeyed peas there are to pick. 

A vegetable farmer's work is never done.

You would think that

if you thought time of day wasn't a factor.

Since these are random shootings, you would expect women and girls to be victims at roughly their proportion of the population, which is slightly over 50%--or maybe higher, if it turns out that the shootings are concentrated in urban areas with low sex ratios. The question, then, is not why so many victims of this type of shooting are female but why a disproportion of them (55.2%) are male.

From James Taranto's "Best of the Web" column at the Wall Street Journal today.

Ockham's Razor does not ask us to ignore context. Taranto gets the numbers thinking right as far as he goes. But he fails to ask if time is a factor in the random shooting of innocents. 

Let's see the Sex*Time of Day (by age) graph. I suspect that for kids younger than 18 or so, there's a statistically significant sex difference. 

Compare it to the Violent Crime*Time of Day graph. 

Any normal parent is more protective of daughters than of sons. Or should be. Boys get to be outside later than girls.  

Taranto assumes that the sample on the street at the worst time to be on the street is a representative sample of the  population. 

It is not. 

There are more boys than girls.  

UPDATED: At least that's my hypothesis. 

Just sayin'

Read this:

Math Is Hard  

"Most people killed or wounded in stray-bullet shootings were unaware of events leading to the gunfire that caused their injuries, and nearly one-third of the victims were children and nearly half were female, according to a new nationwide study examining an often-overlooked form of gun violence," according to a report from the University of California, Davis:


Unlike the risk pattern for violence in general, which typically affects young males, most victims of stray bullets were outside the 15-34 age range, and nearly half (44.8 percent) were females, the study found. 

Since these are random shootings, you would expect women and girls to be victims at roughly their proportion of the population, which is slightly over 50%--or maybe higher, if it turns out that the shootings are concentrated in urban areas with low sex ratios. The question, then, is not why so many victims of this type of shooting are female but why a disproportion of them (55.2%) are male.

From James Taranto's "Best of the Web" column at the Wall Street Journal today.

Was I not sayin' just the other day that we should think for ourselves, especially when it comes to numbers?

Dear Carolina & Rich,

I called. Nothing to be done about it.

Your Aunt Ann & Uncle Doug sent you this very nicely gift wrapped electric can opener on the occasion of the birth of your new baby boy but Dillards sent it to me and you probably got my unwrapped one. Dillards is sorry.

Congratulations, though!

Marica

Just your Average American Thinking for Herself

The average American, who should consume about 2,000 calories a day, eats out six times a week. 

The second real sentence in an article by Margo Wootan at The Hill, "Eating in the dark can be dangerous."

Reading sentences like this automatically causes me to go into statistician geek mode. (Haha. That was a statistics joke.) Furthermore, reading sentences like this so early on in an article causes me to read the remainder more critically than I otherwise might have.

Please do read the whole thing yourself. If you are not so inclined, here is a brief summary with commentary followed by a little stats rant (fun stuff).
~~

People eat out more now than in the crappy good ol' days.

Global Cooling / It rained

We had barbequed chicken and honey buttered corn on the grill tonight.

It's rained and has been unseasonably cool for the last few days.

 

It will be warm again.

I predict an exponential growth in both bug and vegetable growth. Funny how that works, isn't it?  

And the fungi are going to go crazy. Get out the copper. 

Exposé / Think for Yourself

Believe it or not, I am not shelling peas! I am working on something interesting-- at least to me-- that has to do with food, eating out, numbers, and busy bodies. Stay tuned.