While I was shelling blackeyed peas this afternoon

Shelled Blackeyed Peas

it rained.

h/t Drudge for the inspiration.

While I was taking photographs of a rare event-- like it doesn't rain in Mississippi-- Mr. Big Food was fixing supper.

I love Eastern European-inspired food.

And

Rocky was being a Very Good Boy!

Let's never forget that Rocky is a Dog, and you & I are not dogs.

All it takes is a stick. And since I know where the sticks are, ... Rocky is a dog.

Because there is only so much television I can watch

A bushel in 30 minutes, you say?

Mr. Big Food suggested last evening that I should look for something like The Amazing Mr. Pea Sheller (TM). Wonder if they have one on-hand at our local farmer stuff store?

For your afternoon coffee break

I'll be spending a large portion of my afternoon sitting at the kitchen table, watching reruns of The Waltons, and shelling blackeyed peas. What follows has nothing to do with food or the garden-- or the dogs-- but since "Big Life" is in the blog title, I have some latitude with respect to subject matter. 

From Paco Enterprises comes a story written in a style I enjoy reading. I hope you will, too. Here are a few choice bits that don't give away the ending:

Although the city sweltered under unusually high temperatures, exacerbated by power outages caused by a series of severe thunderstorms, the Titan of Industry sat in the library of his penthouse high atop Paco Tower, sipping occasionally from a glass of ice-cold lemonade in the cool air of a building having its own electrical system, the nature of which was something of a popular mystery in the neighborhood. 


[snip]


A cautious man - who, though he sometimes came very near to what one might call the “frontier” of the letter of the law, never quite seemed to find himself indisputably south of the border (so to speak) – J.P. [the Titan of Industry] was going through the document with a fine-toothed comb.


[snip]


J.P.’s happy dabbling in the many and varied uses of conditional verbs – which, as he was always quick to point out to budding financiers, makes all the difference between coining money and stamping license plates – was interrupted by three quick raps on the library door, followed by a pause and a knock, then two more quick raps, ending with a final pause and knock (a signal which experts in international Morse code will recognize as the dollar sign).

“Enter, Spurgeon.”

The pocket doors opened to reveal J.P.’s gentleman’s personal gentleman. With his unique bearing of what can best be described as magisterial deference, Spurgeon approached his employer.

“Begging your pardon, sir, but the itinerant painter you hired, Mr. Smith, has indicated that he will need another twenty gallons of paint for the living room.”


[snip]


“He has only half finished a single room, sir, and, to be brutally frank, I find his brushwork to be decidedly amateurish. On top of that, the larder seems to have been afflicted with what I believe retail executives refer to as ‘shrinkage’”. 

[snip]

Spurgeon turned to J.P. and said, “Forgive the liberty, sir,” then turned to face [Smith], drawing himself up to his full, and very intimidating, height, before uttering the following broadside.

“Hierarchy and subordination, [Mr. Smith], are the natural elements of any society. In the one in which I am privileged to live, these relationships take shape through the actions of free men acting in accordance with their own interest. ...

It gets better and better. And there's a gun involved!!  Enjoy!

In case you are wondering...

it is simply impossible to shell blackeyed peas, make and hot water bath more relish (Christmas presents!), deal with aphid/ant infestations of okra, AND keep up with the world, AND blog at the same time. 

Can't be done. 

But wait! Impossible things are happening every day.

Impossible, for a plain yellow pumpkin to become a golden carriage.
Impossible, for a plain country bumpkin and a prince to join in
Marriage,
And four white mice will never be four white horses!
Such fol-der-ol and fid-dle-dy dee of course, is--- Impossible!
But the world is full of zanies and fools
Who don't believe in sensible rules
And won't believe what sensible people say.
And because these daft and dewey-eyed dopes keep building up impossible
Hopes,
Impossible things are happening every day.

(Cinderella)
Impossible!

(Godmother)
Impossible!

(Cinderella)
Impossible!

(Godmother)
Impossible!

(Cinderella)
Impossible!

(Godmother)
Impossible!

(Both)
Impossible!

And pigs can fly!

When pigs fly

If you need a giggle and another reason to not fly, check this out. Seriously. Pigs may soon fly.

FIRE! (Updated with minor edits)

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education has awarded Mississippi State University the 'Green Light' rating for MSU's free speech policies. I'm pleased to report that That School Up North also has a FIRE green light. So here in Mississippi we have two, of only 15 colleges and universities in the United States of America, which protect-- and dare I say? promote-- free speech. 

Keep reading to see the full list. Most surprising-- to me... .* 

Recipe: Bourbon Sweet Potatoes

Mr. Big Food made some modifications to this recipe as he was preparing the dish. The original recipe called for something like three cups of sugar-- for 4-5 sweet potatoes which, as the name implies, are already sweet! We also omitted the topping entirely. 

Delicious!

The recipe below includes the topping, but has been corrected-- do use one cup of sugar in the sweet potatoes. Although, if you're topping them, you could cut that back a bit.

Recipe: Barbequed Pork Ribs with Sam's Special Sauce

Independence Day supper-- if you passed the quiz!

The recipe begins, "From the legendary Sam Higgins. I now often use this grilling technique for ribs." Mr. Big Food is not lying. He does use this technique often!

Recipe: Chicken Pastry

Please note that although the word "and" appears in the recipe, the correct pronunciation of this dish is, "chicken pastry." The "n" already is in the chicken. 

A classic Southern dish

"Not much to this southern classic, but good eatin’" begins the recipe.

Recipe: Radish Relish

If you like homegrown radishes, and are disappointed to not have them through the summer, try growing a rat-tailed radish or two. I grew them last year; this year one volunteered in the salad garden. Each plant produced bushels of seed pods-- the edible part of this radish. Knowing this, I searched for some way to preserve the harvest. 

Rat-tailed radishes

I found three recipes that looked interesting and sent them to Mr. Big Food who decided that we'd start with Radish Relish. Very good! 

Recipe below.

"These people that go to bed at night

and wake up dead in the morning... ."

That's what someone said this morning on the radio in the truck before I'd had my second cup of coffee.

Recipes: American (Summer) Sunday Supper

Clockwise, from the top: Slaw. Chips. Hot Dogs. Plates & Forks. Buns.

We hardly ever do this. But it was good. Hebrew National hot dogs. Plain Lays. Wonder speaks for itself.

I made the slaw.

Public Service Announcement: Check Your Computer!

I heard about this a while back and checked my computer-- because Lord knows I don't need any more computer problems-- a few days ago. I checked Mr. Big Food's computers this afternoon. We're good to go, I hope.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, Jazz Shaw at Hot Air has a very brief summary of the mal-ware problem that, should your computer be infected, will cause you to be unable to connect to the internet beginning at midnight, eastern time. And he has the link to a site that will test your connection NOW, before midnight eastern when it will be too late. Takes 30 seconds, tops.

Chicken Pastry

Chicken Pastry

Strangle Weed

Having put up (don't you just love that?) over 20 pounds of summer squash the other day, and having shelled four pounds of blackeyed peas (that's four pounds of shelled peas) yesterday, we were going to pickle some jalapenos and make some pesto today. We'll still do the pickling, but there will be no pesto today.

The basil I picked yesterday. And yes, I put it in the guest bath. Where else would I put so much basil?

I thought about it, and then thought better of it.

Cuscuta sp.

This, fellow gardeners, is Dodder also known as Strangle Weed for obvious reasons. Dodder is a true parasitic plant. Why God designed this obnoxious life form and Evolution hasn't culled it from The Face of The Earth is beyond me.*

I kept up with it for several weeks by pulling the strands out one at a time. But what with Independence Day and so on, it got away from me. The only way to get rid of it when there's this much is to pull or cut the host out completely. Silly me, I thought I could salvage enough basil for pesto but decided against it. 

From a physiological standpoint, Strangle Weed is quite interesting. 

Armadillos: Wow. 'Nuff Said

Several years ago, an 81-year-old woman with a raised patch of dry skin on her arm visited Mississippi dermatologist John Abide, M.D.

Although the lesion looked only slightly abnormal, a series of lab tests revealed that it was a symptom of leprosy.

"I thought, 'Leprosy, are you kidding me?'" says Abide, whose practice is in Greenville. His surprise was understandable.

Each year only about 150 people in the U.S. are infected with leprosy, a bacterial disease that can lead to nerve damage and disfigurement. In most cases, people are infected after being exposed to saliva from an infected person, usually while traveling to parts of the world, such as Africa and Asia, where the disease is more prevalent.

But Abide's patient didn't fit this description.

A new study in the New England Journal of Medicine may provide an explanation for her case: armadillos. The leathery shelled mammals, which can be found in 10 states throughout the Southeastern U.S., are the only animals besides humans known to carry leprosy.

There have been several anecdotal reports of leprosy in humans who have handled, killed or eaten armadillos, or who may have been indirectly exposed by gardening in soil where the animals burrow, as was the case for Abide's patient.

From an article dated April 2011 at CNN dot com. The article goes on to site a study that compared the genome of the leprosy causing bacteria in humans and armadillos. Same. I didn't look at the actual study-- something I normally do so I can read the Methods section. I wouldn't care if their methods were flawed. 

I don't want these nasty critters to be any where near my gardens.

UPDATED We had a Big Supper / I Winged an Armadillo

UPDATE. I must have just missed. No buzzards in sight. Good thing too because I investigated and discovered that armadillos are not nuisance animals in Mississippi.

Marinated shrimp. Corn in butter & garlic & whatever herbs I contributed.

Interrupted by a stupid armadillo.  We'll see where the buzzards are tomorrow.

In so far as armadillos can limp, this particular armadillo was limping away.

I take no pleasure in killing vertebrates. But when an armadillo is wandering around your yard, you have to ask yourself, "Is nature in balance here?" 

The answer is no, and so this particular armadillo is buzzard food, thanks to me.

And then it rained.

We could use some rain.

What's the market value?

UNSHELLED blackeyed peas

I think I have more blackeyed peas than we can possibly eat in one year. (40'? What was I thinking?) 

I wonder what they are valued at on the open market, shelled? Certainly not what they'd be worth if you factored in my time. 

Which reminds me of something I came across the other day... . 

You have to pass a quiz before you can eat.

Bar-b-qued pork ribs with Sam's special sauce, Alix's cucumbers and cilantro, Alix's watermelon with a yummy dressing, bourbon sweet potatoes. And then there was Chris' Apple Pie and Ice Cream!

I mentioned on Independence Day that we always read the Declaration of Independence on Independence Day. This year was no exception, but there was a new twist. Not only did each of us have to read it, each of us had to pass a quiz on it before enjoying this wonderful supper. (That's a lie. I exempted myself.)

There were nine copies of the Declaration of Independence available for our guests to read, prompting Alix to ask, "How many copies of the Declaration of Independence do you have?" Enough for everyone.

It was as easy quiz, especially since everyone knew the question before reading.

Appreciating that requiring guests to read and pass a quiz before they can eat borders on the...  inappropriate, I broached the subject delicately.

The kitchen table: We don't fry food that often but when we do...

Yet another photos with no captions post.

Supper was awesome. The okra in the fritters was home grown. The jalapenos in the hushpuppies were homegrown.  Gulf shrimp.

We boiled down the water that we'd blanched 20+ pounds of summer squash in for veggie stock.

It's rumored we will need veggie stock.