"Guy Food" Christmas Eve

Mr. Big Food's Southern antipasto: It's Southern because it has pickled okra and chow-chow

Wednesday is "guy food" night. (Meatless Monday, Fancy Tuesday, etc. We are fans of order-- of a certain sort-- here at the Farm.) Southern antipasto was followed by fried barbecue-seasoned oysters and boiled shrimp.

What. A. Feast. 

Thursday is Heritage night. Tomorrow is Thursday and it is Christmas. Accordingly, we are having stuffed goose.

30? Is that all?

Tip of the old John Deer cap to Mr. Big Food's Dad who sent these along. Enjoy!

Subject: 30 Things a Southern Boy Will Never Say....

    

   30. When I retire, I'm movin' north.

   

   29. I'll take Shakespeare for 1000, Alex.

   28. Duct tape won't fix that.

    

   27. Come to think of it, I'll have a Heineken.

    

   26. We don't keep firearms in this house.

    

   25. You can't feed that to the dog.

    

   24. No kids in the back of the pickup, it's just not safe.

    

   23. Wrestling is fake.

    

   22. We're vegetarians.

    

   21. Do you think my gut is too big?

    

   20. I'll have grapefruit and grapes instead of biscuits and gravy.

    

   19. Honey, we don't need another dog.

    

   18. Who gives a damn who won the Civil War?

    

   17. Give me the small bag of pork rinds.

    

   16. Too many deer heads detract from the decor.

Fifteen more below!

Stuck in Traffic

Miss M went to town yesterday

and got stuck in a traffic jam.

She said they trotted right past her car window but she couldn't snap a photo because she was, you know, driving!

DG

Without your knowledge, I have just placed you, my dear loyal readers, into one of two categories: 1) DG? WTF does DG stand for? OR 2) Oh, I see! A post about Dollar General! How exciting!!

You may find yourself in the former category if you've had no exposure to the "largest small-box discount retailer" in the nation.

offering a remarkable variety of everyday items.

11,000 stores in 40 states

Oh oh. What will Daughter C do??

Or you may be in the former category because you are... well... "storist"-- one who has a preconceived notion of what a Dollar General store is and that's just not good enough for you. (Perhaps you can afford to overpay for paper towels. 99% of us cannot.)

The Dollar General store in a small town is the great equalizer. One is just as likely to be in line behind a bedraggled family doing its weekly grocery shopping as one is to be in line behind the bespectacled county attorney buying a pack of legal pads. Christine-- the check out lady whose niece runs the gas station/plate lunch restaurant just down the road from us-- knows all of our names.

Speaking of equalizers-- did you seen this the other day?

Gunman invades Dollar General, meets concealed carry permit holder.

This happened in Orrsville, Alabama. We looked Orrsville up on the map. Who walks into a DG in Orrsville, Alabama and doesn't see this coming? Some people just aren't cut out for a life of crime.

Recipe: Seafood Gumbo I

Life is BIG when you have more than one seafood gumbo recipe in your very own Big Food Manual and Survivalist Flourishing Guide.

SEAFOOD GUMBO I

Makes a huge pot-ful

2 C olive oil

2 C flour (or more, up to 5 C)

6 C white onions, chopped coarse

3 C bell pepper, chopped

2 C green onion, white and pale green parts only, sliced

2 8 oz tomato sauce (preferably homemade—see recipes in Basics section).

½ C garlic

1 ½ C parsley, chopped fine

2 C dry white wine

2 dozen small crabs, bodies broken in half and large claws only, cleaned in boiling water

3 lbs shrimp, peeled and deveined

4 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce

2 tsp ground Cayenne pepper

6 quarts water

3 Tbsp salt (maybe more, maybe less, depending on taste—taste gumbo first before adding)

Rice or wild rice (or both), file powder (for serving)

Have onions and bell peppers ready. Make a very dark roux, remove from fire when done, and immediately stir in onions and green peppers. Stir vegetables in roux until roux stops cooking. Pour in tomato sauce and stir in green onions, return to low flame, and stir until all are mixed in and roux is back to original color. Combine roux, garlic, parsley, water, Worcestershire sauce, Cayenne pepper, and wine in large stock pot or gumbo pot. Taste and stir in salt. Cook the mixture for 45 minutes, then drop in crabs and shrimp. Let gumbo cook slowly for 2 or more hours, stirring occasionally. Serve by mounding rice in bowl, sprinkle rice with file powder, and top with ladlefuls of hot gumbo.

Kettle's on the Boil

When Miss M and I left the farm at about 11am the water was back on. Sure, the pressure wasn't up to snuff, but that's to be expected.

When we returned we still had water, of a certain sort.

Boiled water for washing dishes and such

When I inquired about the water situation at about 4:45pm-- ours was looking a little brownish-- the nice lady at the Small Town Mississippi City Offices asked where I lived. Sure enough, this part of the county is under a Boiled Water Advisory.

Now, wouldn't you know that last week I proclaimed we needed to use some of our bottled water before it got stale. (It does that, you know.) So we have all been diligently using bottled water to make coffee and to boil pasta and whatnot. 

Not to worry. We've got plenty. And Miss M is going to go visit Daughter C in Starkvegas tomorrow-- Miss M prefers to wash her hair in clear water-- so she can pick up some more gallons after she does the one load of laundry Mr. Big Food asked me to do in his absence. (That's okay, isn't it, C?)

You can never have too many gallons of water on hand. 

The nice lady at the City Offices told me the boiled water advisory should be lifted by Wednesday. That's good, because Kat & Tony arrive Thursday and they like water. 

Meanwhile... . Did I mention that Nigel's house burnt to the ground about a week ago? 

This is Nice

Southerners tend to live in one place, where they can see whole lives unfold around them. It gives them a natural sense of the narrative, of the dramatic content of life.

-- Eudora Welty

From Under Live Oaks: The Last Great Houses of the Old South (Caroline Seebohm and Peter Woloszynski, Clarkson Potter Publishers, New York, 2002)

The Elms, Natchez, Mississippi

 Photo from Under Live Oaks, p. 125.

Easter Egg Tree

Now that the mystery of how Easter Eggs came to be associated with the Easter Bunny has been resolved, we are confronted by the mystery of the Easter Egg Tree.

We have an Easter Egg tree inside.

I wanted to just pile eggs on top of Christmas bulbs (in March) but I was out voted and it didn't seem an issue worthy of debate.

So where did the idea of an Easter Egg Tree originate? Lots of folks have them. What's the history?

What's Up with Alabama?

First the Easter Bunny and now this?

By the Light

of the big yellow flash lights, we gathered round the hearth and chatted about the day.

I was told by the local power association fellow that they-- they, the Local Power Association-- had a line down and took a line down just up from us because there was a line down and power would be back on soon. Sometimes it's hard to get a lot of detail out of these fellows. 

Here is my optimistic understanding, along with a healthy dose of inference, of what he said. 

Our power was out earlier today, no doubt due to a downed line. The source of our outage may not have been the source of all possible outages for which our Local Power Association is responsible. So they patched the source of ours and other outages. And they did so such that by 5pm, everyone would have power, arrive home, fix supper, do some homework, lay out clothes for tomorrow, tidy up the kitchen, watch some tube, wash behind some ears and brush some teeth. And then they pulled the plug. Say your prayers in the dark. Catch some shut eye and wake up to a flashing alarm clock.

See? I can spin a just-so story. 

There is a pessimistic interpretation of my brief conversation with the fellow. But I like mine better so I'm sticking with it.

Meanwhile. Let's review a few things. 

A) Computer battery does last longer if the keyboard isn't illuminated and the back-lighting is turned way down. 

B) It helps to point a big flashlight at the ceiling-- this will sort of kind of illuminate the keyboard. And hey. If you can't type without looking at the keys, maybe you need to learn shorthand. (I would link some posts about Gregg shorthand but I can't really see what I'm doing.)

C) Here's a lesson learned. The storm today was quick, but particularly intense. After the power came back on, I engaged the "power cool" and "power freeze" on the fridge in the kitchen. I should have set all cooling appliances to "max" for a couple of hours. 

Whoo Hooo. See how that works? Just as Miss M had come back inside after having sat in her car burning gasoline so she could charge up her phone without draining her car battery...  the Power Is Restored. 

Big Life. 

Barring pessimistic interpretations of recent events, there will be a Big Ol' Pot of Coffee-- not a puny press pot-- tomorrow morning.
 

UPDATED | You Know What This Means, Don't You?

It means I can't sit around eating bonbons and watching my stories this afternoon. That's what it means. Dang.

UPDATE! Like magic the lights came on seconds after I called to inquire about when the lights would come back on. 

Now this should be fun. In lieu of watching my stories, I mopped the kitchen floor-- using a mop, not the fancy runs-on-Electricity floor cleaner-- in the dark. Wonder what it looks like?

The 0.10% Sure are Smart!

This should really surprise regular readers. We are having company!

One of the things I like to do when company's coming is to slightly modify the crappy old book selection in the guest room's colorful library. (Many books were chosen because of the color of the cover or spine-- who can resist a book with orange on the cover or spine?) For this particular guest, I've chosen the crappy old book, A Study of Rural Society Third Edition by J.H. Kolb (College of Agriculture, University of Wisconsin) and Edmund de S. Brunner (Teachers College, Columbia University), edited by William F. Ogburn (The University of Chicago) published by Houghton Mifflin Company in 1946.

I was perusing Chapter 5, Psychological Characteristics, which begins:

Because of the popular belief, among city people at least, that rural people are in some way inferior to their city cousins, it might not be impertinent to inquire at this point into the matter of rural and urban intelligence and characteristics, and try to analyze first, the scientific data now existing with regard to the question, and secondly, certain matters of common observation.

Let me be the first to tell you that these professors/authors are going to caution you smarty-pants city mice to not rush to any rash conclusions. After all, these country bumpkin rural folks might confuse the theatre (which they pronounce "THEE-A-ter) with a picture show (!), but they can tell you how many pecks are in a bushel!

I've looked through this crappy old book on more than one occasion and I can tell you that, caution aside, the tone does not please me. I had not noticed this table, under the chapter sub-head, Differences in Schooling, before.

Where is that editor from The University of Chicago when you need him?

Let's do some country mouse math!

253 children in one-room schools

0.10% = 0.10/100 = 0.0010

0.0010 X 253 = 1/4 of a student. 

Not 1/4 of the students. A student. (Wouldn't you like to read that methods section?)

Math is hard no matter where you go to school. And fractions are even harder!

STAY IN SKOOL! DONT" BE A DROPOUT! AND FER GAWDS SAKE'S LERN YOU SOME MATH or at least a bit or arithmetic. 

Seriously. Books-- new & old-- are full of typographical errors. But for gawd sakes'! This was the third edition. Wouldn't you have thought someone-- any one-- would have caught this?

~~
For the record (from the infallible source, Wikipedia):

A bushel is an imperial and U.S. customary unit of dry volume, equivalent in each of these systems to 4 pecks or 8 gallons. It is used for volumes of dry commodities (not liquids), most often in agriculture. It is abbreviated as bsh. or bu. In modern usage, the dry volume is usually only nominal, with bushels referring to standard weights instead.

Pecks & Pints below. 

Dinner Was Paid For

But we had to buy our own drinks.

The bacon was a nice touch. Thank you, Trisha!

Custom Made at No Additional Charge

I am pleased to report that thanks to Mr. Big Food's unrelenting efforts in a small space of 50 square feet and wall heights ranging from 8-10 feet the prison-striped wall paper is history!

As you may recall, there is no law (Yet? That I'm aware of?) forbidding home owners from affixing wall paper to sheet rock which has not first been primed or painted. And I'll not be painting over wall paper. Daughter C. recommended steam-- and hey!-- if you have a now-previously very nice garment/drape/upholstery steamer you might as well put it to good use. Steam works remarkably better than diluted Downy Fabric Softener [insert trademark thingy]. There is one small problem, though.

No caption needed if you know what bare naked sheet rock looks like.

The original plan was to paint. There's still paint involved in the revised plan, but it comes after the walls are textured

because when you texture walls, you don't have to sand after you fix the gouges in the sheet rock.

After I'd sanded the bare naked wood door frames and mouldings, I was sort of tired of sanding. (Don't forget, I just sanded all the bare naked wood in the half-bath.) Texturing it is!

Steam also works remarkably well to loosen Joint tape. [Let me remark here that if it sounds like I know what I'm talking about it's due in large part to Bro. Mike.] Turns out that before I knew what Joint tape was, I'd managed to scrape away a whole Joint's worth in the worst of all possible Joints--

that crazy Joint at the Corner of Door Frame & Wall.

A Country Mouse Explores an Over-grown Pasture

My task was to inspect the perimeter fence.

I'm happy to report that it is intact. 

Saturday in Mississippi Part 1: 2nd Amendment Rally

We had an overnight guest who I am pleased to say made his bed in the new & improved guest room after a walk around the property and a hearty breakfast of juice, coffee, biscuits & sausage gravy. After breakfast our guest departed for Nashville, and we made our way to the Capital of the Sovereign State of Mississippi.

Hard to believe, but we'd never been to the capital grounds before.

"Dedicated to you, a free citizen in a free land"

Opportunity seized.

While we did not, technically speaking, exercise our 2nd Amendment right at the rally-- as we were on the grounds of the capital guns stayed in the truck-- we did exercise our 1st Amendment rights to peaceably assemble and petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Wish I'd thought of that. Just because the gun is in the truck doesn't mean the holster has to be.

The Governor spoke. 

I think I forgot to mention that Walker-- the 14 your old neighbor kid-- showed up at the door the other day with his single-shot .223 asking if he could go into the woods and sit in his deer stand and try his luck. 

Guns Made America Great!

An Eventful Day

Today Mr. Big Food and I traveled to Oxfordtown and TSUN.* Miss M and Mike joined us. 

There was an EVENT on campus.

We were not there for the EVENT, and that's what I told the security guard who was guarding Visitor Parking Street, but he let us park in EVENT PARKING anyway. 

As per usual when we visit TSUN, we walked across the Grove headed for the Union and a cup of bitter coffee. As we were walking, I mentioned to Miss M that 50 years ago James Meredith became a student at Ole Miss. We chatted about subsequent EVENTS.

An unpleasant turn of EVENTS.

Yummy UPDATED

The lunch menu for my county's two high schools. Click to make bigger.

With all of the hubub about school lunches, I thought I'd take a look and see what the kids around here are eating.

Frankly, I don't think there is enough starch on the menu, but that's just me. And I wonder about some of the combinations-- who eats green beans with spaghetti? But I do like that many of the main items and a lot of the sides are classic Southern: hamburger steak and gravy, BBQ pork sandwich, blackeyed peas, and so on. All in all it doesn't look too bad for $2.25. Breakfast is only a buck and I could eat.

I conclude that the Food Police have not found my little county yet. 

UPDATE: I must be missing something. 

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.

Recipes on the Grill / I Saw It Happen

"Georgia Boy Sausages" slathered in chili sauce. Baby Round Zucchini brushed with honey butter while it was grilling.

And Ranch Style Beans heated on the grill.

big food. (That's a joke. Ranch Style Beans is a ConAg product.)

See. If all you'd grown this year was one measly Baby Round Zucchini plant, and one night on your way out of Starkvegas you decided to skip going to the Hog, but you still needed a veggie to grill, and you 'mentally' scanned the garden, and you cut the Baby Round Zucchini that had accumulated in the crisper into thick slices... and brushed them with honey butter ... . You would have enjoyed The Best Vegetable Ever. 

~~

While grilling, Mr. Big Food reported that the fire was really hot although he'd not built a particularly hot fire. It was fairly warm at 8pm. The termo-meter on the wall read about 99 but it had been sitting in the sun for a few hours. 

During the day it was much warmer. The thermo-meter in the truck jumped at least five degrees from the Farm to Starkvegas. The place right before Rick's Furniture on Stark Rd. has a time/temp/ad thing. It read 107.

So I was headed to Starkvegas and was passing a small van on the 4-lane and what do you know?