Scottish-American Pride

My friend Em posted this picture on her Facebook page. It was taken at the Carroll County (agricultural) Fair, which is was this weekend. Floyd is largely German but the surrounding counties have more Scottish and Scots-Irish ancestry. As you can see, some food preferences may be hard-wired in the genetic code of various ethnic groups.

I am told it was a popular concession.

Happy Thanksgiving

Turkeys at Border Springs Farm

The turkey is all brined and drying in the fridge which is otherwise crammed full of vegetables awaiting tomorrow's cooking showdown. Kennebek potatoes and Seminole pumpkins are awaiting their demise. Do they realize that the lush soil I gave them this summer was all just a trick?

The last time I cooked Thanksgiving dinner was in 2004 when our friends Kirsty and Daisy came over from Scotland. Kirsty wanted to experience the full-on OTT deal right down to Black Friday at the mall so I gave it to her. (In return she gave me her granny's tablet ("fudge") recipe.) I think we had ten that year, which is a lot for us and our little table. We had all the classic New England fixin's plus certain Southern and Southwestern dishes my guests would have rioted over had they been missing. It was WAY too much food but with four in the kitchen it wasn't too bad for work.

This year it's me and my knife feeding four plus a plate for a neighbor who will be working late at the hospital. Our turkey is an humanely raised heritage breed from Border Springs Farm that spent its' life roosting in a hardwood forest about 30 miles from Stratheden. We've had heritage birds before and woweee.... they taste so much better than the 40 cents a pound stuff at the grocery. It's a real treat! I can't wait to see the smile on our elderly bachelor farmer neighbor's face when he tastes old fashioned turkey.

The menu is as follows:

turkey with bread stuffing
mashed potatoes
pumpkin puree
collard greens
broccoli with feta cheese sauce
cranberry sauce
green chile sauce
home-made chutney
real gravy
buttermilk biscuits
---------
peach pie with custard
chocolate cake

That's right- no pumpkin or pecan pie, no sweet potatoes, no green bean casserole. Darn it, this is MY version of Thanksgiving dinner. If I could get good blueberries we'd be having savoury blueberry muffins too. Martha Stuart and relatives rolling in graves be damned.

Late next week we will be picking up another Thanksgiving treat... We gave our friend Tim hunting rights on our property in return for a deer (or more) a year. He's brought close friends half a dozen times this month and they've shot a few out of our overly-large herds but tonight Tim finally got one. So, we have a young doe aging at the butchers and our neighbor has the hide for tanning.

Indeed, it's a Happy Thanksgiving for us!

My legs hurt, and, frankly, so do my hands. Must mean yesterday was another long day in the garden for me. We've had more rain than sun of late so we gotta make dirt while the sun shines.

I finally finished the fourth bed in the raised garden. What takes so long is separating the soil from the sod we dug up. At first I was saving the sod to help an erosional area (done!) and now I'm using the grass parts in the compost pile. Lots of good mycillium in there and plenty of worms. We also figured out what to do with some existing (ugly) raised beds against the west-facing retaining wall. The heavy clay soil in them turned pretty easily so I just worked in a whole lot of vermiculite and some compost. I hope the melons I planted will be happy. We'll have greens out of those boxes too, at least until the melons take over!

Mr Fuzzy spent most of the last two days working in some compost and planting his garden. We've got corn, beans, melons, cucumbers, and tomatoes to go down there. Today we expect to get that bit finished.

He was having some troubles getting the plow to turn over correctly so he called our Yankee Neighbors for advice... Mr. Fuzzy realized that he'd always used at least a three-row plow and thought maybe there was some trick to a single moldboard plow. Turns out the trick is a spring that's missing from our tractor. Looks like our next rainy day will see us to the New Holland dealership in Meadows of Dan. There are three eateries in the village so we'll make an afternoon of it.

So, our plow problem diagnosed, the younger Yankee neighbor, we'll dub him "Taciturn Yankee," went ahead and showed us how he does it... with four or more passes with the cultivator. You learn something every day around here. That day we learned the best plow is not a plow. In less than an hour Taciturn Yankee made us four raised beds each about 25 feet long and neat as a pin. I would normally have taken over about three dozen cookies as a thank-you but The Bronx Babe (that would be Mr. Yankee Senior's wife) is a cook to beat all cooks and her son will be well supplied with tasty morsels.

Any suggestions on a good "thank you" gift? He's a really nice guy to have thought to bring the cultivator and to have just done this without our asking.

Riner Oyster Supper

Last Saturday I did some needed shopping in the nearest big town, Christiansburg, and stopped off along the way there for my supper at the annual Riner Fire Department Oyster Supper. Like most rural places, it's a volunteer fire and rescue squad.

As you can see, everyone was there! Most folks had trouble with these elementary school cafeteria seats, but I LOVED THEM! For once, the tables and chairs were my size.

It looks like the men did the cooking and the Ladies' Auxillary did the serving.
An hour in (when I got to the cashier) they'd served about 500 dinners.

Thankfully, they offered something other than fried oysters.
I got the "small" plate.

These are about 25% of the desserts on offer.
All home made, of course!

Scottish influences continue to shine through in Appalachia.