I am the Audience

I’m singing that song again.

May 17, 2023

a day in this life, food & drink, music, poetry and songs, Southern culture

My pie will be strawberry. But, it will not have a heart because I’m not putting a crust on top. And I didn’t save out berries to make a shape.

This pie is 44 years in the making.

When I was a sweet, young thing in Florence, South Carolina, I was a frequenter of the Venus Pancake House. It was open 24 hours a day, only closed on “significant holidays” like Xmas, New Year’s and, maybe, Thanksgiving. It was owned by a couple of Greek men. I was never sure what their relationship was. I don’t think they were brothers because they looked nothing alike. Maybe brothers-in-law. Maybe just friends. Pretty sure they weren’t sweethearts.

They had a $2.50 lunch special that was a meat and 2 with bread and your drink. I often got fried fish, double cole slaw, corn bread and unsweetened tea. When the little theater crowd went in after rehearsal, I got pancakes, eggs over medium, bacon and enough coffee to float me home.

Every once in a while, Steve would make a strawberry pie. I LOVED that pie. And, of course, he wouldn’t give me the recipe. He preferred to sell me slices. When he got around to making it.

Decades later, a beekeeper brought a variation to a potluck. Her’s was blueberry and she shared the recipe. I have made it several times with blueberries and it is absolutely delicious. But, I keep forgetting to make pie when I have strawberries at hand.

Today, my loving husband brought home fresh, local, pesticide-free, ripe-from-the-garden strawberries.

And I am making a pie.
Rosemary

May 12, 2023

a day in this life, dirt under my nails, grow your own, herbs, Laughing

I’m going to tell a story on my friend. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t read this. So, I’m safe to not spoil a surprise.

Several years ago, my friend bought a condominium townhouse in Durham. It had a tiny little bit of dirt between the front of the building and the sidewalk that was maintained by a company paid for by the HOA. There were a couple of foundation plantings there. But, it wasn’t particularly ornamental.

We planted a ‘Don Juan’ climbing rose behind those and it flourished. And she got some cobalt blue flower pots to plant annuals to liven up the front porch.

One day, she asked me if I would come help her put a rosemary in one of the larger of the blue pots. So, I grabbed my trowel, a bag of dirt and some newspaper for the bottom of the pot and head over there.

When I got there, she said, “I bought this a few weeks ago and I don’t know what I need to do. Everything else has just been put in the pot without transplanting it. But, I think this needs more room than that.”

So, we pulled the pot out; I put a couple of layers of newspaper in over the drainage hole and reached for the rosemary to see how much soil I needed to put in the bottom.

And it wouldn’t lift up.

The pot had been there so long that the roots had grown through the drainage holes on THAT pot and firmly attached it to the ground. So, we left it there and it became a HUGE part of the foundation hedge.

She sold that condo 2 or 3 years ago to move into a rental house with her mother. Her mother died last year and she decided to buy another townhouse condominium, this time, in Apex.

I have bought her a rosemary plant as a housewarming gift. And it already had roots growing out of the drainage holes.

I was going to get a blue pot for it. But, I’m not sure she doesn’t still have one the correct size. So, I transplanted it into a nursery pot that I had in the shed for it to live in until I have a chance to give it to her. IF she has a pot the correct size, she can just drop it in. If she doesn’t, I will get one for it.
Wild asparagus

May 1, 2023

a day in this life, dirt under my nails

This does crack me up and make me roll my eyes a bit.

To start asparagus, you plant “crowns” in early Spring. If I recall correctly, they show up at garden centers in February. The crowns look like old fashioned rag mops.

Alternatively, you can hope that I am your neighbor and that the birds will seed them into your yard as enthusiastically as they do in mine.

There are a couple more spots but they didn’t photograph well.
My sad Bat Flower

April 11, 2023

dirt under my nails, home

I got a Bat Flower in 2016. I forgot to bring it in one night that Fall and it died. I went back to the place there I had gotten the first one the next year and have manged not to kill it. My child is particularly fond of its weirdness. So, we share ownership even though I am the one that keeps it and keeps it alive.

C has a friend who is a potter and I commissioned a pot for it from her during the shut down. It’s a lovely piece and, when the plant is healthy, they look great together.

It really hates being inside my house. It’s not humid enough in here. The leaves get absolutely crispy. If I set it outside in the sun, the leaves get sunburned. But it can’t stand cold, either. I tried keeping it by a humidifier and that wasn’t enough. I have some guilt for how unhappy this plant is in my care.

I moved the chair that’s shading it to take the picture.

How pitiful is that? Even the new growth is crispy and you can see where the leaves just crumbled away.

But.

If I can leave it outside.

It will grow healthy leaves and weird flowers all summer.

I’ll show you later.
Coffee thoughts

April 7, 2023

food & drink

My father was the only coffee drinker in our house until the summer I worked at a sleep-away camp and began drinking heavily sugared cafe au lait. My dad was delighted to finally have someone to share his love of coffee with. I needed to drop 15 lbs to fit into my mother’s wedding dress 4 years later and took out the sugar. It tasted wrong that way so I took out the milk, too.

My maternal grandmother drank it black, too. And so hot that she said she would drink it straight from the spout of the percolator if it wouldn’t burn her lips.

Sometime in my early 20s, my dad discovered Community Kitchens coffee. I expect it was when he was actually in Louisiana. He started ordering it by mail and they had a starter pack in the catalogue they sent him. It was a grinder with 3 different roasts of the same beans. So, you could taste the difference the roast makes. This was the early ’80s, so Starbucks hadn’t taken off yet and the only coffee most people ever had was from their kitchen or whatever drip was available at a restaurant or gas station.

I gave that coffee starter set to a couple of friends for wedding presents. Then, CK quit selling it. I guess they figured enough people had had opportunity to try it.

I did their subscription service for a while. We got 1 pound each of beans from 2 different locations each month. Pop thought that was fun, too.

One year I got him a pound of Jamaican Blue Mountain beans for Xmas. He broke out the silver coffee service and the good china for that. My mother rolled her eyes but we thought it was fun.

The first time I went into a coffee shop in Charleston, SC I was overwhelmed by the espresso options and asked for just black coffee. She gave me French roast. It was amazing.