big corn

These days, I am finding it quite amusing that the common practices of country folk are actually becoming trendy. I don't know if its a what-was-old-is-new-again kind of thing, or if we are all realizing that what was once considered a bit backwards really makes good sense. 

Local eating is one concept that comes to mind. I hadn't considered this to be an important idea until I read Frank Stitt's cookbook. I jumped straight on that bandwagon, feeling like somewhat of a ground-breaker when I promptly joined a food co-op (funded by my mother of course, who is always supportive of my passions, as I was still in grad school). It wasn't until I was staring that box of veggies in the face trying to figure our what my aunt or my grandmother would do with it that I realized how un-exotic I was being. You see, the fact of the matter is, most of my family has always eaten locally. Very locally. Backyard locally. 

I have so many lovely memories of shelling peas and shucking corn with my aunts and grandmother, and many more very un-exotic memories picking whatever was ripe with my grandfather. I had no idea how novel those experiences would seem years later, even to me. My aunt and uncle have a running joke about signing all of us up for "potato camp" seeing as we all loved to get away to camp in the summertime. These days, I bet they'd actually have people sign up. 

All of this to say, in my quest to be all that I can be domestically speaking, I am becoming a putter upper. Specifically, if you sit still in my kitchen for too long, you may get vacuum packed and put in the freezer. Yes, that's right, I have a chest freezer {named Chester, you know all of my important kitchen appliances have names} and I'm not afraid to use it.  I've already weasled one of my cousins out of a bunch of venison, frozen 9 quarts of peaches, and this week I moved on to put up 60 ears of corn. I may branch out from the freezer tomorrow and attempt okra pickles. I've never felt so productive.

Potato Camp here I come!!