Pickin' Pecans

This is what a pecan looks like when it falls off the tree. Isn't is splendid? This pecan is about 2 inches long. Now, that's a pecan!

It's one of the many gifts of the Lowcountry's bounty...pecans.

As a born Yankee, I learned to say "pee-CONS'", with the accent on "cons." Here we say PEE-cans...unless it is in a pie and then it becomes "pee can" pie, with equal emphasis on the "pee" and the "can", go figure.

So, here's a picture of my husband pickin' pecans under one of our favorite trees. Look at the size of the basket. We've got a bunch of baskets full. How many? More than 3. They should last us awhile!

And, we are going to comb over every inch of the earth and pick up every pecan because here's something you might not know. Pecan trees yield fruit every other year -- so next year, no pecans. You gotta get them while you can.

There is nothing quite like a fresh pecan. True, they are difficult to crack, but that makes it more fun.

We have a special device in our kitchen just for shellin' pecans. You can adjust the back to hold the pecan, located on the left hand side, depending on the length of the nut, then grab the lever on the right hand side and swing to the left...CRACK! The sharp point on the right hand side, pierces the shell and it cracks perfectly in half, if you do it right. And, if for some reason, it doesn't crack quite right, you can still use the pick, which looks like a utensil you might use to remove the hard-to-get pieces of a lobster. Lots of effort, plenty of reward.

There it is. The meat of the nut. And, when it comes right off the tree, like in the above picture, it will be supple and moist and ... absolutely yummy. I've gotta go...am going to go crack a PEcan.

Oooooops! A Correction...

My husband reads my blog. Probably to make sure that I don't put in anything too incriminating about him?! :o) Either that, or he's amused by the whole thing. Or not.

He tactfully pointed out on our walk yesterday that I had a misspelling in my last post. It should have read "quail" not quails. Apparently, there is no such thing as quails.

Why not?, I wondered. One quail, two quails. One deer, two deers. One goose, two geese, One moose, two meese.

I'm starting to sound like Dr. Seuss...

Quail Experiment Failed

Last night I tried my hand experimenting with cooking quails. I modified a recipe, but used a sauce that totally overpowered the meat. Frankly, it wasn't very tasty.

Also, I wonder if it's really worth it, spending so much time preparing birds this small? There's hardly any meat on the bones. The ROI was poor. Lots of time. Little return. Almost no meat.

So, my appeal to you...does anyone out there have a good -- and relatively easy -- quail recipe? I'd sure appreciate it!

Freezer Burn

In December, Mr. Stanley called to ask when he could bring over the processed deer meat from Landon’s successful hunting outings. He has “harvested” as they say down here, 3 deer, 2 bucks and a doe. That is a TON of deer meat. Where to put it?

Today we’ll have to clean out the freezers. What a hilarious concept! In New York, in my tiny kitchen apartment, I had a freezer which had an icebox the size of a shoebox. I could fit two ice trays, a gallon of ice cream and some assorted frozen vegetable packages. That was it. But, that was fine because I never cooked – the meals I ate consisted of dry cereal or oatmeal or a salad or Chinese takeout or sushi that I would pick up on my way home. I never needed anything from my freezer.

Here in the Low Country, it’s different. We have 4 freezers. All of them needed to be cleaned out in order to make room for the new meat.

The refrigerator freezer in the mud room contains whatever your would need to make desserts…frozen pie trays, blueberries, peach mixture, pecans, strawberries from Mr. Stanley’s garden, and a couple of cooked pies – pecan, blueberry and apple.

Our kitchen refrigerator freezer contains two entire shelves and trays of frozen vegetables that I can use in the various stews that I will be making this winter. The top shelf consists of already prepared meals – Salisbury venison steak, BBQ venison, venison stew. On the next shelf, we have easy to prepare deer meat; maple sausages, some frozen cube steaks that I use in stir fry meals. The bottom shelf drawer holds our fish, mostly catfish.

But it is the industrial size freezers in the garage that need the most work. It took me (and Miss Mary and Miss Flo) 2 hours to get them cleaned out and thawed and the contents organized. Here’s what they look like:

In the small freezer, we have birds: quail, chukka, pheasant, mallard ducks (with the heads still attached for auditing purposes?!), woodcock, wood duck, and We have 65 pounds of shrimp: 20 pounds of small/medium; 25 lbs of medium and 20 lbs of jumbo.

The large freezer is for our venison meat – we still have lots of deer for last season. I’m going to have to make a crock pot a week in order to eat all of our roasts! We have 12 venison roasts, 8 deer tenderloin, 3 backstraps , four shopping bags full of cube steak, stew meat, and then the sausages…we have maple flavored sausages, country flavored, bratwurst and regular sausages. We must have 20 packages of ground venison -- that’s a lot of hamburgers!

Guess I won’t have to go to the grocery store to buy meat – whatever happened to a simple stir fry chicken dish? :o)

Lemon Pheasant

Last night I made Lemon Pheasant. Check it out! It was yummy. I CAN cook.

Cooking and Me

I’m becoming a good Southern girl. I am starting to cook…

What’s happening to me? When I lived in New York, sometimes, very, very rarely, I would cook for myself. If I did cook, it would be very simple. I would buy a cut of fish from the fish market – either tuna or swordfish (not very politically correct of me, I know) and would walk a couple of blocks to my local Korean deli on the corner, Annie’s, where I would usually buy 10 sugar snap peas. The number was not lost on the cashier. “You mus’ live alone,” she would say, “you only hav’ 10 peas. Ha ha.” I didn’t think it was funny.

It reminded me of the last time I bought German sausages at the famous Schaller and Weber on 86th and Second. I asked for one sausage. The man behind the counter started psycho-analyzing me, in front of his other customers, and said: “You must live alone. What’s the matter with you? You are an attractive woman. Why aren’t you married… you must hate men…” And, so on and so on and so on…” At least I don’t have to face that anymore!

When I lived in New York, dinner consisted of dry cereal, dining out, take out or delivery. Most of the time, if I was at home, I would call and have my food delivered right to my door. I wouldn’t even go and pick it up. Why should I? It was free! Pizza from Mia Pizza, salmon curry from Sala Thai, jumbo shrimp from Chef Ho’s, steamed chicken and mixed vegetables from First Wok, fish from La Mia, or tabbouleh, baba ganoush, and hummus from the Falafel House. One phone call from the couch and it would arrive, HOT, 20 minutes later, rain or shine. Now, that was great!

In New York, no one cooks. None of my friends did. Why cook when you are only cooking for yourself and you can get all sorts of delicious, ethnically diverse food. You know, now that I think about it, I lived in my two bedroom, pre-war New York apartment for 14 years and…I never used the oven. Never. I did boil water for making rice and vegetables on the stove top burners, and occasionally I would use the broiler for making my fish, but I never used the oven itself. Never.

Fast forward to today…when I first got to the Low Country, my husband had a housekeeper in the house who cooked. It’s a long story, which I will tell sometime, but she’s gone, which means I’m the one doing the cooking. It’s hilarious! Stay tuned…

Meatloaf and Other Cooking Thoughts

Last night I made venison meatloaf for my husband.

I'm really getting a hang of this cooking thing. It's really hilarious to me. How did this New York I-only-order-in-delivery girl start cooking?

Well, first of all, I have a freezer full of meat that my husband has provided through as they say down here, "harvesting game." Translation: he has killed 4 deer this season. I also have birds and 65 pounds of shrimp. So, as you can see, I have lots of material to work with. And, I mean, how traditional can our relationship be? My husband literally "brings home the bacon" and I cook it.

The funny thing -- and one that I don't quite understand yet -- is that I really enjoy cooking for my husband. Let me be clear. I don't like to cook. But, I like cooking for my husband because it allows me to express my love to him by nurturing him through food. (He's not a picky eater, he likes what I cook, and he doesn't eat very well if he tries to cook or prepare food for himself.) I like to cook and serve him food. (He's great with dishes and clean up.)

I'm an extremely independent person -- so independent that at age 8 I wrote an essay about how I wanted to be a bacholorette like my cousin Lynn because I didn't want to have to cook for my husband. I never wanted to get locked into a role that involved chores like cooking because cooking felt like a form of enslavement.

But, now when I cook for Landon, I get this strange internal warm and fuzzy feeling inside that develops deep inside of me when I'm standing over the stove stirring and pouring and sautee-ing. I love the feeling of knowing I can care for my husband in this primitive and primeval way. It's so strange. As I nurture him, I find like I am nurturing my own soul.