Oyster Roast

Last night I went to an oyster roast! It’s one of my favorite activities of the Lowcountry.

We drove down to the gazebo down by the marsh where you could harvest your own oysters. We were going to be eatin’ some mighty fresh oysters taken from the waters “right’s chear”. It was dark by the time we arrived. As I walked from the car, I could see people already huddled around the tables starting to eat. The fires were blazing and the oysters a cookin’.

What happens at an oyster roast?

Well, you stand around a wooden table that stands between chest and waist high with a big square hole cut out in the middle where you throw the shells after you are done eating. First, the cooks take shovels full of hot steaming oysters and heap them on the table. (If you are cool, you have brought your own glove and oyster knife. If not, then you can just use the community knife on the table.)

Now, what you want to do is to reach over and take one of those hot steaming oysters. Hold it firmly in your left hand while you find the slight opening between the two shells, and with your knife in your right hand, force the shell apart to find the plump, just steamed flesh inside. I like the big oysters where the meat is barely cooked, hot and moist and delicious. A couple of times I got two oysters that had fastened together, with the baby oyster on the outside, its meat firm and well-done and almost smoky tasting, like those smoked oysters my parents would put on Ritz crackers during one of their cocktail parties in the 1960s, and then the main oyster filled with the succulent meat inside, almost raw, but still cooked. The taste of the two size oysters varies so much, it’s almost as if you are eating two different dishes.

Just keep going this way until you have had enough. We had a meal served afterwards, which I don’t understand because once you have eaten your fill of oysters, there shouldn’t be much room in your tummy. Maybe some folks just don’t like oysters. I’m just not one of them.

The African Village

Do you know that I live near an African village? It's just down the street. Really. Just across Route 17 before I take a left into the plantation. So, who says we don't have cultural diversity down here in the South?

And, I don't mean a town like Frogmore which commemorates the Gullah and Geechee cultures of Africa, I mean a real African village.

Oba Adefunmi II is the king of this Oyotunji African village. There was a picture of him in our local paper, The Beaufort Gazette. He looks young. I was expecting an older, wise-looking man, a kind of sage of the village. I don't mean to be disrespectful, but this king looks like a hip-hop artist. He's modern.

Last weekend, the village had a 3 day festival to celebrate the 50th anniversary of its founder, the current king's father, and his initiation into the Yoruba priesthood, a religion of West African descent, with origins in Nigeria. I wanted to go -- I love reggae music --, but was deterred by the stories I have heard about the place. Weird stuff happens, I was told. There are stories of psychedelic drug use, animal sacrifices, facial scarring rites and polygamy. Apparently, that was true back during the initial founding members, but could that still be true? Well, anything is possible, I guess.

According to the article in The Beaufort Gazette, "visitors still have to wind down a dirt road and still are greeted with a sign that reads 'You are now leaving the U.S. You are entering the Yoruba Kingdom...'" The founder had declared that the Oyotunji village was not part of the United States. The village was founded to establish and commemorate the ways of "the African village" and to connect people to their ancestry.

One of the major industries of this village is...producing priests. The other is hosting festivals. They have 14 a year. So, not to worry, I'll have more chances to attend. And, who knows? Maybe I'll even spend the night. The cost for a place to put your head? $10. Can't beat that!

Oh yes, in case you are interested, they are recruiting new settlers. So, if things get tough and you want to relocate to an African village in the South, or if you want to rediscover your ancestry or learn the ways of life in an African village, come on down. Just make a right off Route 17 just below where Route 17 and Route 21 split. The villagers are waiting for you...

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!

Jobless Rate in South Carolina Close to 10%

I just read our local newspaper The Beaufort Gazette from Wednesday. The lead article reports that our state unemployment rate is the third highest in the nation -- at 9.5%, with some folks predicting that it could be as high as 14% by the end of the year.

That's bad.

I'm grateful that I am able to use my talents here to help folks think of creative ways to find work. More later...

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.