Ask Granny

8-17-98

Hello my friends, I wish you well. I bet your kitchen stays hot the livelong day as you dry and can food for the coming winter. Peaches are ripe up here on the ridge, and they sure taste good- but not as pretty as they look when the dull freckled skin is peeled away. My goodness they are colored up like a sunset! Guess I’ll never know the right and proper name for them as the trees volunteered up where I threw out the pits and peels of peaches bought at the flea market. The ones I bought were ‘clear seeded’, with white and red flesh, but the sprout didn’t come true to it’s parent. I know not to count on a true copy, but thought maybe it would since it was an old variety. It’s hard to find a bad tasting peach, and the price was certainly right on this one!

Steve Willis from over at Puryear called me this week to share HIS Granny’s tried and true method of telling when a watermelon is ready to pull. What you do is take a broom straw and lay it across the top of that big old melon you’ve been watching over so careful like and see if it turns. If the straw stays still it means you go put the salt shaker and the butcher knife up and wait till another day. Of course you can also use all of the other tips I gave you and if they all point to a ripe melon you can use your own judgement! Just don’t be in too big a hurry. Practice on some bought ones first. There’s a malady one can get from eating too much watermelon, I’ve read, but I never knew anybody that got it and I eat it every chance I get. Not near often enough to suit me. I think this was in the deep South and pore folks were making melons their main food.

Now to the big problem with Mr. Willis’ method. Broom straws long enough to lay across a melon as big as that one you’ve growed are mighty hard to come by these days of vacuum brooms and such, right? Just stop by the hardware dept. and buy you a corn broom for test purposes and use it to sweep the porch when you’ve eat up all the watermelons in the patch! It will also be handy when the hound dogs get in a scuffle and come Spring you can use the straws to fish for Chicken chokers. That’s a white worm with a hump on his back that makes little round holes in your yard in the Spring, in case you’re not country. You hunker down and jiggle a straw in these little round holes till this fierce looking worm gets tired of being poked and starts pushing the straw up. You jerk the straw up and there will be your victim, pincers closed tightly onto the straw. Put him back for more fun or "send him to bug heaven"

An e-mail fan said she had forgotten the names of the seven "winters" they used to remember in Kentucky’s Spring season. .Are you sure there are seven? Bear, my long suffering husband and resident expert on his home state, says he only remembers blackberry , red bud, locust and dog wood winters. He also thinks 4 false starts to Spring should be enough for anybody! You must have lived in a different neck of the woods. I only remember folks talking about blackberry winter, and I’ve heard you won’t have any berries if you don’t get that cold spell.

I haven’t been finding very many irresistible recipes lately but here’s a couple of things you might like to try out on your family. I had never seen this type of topping before but it sounded and looked good.

Spago Upside Down Cake

½ c boiling water ¼ c dried cherries I small whole pineapple 1 stick of butter ½ c packed brown sugar ½ c heavy cream ¼ c dark rum

Soak dried cherries in water, set aside. ( I may use maraschino cherries }. Core prepared pineapple and slice ½ in. thick. Save ¼ c. of the juice and set aside. Grease a 9 in. spring form pan and line the bottom with waxed paper. In heavy 12 in. skillet combine butter and brown sugar, cook on medium till bubbly. Add pineapple rings and cook till golden brown, turning once. Remove from pan and arrange to cover bottom of prepared pan, cutting to fit. Drain cherries and sprinkle over pineapple, pressing to fill in holes and spaces. Stir cream and rum into skillet and cook, stirring, over low heat, till thick, about 8 minutes. Remove from heat and pour over the pineapple. Use the reserved pineapple juice in your favorite yellow cake recipe as part of the liquid. Briefly, the recipe used called for 2c self rising flour,3 lg. Eggs,1 1/2 sticks butter,1 1/3 c sugar, ½ c buttermilk, 1 ½ tsp. Vanilla. Beat and fold in egg whites—follow your pet cake recipe for other directions. Bake in the prepared pan for 50-60 minutes or till it tests done. Cool on wire rack for 15 min. Then turn out on a plate and remove pan. ( Note; If you don’t have one of these take-apart pans just use the one you have always used .I always set the pan on a pizza pan or square of foil as a little butter can leak out. These pans are the ones generally used when baking cheesecake, so you might keep an eye out for one on sale. Cheesecakes are the easiest dessert in the world to make and recipes are easy to find.)

This may not be the same recipe used in the famous restaurant cousin Jane took us to in Memphis but it looks like it would be good.

Honey Mustard

¾ c Dijon mustard ¼ c honey ¼ c oil 2 Tbl. Dry mustard

Mix ingrediants in a 1quart pan and heat just to boiling, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and spoon into jars and crocks. Seal and store in the fridge.