Like food, but not a food writer (Strawberry pie)

By Peggy | August 5, 2012 |

My friend, RunnerSusan, brought me sweet corn all the way from Indiana and that got me hankering for Yankee summer food.

Brats on the grill. Roast corn. Strawberry pie.

You know, up north, where summer is this quiet, balmy time that you can linger outside all day under a tree and hold a grass blade between your thumbs and call to the birds — not spend a month hiding in dark room with the air conditioning running while Ercot pumps so much juice through the grid that it sparks down the line and sets whole counties on fire.

I digress.

Here’s a recipe that accompanied a story I wrote about berry picking for Texas Highways magazine that ran May 2007. The editors asked for it, and despite my admonitions that while I liked food, and cooked food, and grew food, I was not a food writer.

They pushed me just a little beyond my comfort zone by insisting the story just wouldn’t work without some kind of berry recipe. So I dug this little gem out of my recipe box — where all the family heirloom recipes have been stashed, except I remember my mother trying this one for the first time when I was a teenager. (Click to enlarge)

It’ll become an heirloom when my kids make it.

Posted in recipes

Overheard in the Wolfe House #186

By Peggy | July 23, 2012 |

Paige (emerging from bedroom): Is he wailing?
[Sam (upstairs): Kitty! Oh, no!]
Peggy: Yes, I’ve been listening. I think I hear him laughing. (shouting upstairs) Sam, what’s going on?
Sam (shouting downstairs): The cat is drinking from my toilet.

Posted in What Sam says

On writing, on reading and The Mayborn

By Peggy | July 17, 2012 |

People often ask artists who has influenced their work — musicians, painters, sculptors, filmmakers, writers. It’s a tough question to escape. I’ve asked it, but not too often, because I’ve found that many good artists don’t seem keen on bringing that kind of consciousness to their work.

I write intuitively, too. I try to edit consciously. And editing often seems to be slightly under the influence of whomever I’m reading at the time.

(Except Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Isabel Allende, and Joan Didion. They are always there.)

This year, Paige has left behind collections from University of Iowa students. Home of Iowa Writers Workshop, there comes from Iowa always something fresh, and often ever-so-slightly unworkable in those pages. I enjoy them. And my friend, RunnerSusan, has loaned me a dozen of her favorite works of fiction that have taken me down unexpected paths.

I took a break from reading the authors scheduled for this weekend’s Mayborn conference to pour over essays for a writer’s workshop. My essay, Carrion (see the pages on the left), has been accepted to the workshop, so I am reading the work of others who will be sequestered with me and our workshop leader. More new voices and ideas.

Like a book club, only on steroids, it’s the eighth Mayborn writer’s conference this weekend. It doesn’t seem that long ago that I threw the manuscript for “See Sam Run” into the workshop to see what would happen. There won’t be anything on that scale for me this weekend, but it will be for someone, and there is all that other talk of writing and reading and writing that is so inspiring to us all. I can’t wait to see what this weekend will bring.

Posted in hope, language, social life

Caramel Popcorn

By Peggy | July 11, 2012 |

I cannot believe I have not shared this recipe earlier, at least before I shared Parmesean Rosemary Popcorn.

When I was a teenager, I tried to make caramel popcorn by making the caramel recipe in Joy of Cooking and pouring it over the popcorn. We always had to eat it fast, because by morning, the brown sugar returned. Instead of caramel-coated kernels, they would be more like brown-sugar dusted.

When Michael and Paige were in nursery school (we were members of Cornerstone, a longstanding parent coop nursery school in Denton), one of the mothers brought homemade caramel popcorn to a school Halloween party.

It was incredible. I asked her what the secret was, and she said that after she made the caramel, she roasted it for an hour. Here’s my version of her recipe:

Caramel Corn

3/4 to 1 cup popcorn, popped (about 10 cups)
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup light corn syrup
1/2 tsp. salt

Prepare a large bowl and a large cookie sheet by spraying with cooking oil. Pour the popped popcorn in the bowl.

Combine the sugar, butter, corn syrup and salt in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil over medium hit heat. Once the mixture is bubbling, do not stir, but wash down any crystals that stick to the side of the pan with a brush dipped in water. When you see a couple of wisps of smoke coming up from the caramel (after about 3-5 minutes of gentle boiling), immediately pour the caramel over the popcorn and stir well to coat. Pour the coated kernels onto the cookie sheet and roast at 225 degrees for an hour, stirring every 15 minutes.

 

Posted in recipes