Mid-Summer Musings

 I am not writing about anything in particular this week, as a lot has been going on as far as house repairs, doing some online certification coursework, and catching up on some other things that desperately needed done and I can finally get to them.  So, rather than focusing on a weighty topic this time, I am just going to observe and improvise what needs to be said. 

I was thinking about summers in the past.  There were times when summers were the best part of the year, and other times I was glad when they were over.  Thinking back over many years, there are some things about summers that are worth reminiscing and reflecting about.  I am going back to summers in Kirby, when I was in my late childhood years and early teens, and a couple of things really stick out.  I have talked about some of this before, but there are stories still worth telling.  So, let's begin.

Since I was very young, I learned the fine art of wildcrafting, and during my summers in Kirby I had lots of opportunities to do so.  In the large field, for instance, behind the Grassy Lick School where I had gone to in my 5th and 6th grade years, there were berries.  The field stretched like what seemed eternity behind the school as it approached Grassy Lick Run in the background, and along the creek banks were tangles of briars and brambles, among which a lot of wild raspberries, blackberries, and dewberries grew.  I would harvest a lot of those then, and the berries were often utilized later in small pies a crazy neighbor lady named Goldie would bake for me.  In the grass in the field bordering the path that led down to where the back of our house was, there were also an abundance of wild strawberries growing.  A wild strawberry is technically not a strawberry but is what are called mock strawberries or snakeberries.  They looked like a dead ringer for a strawberry but with minor differences - for one, the taste was somewhat bland and required more sugar if you cooked with them, and also unlike actual strawberry plants, snakeberries have yellow flowers.  I didn't care, because as long as they were edible and didn't kill me, I was OK with harvesting them.  Now, thinking about it, I may have a new recipe to add to my kitchen blog - snakeberry pie!  Although I didn't know the difference between the two (turns out both actually grew in the area, and I may have harvested both together), they were still fun to pick and they did taste kind of good in those mini pies Goldie would make me.  Years later, in Hagerstown, we ended up having a yard full of snakeberries as well there too, and being old habits die hard for me, I picked some and even cooked a little with them too.  You don't see as much of this in Baltimore now, although I have noticed some growing in yards along with my favorite wild garlic I found - there was even a small patch of the latter in the school flowerbed where I teach, and our principal told me to help myself. However, as an adult now, some of the old mystery has gone now with gathering this stuff, although I still enjoy it.  That was a joy of summer I always looked forward to.  

In addition to foraging wild berries, I did sometimes try to take a crack at gardening as well.  With that, I had minimal success - I did manage to grow some small melons and even a small onion patch on occasion, but it was modest efforts.  In my teen years when I lived over on Salt Lick Road just south of Terra Alta, I took real pride in cultivating a small garden just above the back of the house on a slope overlooking the spring.  I remember prepping that soil with removing rocks, and then mixing horse manure from Earl Masters' old barn on the property to make it more fertile.  Then, I planted both onions and potatoes.  However, during that year I decided to spend a couple of weeks with my dad in Georgia for the summer, and I asked Mom to look after it while I was gone.  Mom never took anything I did seriously, and when I got back the poor plot was overgrown with weeds and I got very little harvest out of it.  I was frankly ready to hang my mother for letting that happen.  But, my teenage years would prove to be some of my best summer memories regardless, so we'll talk about that some now.

As a teenager, I was somewhat isolated - we lived a few miles outside town in the country, so basically my entire social life centered around three things: summer parades with the high school band, church activities, and then a couple of weeks visiting Dad.  In the interim, I kept occupied with other things, such as cooking - I was experimenting with a lot of recipes, especially involving a stew I made - as well as working on my music collection and other things.  I am trying to recall a bit of what I did when I made that stew then, and best I recall it sounded like this:

I would take a pound of lean stew beef, and begin boiling it in a pot of water infused sometimes with chicken or beef stock/flavor cubes.  Then I would add a spice concoction - salt, black pepper, Italian seasoning, cayenne pepper, chili powder, parsley, celery flakes, and on occasion wild garlic I harvested - and I would let that stuff cook until it reduced to a gravy.  No one really liked it that much except me, and it was spicy - I cannot fathom the amount of spice I used in those early days, but I recall things being hot!  In the ensuing years as I got more culinary experience and was exposed to new ways of cooking stuff, I would get better, and that stew I used to make ended up just going by the wayside.  It was so easy though that to this day if I wanted to play around with it I could probably recreate it, but I doubt I would have the fortitude to eat that anymore now. I also experimented with other things too - I made homemade bagels, pizzas, and other things as well. Today I still make some of those, but not in the way I did then.  Again, as I learned things my culinary skills were refined, and today I can cook more like a gourmet.  Any rate, cooking and hunting wild plants and fruits were two of my summer passions.

There is not a whole lot more to say today, but you get the idea that summers have changed for me over the years.  I do wish I could return at times to simpler days like those, as there are many fond memories, but it isn't going to happen.  In my late 50s now, it is an adventure to just shop at the local Italian market I like visiting now.  Thanks again for letting me share, and will be back soon.