Smokey Mountain Breakdown

Well, since I don't have any really good FP's at this time, it being the long shanks of the month and ramen noodle time--I decided to write stories about food this month--or at least stories that have to do with eating, attitudes about food and such.

Anyway, in other news, the little cocker spaniel I was helping to place did indeed get adopted today. I'm just thrilled, especially since he was so adorable that had he had come here, it would have broken my heart to adopt him out. So, Mr. Rocky is going to a fine home. I appreciate Dr. Hood and the wonderful volunteers at the Newport Animal Shelter giving me a crack at finding a placement for him.

There was a most impressive police report story I wanted to share with you concerning an attack using a vacuum cleaner as a weapon. The victim used a piece of statuary to fend it off. The Newport Plaintalk is evidently moving to their own domain and I can't find the story. Hopefully once they get settled we can all get back into reading Caleb Abramson's excellent sheriff and police report coverage.

Today there was a headline titled: Busty move by alleged light thief. Yet another vicious brassiere and flashlight robbery. One funny thing is they now refer to the Walmart in the paper as "a supercenter off the Cosby Highway". Like we don't know the Walmart is the supercenter off the Cosby Highway where all the teenagers hang out in the parking lot across from where the TBI torches the pot plants. What's up with that? They name every other private civilian victimized by crime and gives their address. Why does Walmart get a pass?

I'm just sayin'--if you are going to name the victims of crimes and include their home addresses (including certain local bloggers with stolen goats who are the target of death threats)--then giving Walmart anonymity seems journalisticallyexpialidocious--and not in a good way.

Today's story is about:

Before she took me home to meet her family, I was a stray. All her friends were strays. All of us walked wounded through our lives, looking for a place of belonging. A place called home, or something like it. Some of us had homes, perfectly good ones, but were greedy. I was the greedy one.

I looked normal, at least. One friend's leg dragged behind her like a dog rebelling against a leash. Every once in a while, she reached back to haul the damn thing level with the rest of her body, like a piece of luggage caught on an escalator. Another wore coke bottle glasses behind which, one eye--magnified to the size of a tennis ball--wandered around aimlessly. I never knew which eye to look at, so I looked at her nose. The third friend, looked normalish, except for the cut off dungarees she wore, revealing ass cheeks determined to escape into the world. When she spoke, a man's voice emerged like bad dubbing on a Japanese horror movie.

She took the oddball friends home to meet her mother, Alice, and her sisters once--all three at the same time.

Never, ever bring those three home again, they said, at least at the same time. Sweet Jesus, Mary and Joseph--we aren't auditioning Macbeth here.

She sensed my woundedness.

My day started at six-thirty with two hundred crunches. After a breakfast of popcorn moistened with a half cup of skim milk, I rode my bike five miles to the gym where I took one of my five times weekly ballet classes. I drank Diet Pepsi, the good kind before they took the saccharine out, throughout the day. After attending the rest of my classes, I swam for a mile before riding my bike home. I ate half a cabbage, stir-fried in water for dinner and as much popcorn as I wished.

Sometimes, I got hungry. So hungry, I had to eat something, and that was okay if I threw it back up. Ice cream was good, coming back cool and soothing. It was my favorite food to throw up.

She prepared her family for my visit, telling them I did not eat. A large ethnic family of twelve souls, they marched as an army on their stomachs. They owned a deli, celebrating birth, death, sorrow and joy with food. Alice's kitchen pulsed with life--TV blaring the news, the easy chair she dozed in simmering sauces through the night, meat slicers, spice racks--it smelled of sustenance, both physical and spiritual. Her ankles were thick in the way of women who not only bore their children, but carried them and the world for miles on broad patient shoulders.

Sitting at Alice's table without eating was not an option.

She offered me a drink as I walked in the door.

Can I get you a coke or some iced tea, she asked.

No, thank you, I told her, some water would be fine.

I sat at Alice's table and a bubbling fountain coke appeared before me. I stared at it in horror, knowing it had sugar.

Alice watched me, sharp black eyes daring me to refuse.

I drank, feeling the sharp bubbles, iced in sweetness fill my throat.

She offered me food, saying, can I get you a salad? Some cheese? I think we have some kibi, or a sandwich.

No, thank you, I said, I couldn't possibly eat anything.

My friend, the collector of weird sisters, piped up saying, I told you she doesn't eat, Mom.

The gauntlet was well and truly thrown.

Alice piled salads, dripping with olive oil and feta, kibi with pine nuts, stuffed squash with rice and cinnamon beef, pastrami sandwiches smeared with mayonnaise, baklava and pistachios in front of me, daring me to refuse.

I ate more than Alice's food at her table. I ate acceptance. I tasted love. It would be years before I left the hinterlands of starvation, but I took the first steps of that journey at Alice's table.

It was delicious.

Today I've been busy coordinating a possible placement for a Chokkit(chocolate) cocker spaniel who ended up at the Newport shelter. I think we may have a "go" on that--I'll know more tomorrow. He's the same age as Max--but without the crazy. I love Max to pieces but he's just really hard to place.

I stopped by and chatted with Scott for a while.

See, I thought he might have gone to the viewing for the guy who coshed his head in. That would be a very Friend Scott sort of thing to do and it would have been entirely earnest and respectful. Scott is always going on about what a nice guy the head cosher was.

"Well, except head bashing part." I said.

Anyway, he was warned off attending so he didn't go. He wanted to pay his respects, but he didn't get to, which is probably for the best.

Fights do break out here at funerals every once in a while.

Today's story is about...

The polished, final draft of this story has been accepted for publication. In keeping with the SMB's policy, this rough has been removed.

I will provide linkage where you may purchase the magazine or read the story in its final draft form on publication.

So, yesterday Friend Scott calls me to tell me the "good news".

"Yay--you have water!" I say.

So, it was evidently the pump was out, they replaced it and now he has water once again. He tells me the water doesn't taste funny anymore either. This is also a good thing since I never wanted to drink the water at Scott's since it sort of smelled like ass. He has a really old-timey septic system there and I always suspected the water table and the septic were a bit too friendly for good health.

But, the other news was that the fellow who bashed Scott's head in with a shovel was found dead. No foul play involved, though that was my first thought. The guy was sort of a legendary bad actor.

Today's story is about....

I mentioned some time ago that I wanted to do something in the way of a story cycle for February. Over the past month or so, I 've been concentrating on rewrites and editing for the most part. Basically, it was time for me to review how I was using language. Also, since I'm plotting a series of novels, I wanted to build some discipline and stamina--the big serial stories I've written for you in the past were for that. I'm bored with that now. Time to shake things up.

This month, I want to step back and return to flash fiction--stories under 1000 words. I'll be offering one of these stories every day for the month of February. Each story will be preceded by a journal entry of some sort to prevent scraping--so those of you on the RSS feed are going to actually need to come here to read the story. They will be roughs, since this is one of my improvisational writing experiments. I will be recycling bits of prose I wrote as far back as 2003, but will be using them in new fiction. I wrote the first one today, and I haven't a clue what I'll write tomorrow.

Here we go...

Every year, I make note of the day the frogs awaken. It means something to me and no doubt, it means something to those who keep track of such things as how wide the wooly bugger caterpillar stripes are; how many salamanders are found far from water; how low the hornets are building their nests in the trees.

I have kept track of this for a few years. In 2007, they woke on January 16th. In 2006, they started to sing on February 15th. I’m hoping, because they split the difference this year, we will get rain and grass. Of course, it may mean the weather warmed up enough that they decided to stir from the mud. They buried themselves in the quiet squishy depths of the pond only a few months ago.

They say amphibians are the sentinels of the environment. Indeed, if you want to know where we are headed, ask the frogs. They will tell you, if you will listen to their song. But you have to listen very carefully.

This evening, I imagine the hundreds of frogs I saw this morning singing in the bullfrog pond, will draw the hungry possums, raccoons and foxes to the feast. They will thin out the population to more manageable levels. February is mating season for foxes and the music of frogsong will soon give way to the yips and growls down the mountain. Nighttime will no longer be silent.

It’s the first sign of spring on my mountain. Frogsong.

Crossposted to Hillbilly Savants.

Mutton has grown all his fleece back. When people say sheep say "Baa", unless they have spent much time with sheep, they tend to think it's a sweet sound. It's not. It's a low pitched hoarse sound, more like "Blah". It sounds like they are clearing their throats. At least, that's what Mutton and Chops sound like.

Anyway, Mutton says, "Blah", which might as well mean, "Happy Sunday".

At the vet's yesterday with the Fat Buddy, I'd worked myself up to quite a state.

"It's really going to hurt me to lose this one." I tell her, with a quiver in my voice, eyes flooding.

I realize that part of the reason Fat Buddy is so precious to me, is that he's been the good-natured butt of so many jokes--most of his own making--while he's been with me. I also fought so hard to bring him back to a relatively stable condition with all his health problems. I made him shoes. How many dogs can you say you had to make shoes for?

So many people look at Fat Buddy and say, "Awww--He's not fat!"

Actually, forty plus pounds on a cocker spaniel is fat. He's the only dog I've ever seen with a saggy bottom. He likes to shimmy it when you pet him just so--sort of like that dance move the hip-hop girls do. When someone says he's not fat, I suspect that the issue of fatness may be a problem on their part. People get sort of weird about fatness. I'm fat. Fat Buddy is fat. We don't have a problem being fat--we just are. It would be better if we weren't, but there it is.

Part of Fat Buddy's fatness is the presence of many lipomas--dog cellulite. I've been really concerned that he might have cancer since he has so many of them. I bring this up to the vet, and she tells me that the places where he has them aren't usually where a dog gets lymphoma tumors. There is evidently a pattern to those and while Fat Buddy is indeed a lipoma a-go-go--they aren't in lymphoma spots.

As she is telling me this, I point out the ping-pong ball sized one dangling midway down the rear of his right hip.

"So, this isn't like--ass cancer?"

The tech deadpans, "Ass-o-blastoma?"

We all have a good laugh at Fat Buddy's expense. While Fat Buddy and I suffer from ass-opathy, the lipoma is not high enough on his butt to cause concern.

So, basically, the infection in his jaw bone from the nasty teeth never resolved completely. His hips are starting to go--from age and perhaps from shaking his ass too vigorously(honestly, I think he might have thrown his back out doing that!) I will finish off his current course of doxycycline which should keep him stable, then switch to a two month course of clindamycin. In the meantime, I just try to keep him comfortable. Hopefully, I'll be able to keep him around a bit longer. I sure hope so.

Today we have a Food Porn Friday exclusive from my friend, Jessica Gottlieb, who also writes. Many thanks for this beautiful and heartfelt foodie article in honor of her grandfather.

I'm first generation American. My Grandfather was a butcher. A German butcher. For those of you who didn't grow up in a German home that means that there is one way to do things, the right way. And let's not argue about it.

My Grandfather was nothing if not precise and his food was more than nourishment, it was nurture, it was the I love you that he could never bring himself to utter and the I'm proud of you that couldn't escape his lips. Men of that generation didn't say things like that.

Wiener schnitzel is traditionally made of veal and veal was the meat of my childhood but even a traditionalist like my Grandpa Alfie could see the wisdom of substituting chicken for veal, thereby saving a few dollars.

When I was a young adult living on my own my Grandfather used to prepare me wiener schnitzel. He would pound and then coat the meat and fry it halfway. Then he would chill it and wrap it first in wax paper and then in tin foil. These bricks of schnitzel would be presented to me so I "wouldn't starve". I'd defrost them and place the cutlets on a cookie sheet in the oven for half an hour and have a lovely home cooked meal.

The bricks of wiener schnitzel never stopped. I met my soon to be husband he loved my schnitzel (but only if it was chicken). During our courtship I made him many dinners whilst batting my eyelashes and hoping against hope that this magnificent and kind man would propose to me.

And he did.

After many years of marriage we had a daughter and we were pregnant with my son when my Grandfather died. Every schnitzel that came from the freezer was like one more kiss and hug from him. When my husband and my daughter would request Grandpa Alfie's recipe I'd groan inwardly, not wanting to deplete my precious supply.

But I ran out of schnitzel one day. My husband Robert requested it and after all those years (7 to be exact) I had to confess that it wasn't my own.

And no one had the recipe.

Seriously, none of us.

Between mad telephone calls to my Mother, Father, cousins and my Aunt we were able to piece together the recipe. It's not exact and I've never been able to pound the meat as evenly as my Grandfather did but I'm American and we have a little more flexibility in our recipes.

I've been nursing Fat Buddy over the past few days. We go see the vet tomorrow. I'm a little afraid he has cancer, since his lumpy bits seem to be a bit out of control. He's been in a lot of pain, mostly in his mouth and I've had him on antibiotics, then pain killers for the past few days. After getting his teeth done, he was on the antibiotics for a month. But then he got sore again so I put him back on them. The infection cleared again, but now it's back. And he's really uncomfortable this time.

Anyway, I'm not quite sure what to do. If it is cancer, I will just keep him on painkillers until he stops being excited about the things he loves most. Mainly snacks. He's still quite keen on his snacks. Unfortunately, the infection means we can't put him on prednisone. That was what made the lumps go away when I first got him.

I'm hoping if we put him back on the clindamycin that, maybe, I can keep him going a bit longer. Fat Buddy owns such a big piece of real estate in the vicinity of my heart, that I know its going to just about kill me if he dies.

I don't have no stinkin' food article for tomorrow--actually for the next few weeks. I'm willing to open up the blog for guest food bloggers for the next few weeks. Email me if anyone is interested. Of course, you get reciprocal linkage and that's good for your blog.

I’ve been really busy this week with the writing thing. I’ve had one story accepted and it will go live on The Dead Mule on Thursday. Plus, I’ve been offered a possible opportunity with a quarterly to feature a selection of my shorter works. That’s not for a while and I don’t want to talk too much about it lest I jinx it. We Southerners are funny that way.

I’ve collected a handful of rejections this week. It’s such a new experience, and at times, I do want to crawl back into the comforting womb of this blog where everyone loves my work. But, I did make the decision to finally “get out there” and “out there” I am. I’ve been workshopping some pieces over on Zoetrope and have hooked up with some fine writers over there. Their work intimidates me at times. It’s hard not to compare my style of writing to others and wonder if I should change my voice to sound more like someone else. And it is scary knowing that I’m such a good mimic that I could.

Self-doubt is, evidently, as much a part of writing as anything else.

My ex-goat Didi, dropped two buck kids in the wee hours of the morning at Hidden Haven Homestead. I must say that I'm disappointed that Leonard's doe-fu was overcome. He did such a good job last year, showering us with doe kids. But they are handsome little lads.

Peggy says the delivery was very difficult. It happened in the wee hours of the morning and Peggy and William had to valiantly go in and turn the kids. Didi is okay, but it was rough on her and the two boys. Everyone is resting up right now.

Go over to Peggy's and check out the new babies. I'm a little partial to the one that looks like he's got a mop on his head and a smudge of flour on his nose. Her dreadful delivery story is pretty hair raising. Much worse than mine from last season.

Yesterday Sonya, my ex-goat, had her very first kid! Peggy called me all excited. Sonya dropped it in the field, but all was well. A little buckling. He's a nice combination of Leonard and Sonya. He has Sonya's eyes and spots, and Leonard's stripe down his back.



He's in the house now being spoiled rotten. Peggy says Sonya and he did very well at the mother and baby thing. It looks like this may be the beginning of Peggy's kidding storm. I expect that Didi won't be far behind in her delivery--and Peggy's Sammi is about to pop any minute now.

If you want to share the anticipation of the kidding season, do head over to Hidden Haven Homestead for all of the adorable baby goat cuteness you can stand!

Happy Sunday!

Some things in this post are completely true. Some are completely false.

Really, I was quite happy being completely unaware of what sort of garbage was circulating about me on the mountain. But, of course, since I met Friend Scott, I am privy to all of that nonsense whether I want to be or not. See, Friend Scott hears all the dirt—and there is lots of it. When people run out of real things to talk about here, they make stuff up. And you always know who originated the nonsense. Spreading gossip here is sort of like holding up the convenience store in your own small hometown when you went to high school with the cashier.

Cop: So, did you recognize the thief?

Cashier: Hell, yes! Joe Bob took me to the prom. His Momma goes to church with my Momma. You can probably find him over at Nat’s Market about now. He always eats lunch there about this time….

Doesn’t matter how many pairs of pantyhose you put over your head if you are wearing your letter jacket.

So, anyway, someone with limited understanding of exactly how Google Maps works is saying that I went to the courthouse to get aerial photographs of everyone’s house. In some alternate universe, this is supposed to help me sell my own house.

That’s just silly. Everyone knows you only do that when you buy a house and why waste gas when you can hop on the bird right from your home computer and get pictures from space? Sure, it may take a little time to call your buddy at the Pentagon and pull everyone’s FBI file and check all their aliases against the sexual offender database—but that’s ancient history now. I did all that six years ago.

Second to malicious gossip is most likely--boring gossip.

So—I’m going to offer some juicy tidbits about myself that may or may not be true. Spread at your own peril.

1. I was born with a tail and it makes finding clothes to fit difficult. That’s why I wear black turtlenecks and sweatpants so much. I won't lie to you--it does tend to chafe a bit.
2. I was born with a tail but they removed it and I keep it next to my bed in a jar.
3. When I was a teenager, my friends and I would go out in a boat at night shark fishing. We’d chum the water and then go swimming on a dare.
4. I kissed Superman and he kissed me back.
5. When they took my appendix out they found an eyeball and mouth attached to it. The appendix had burst and the little mouth was frozen in a scream. They said I’d eaten my twin in the womb.
6. I once scrinched a squirrel with my teeth.
7. I have four nipples. The extra two are lots smaller than the main ones.
8. I was chased by a gator and outran it.
9. I kept my own last name when I got married. His last name was Posey--can you blame me?
10. I dated a Mafia hit man. We’ve kept in touch. He’s a really nice guy except for the killing thing.
11. I was abducted by aliens once and they gave me a special name. What that is, I can’t tell you. Okay, I could, but they planted a chip that turns me into a relentless killing machine if I do.
12. I’m going to Dog Heaven. God told me this in a vision when he explained why "dog" is "God" spelled backwards.

If you would rather not know how to prepare this at home--it would be in your best interest to turn away now. Today's FPF does have a bit of a gross out factor for some people and if you are used to just picking this up, thinly sliced, at your local deli and would prefer not to know--do not read further.

I was about six when I had my first tongue sandwich at Gottlieb's Deli in Savannah, GA. My mother ordered it for me. I was never been a picky eater and when your first solid foods include raw oysters, it takes a bit to shock you after that. My mother was very adventurous in the kitchen and prepared things like sweetbreads. And Southerners are accustomed to eating odd pig parts, so beef tongue didn't really phase me. Actually, I sort of suspect my mother of having gone through a phase where she tried to find something I would not eat. I'm guessing she lost interest when it became evident that there wasn't anything I'd turn my nose up at.

When I got to college in Columbia, SC, I couldn't find a place that served this up in nice little butcher paper packages by the pound. So, I found a butcher shop and had the butcher order them for me. Whole. Back then, you could get a whole one for a buck fifty, so it was good student food...as long as you didn't tell anyone what it was. I must admit, even I was a bit put off by the appearance of it the first time I saw one in its natural state. The great thing about the multi-cultural selections in today's grocery stores is that I don't have to search very far to find a nice beef tongue. They will be hanging out next to the tripe and thinly sliced beef liver.

I prefer beef tongue as a luncheon meat, served cold and thinly sliced in sandwiches. It is a finely textured and very fatty meat. It's perfect in little tea sandwiches with the crusts sliced off. I like it best with spinach and horseradish. I have seen some recipes for beef tongue served hot in a variety of ways. I certainly would not say no to it served this way, but cold is how I like it best.

I heard from Bart's mom today! Bart is one of the most beloved former residents of Rosie's Cocker Rescue Referral. He's an English Cocker Spaniel and the only one I ever hosted. What a sweetie! He always wears this sort of serious face when you take pictures of him, but in real life, he's quite a mug.

Anyway, Bart has taken up kayaking and is evidently having a grand old time with the paddling crowd!

Here he is from his time with us. Mad Max took his spot when Bart left for his forever home. But when Bart was here, we could still enjoy the oriental rug. Because Bart wasn't a whackadoodle like Max is.

Ba--Ba--Roooooo!

I dug through my purse yesterday while looking for a pen and found something interesting. I'd already read the Asheville paper from front to back in the doctor's waiting room and decided to tackle the crossword and soduko. I'm pretty good at crosswords, but soduku still eludes me. I can't resist trying, though, when my mind is idle. It's hard for me to keep my mind still.

I pulled forth from the detritus of inhalers, chewing gum, old bank stubs and dog medicines a dollar bill. It was frayed and worn and had odd fold marks on it. I didn't remember when it was handed to me in change, but I must have just stuffed it in there as I sometimes do.

On the bill was written, "Percy Johnson's Wedding Ring". Then, winding around the edge of the bill, it continued, "Given to him by his mother on the day she buried him."

It took me a moment to digest what I was looking at. Where it came from and the implications that I was now holding this piece of paper in my hands.

I know that valuable things disappear from corpses, but it's not the sort of thing I like to think about. And you never really see the evidence so clearly as I did yesterday, smoothed out over my thigh as I read what she had written before placing it in her son's casket.

I've, of course, changed the name here. Because someone's mother is out there mourning her child, thinking the wedding ring she wrapped in a dollar bill and put in his pocket lays beneath the tombstone she visits each Sunday.

I wonder what happened to that ring. Does someone wear it now, not knowing I hold the dollar bill it was wrapped in?

I didn't post yesterday, because I waited until the evening and by that time, I had been totally sucked into The History Channel's Life After People. If you did not catch it on the first showing, do try to pick it up in the reruns. It was fascinating and in so many ways confirms my own environmental stance. If you haven't heard me rant about this---practicing environmentally sound policies and practices is self-preservation. The planet is going to be just fine without us--but every time we litter, fail to live frugally and recycle or blast the tops of our mountains apart, we are nominating ourselves for a Darwin Award as a species.

So--get with the program, people! Save yourself!

Anyway, as I was driving to Asheville today to see my rheumatologist, I had some time to think about the program. One of the sad things is that dogs will most certainly be the first species to suffer a massive die-off. All of our highly specialized pooches with funny noses and odd characteristics will be the first to go. Tiny dogs won't make it very far at all without us. Basically your standard yella cur dog will be what prevails.

I started thinking about the other domesticated animals and how they would fair. Those damn cats are going to be just fine. Pigs and goats have already proven how easily they become feral. I remembered an elderly friend pointing out a slab of rock where the hogs used to sun themselves. And we have a colony of feral goats living off of I-40. I think the moocows would probably not make it. Rangy cattle will be fine though some of our pampered Black Angus' and Herefords would be in the first wave of coyote dinners. Ditto for most sheeplies.

As I drove, I remembered what all the old timers here told me about what this area was like 50 to 100 years ago when lumber was king. All these mountaintops were cleared in pasture and corn was planted on every available bit of land. They free-ranged all the hogs and cattle in the woods, fencing only the gardens and corn fields. Little homesteads were everywhere and this was a very busy rural place. Very few of those homesteads are there anymore. There used to be a thriving village in The Gulf. There is absolutely no sign of human habitation there now. I only know this because I've been told by the children and grandchildren of those people that they were ever there.

If we wipe ourselves from this big blue ball, who will remember for those people?

Life After People airs again tomorrow night on The History Channel at 8p.m./7 central time.

I went off the mountain this morning to get some milk down at the Citgo. I actually didn't get up until noon this morning and didn't really take note of the coldness until I went out. After yesterday's two hours of snow, today was bright and sunny--but very cold at this elevation. One nice thing about the sheep. They are very pretty out there with snow blowing on them. They have shelter, but being Shetland sheep, they don't seem to mind the cold. And I don't worry so much about them in their four inch thick fleeces like I did the goats. Goats shiver in the cold and look miserable and you feel guilty that you can't bring them in the house.

I was surprised that the creek was coated with a slick of ice in the sun. The clarity of the water is so amazing at this time of year and I'm soothed by its brilliance. It's a nice change from the stagnant pools the drought caused all summer long.

Happy Sunday. Stay warm.

It snowed for a few hours today. Not heavily, but it was nice. The cold has been bitter today.

I apologize that I haven't been writing much this week and have been sort of uncommunicative. I don't mean to be. It's just taking me a bit longer to adjust to the goats not being here than I thought. They were such a huge part of my identity for so long. It's sort of like when I left CNN...that was a really big investment of self, too. It's harder to reinvent yourself when the reinvention is not of your choosing.

I'm beginning to think that the hard edits I've been putting my work through may not be the best thing for it. I seem to lose so much of the poetry in my words. I think I'm just going to try to clean things up as much as possible, but not make them so perfect. The perfection feels cold and stilted--removing parts of my voice. And--as many writers in my genre as I've been reading--they don't seem to be going to the lengths I've been going to in editing. And they are all published. There are quite a few literary conventions that have changed since I studied writing, so I think I'll just pay attention to those and toe that little contrived line.

Friend Scott's well ran dry a few weeks ago. If God is behind all this I'm sort of sure the message is "Scott---Move---Now---I Really Mean It This Time." The braining by shovel episode was too subtle, evidently. Knowing Scott, though...I'm pretty sure God is going to need to rent a U-Haul and show up to help with the move wearing a bubba cap.

Just so we are really clear about the state of the Pink House in the Holler...It has no heat(except wood), no insulation, holes in the bathroom floor for snakes to crawl up for visits--and now--newly subtracted--no plumbing or running water. And--is 50 miles one way from Scott's permanent job. He's showering at the gym these days.

They don't have to be pork, but they do have to be chops and they have to be thick chops to do this. Stuffing things into meat need not be the retro-medieval Turducken. Everyone should have some good quality basting thread and a good needle in their kitchen for those moments when you feel like stuffing something in a place that nature never intended something to be stuffed in.

If I convey anything to you on FPF, it is to encourage you to cook with the same fearless daring most home Southern cooks approach food with. People make fun of our "pinch of this" or a "mess of that", but what is really at the bottom of all of this is a combination of tradition and inventiveness. Because of the way we cook, we can often recreate a dish we have had somewhere without the benefit of a recipe. And really, when you think about cooking, it is a little bit science and a little bit craft. Once you know how a certain technique is done, like a custard, then you can figure out how to make other custard based foods. Who needs a recipe? It's cooking without a net.

So, back to the chops. I'm going to show you how to stuff chops and give you the basic process for stuffing. What you do with that information should be your own creative journey into recipe development. That's what I did with these lovely things. It started because I found these chops and they were really lovely, so I decided to do something special with them off the top of my head.


First, the stuffing. Prepare this before you start to stuff your chops. The basic process for stuffing from scratch is to make your cornbread the night before if you are using that as your base. If not, dry your bread out in a low oven until all moisture is gone. Be creative with the choice of base, if you like. Use pumpernickel, rye or any sort of bread you think would suit the type of chop you are going to stuff. What you add to the stuffing should also be a creative process. Sweet things go well with pork, so I chose apples and leeks. Pine nuts would have been nice, as well. You don't even have to use a bread base. Sometimes just a piece of fruit, dried fruit or sprigs of fresh herbs are nice to hide in the middle of a cut of meat.

The basic process to make a bread based stuffing is to melt butter and saute pungent and root vegetables until tender (onions, leeks, garlic, carrots, etc.). Pour this into a separate bowl where you have placed your crumbled stale bread with some sage or the seasoning of your choice. Then pour stock over the mix and add any other ingredients like nuts, egg or fruit. You may also add melted butter. Toss and mix well but do not mash.

To stuff chops, you will need a very sharp fillet knife. You cut a pocket into the side of them going back towards the bone. As always, be careful of cross contamination when working with raw meat in your kitchen. Stuff with your dressing and sew up with a needle and thread.

To prepare, first brown the chops on both sides in a skillet to seal in the juices. Then bake at 350 until done. I served these with applesauce and grilled winter squash.

But you get the idea...Now, get out there and play with your food.