More Appalachian Living

Bimbo, Bambi, and Clueless.  These are the names of this year’s lovely spotted fawns that gambol about in our “meadow”.  The meadow is a ¼ acre area that I keep clear for my septic system.  It isn’t a lawn.

We live on a tract of land that borders the George Washington National Forest and our part might kindly be described as “Scruffy Appalachian Forest”.  Our land may be scruffy, but Chris and I are hardly Snuffy Smiff and Loweezy.  We actually get up from snozzin’ by the stump and plant ornamentals and flowers to brighten our view.  Still, we grow almost all our vegetables in a fenced garden and we don’t do much “cityfied” stuff like shop in town and eat in restaurants.  In addition to our vegetables, my brother (when he was alive) and I,  killed, butchered, and ate quite a number of deer from this home place.  Often, they were harvested from within 200 feet of the house and garden.

Back in the 1990’s, there was a terrible over population of white tailed deer in our area.  They ate a browse line in the forest and in those inevitable bad years when the acorns didn’t fall, they ate just about everything they could reach.  Horticulturalists will tell you that deer don’t eat peonies, euonymus, and myrtle.  Forget that.

Well, the number of deer hunters has dropped by about 50% over the last few years and the deer are coming back gangbusters.  And now that I’ve not been hunting, it’s summer and I’m busy, the three fawns are eating everything and I can’t even get their attention.  I yell, wave my arms, tell them I’ll eat them, run at them (well, “run” is a relative term for me at this point).  But they just walk off a few paces, turn and look at me like I’m demented.  I can’t get them to care about my agenda at all.

Well the zucchinis are way, way ahead of me and so every day a few monsters end up on the compost pile.  They get eaten every night (we have a game cam).  So I guess that it’s all my fault.

Forget truth, beauty, justice and love; happiness comes from having someone to blame.  And if you can rationally and honestly, blame yourself; you should always be ecstatic.  I’m so happy!

Chef Tell, tell me how

Chef Tell, a Swiss chef on TV years ago, taught Chris and me some wonderful recipes.  He used to say: "Very zimple, very eazy.".  I've come up with number of recipes myself that are very simple and

very easy, 

right up to a point.  

Our favorite Tell was his quick potato pancake recipe:

one pound raw potato
one egg
some onion, oil, salt, pepper, parsley if you've got it
baking powder and 1 oz. flour.
Grind in the food processor and fry.

Now, I'll give you one:

One and half pound chicken breast stips
pounded with tenderizer.  Black pepper.
one oz. vinegar, butter, soy sauce, and honey
Steam till white; flip and fry open
till the rue is caramelized.

Super eazy!  But if you purchase American chicken, it comes in a styrofoam tray, covered with a plastic sheet and nestled on top of a Tampax like pad of acetate fiber on another sheet of plastic.  China no longer takes anything but the purest of plastic waste for recycling.  We are all now throwing millions of tons of stuff into the landfills that we used to (at least think) were recycled and reused.

I have no idea of what to do with this packaging! All the plastic is non-recyclable, and the acetate fiber becomes infused with chicken blood and body fluids.

There is no good way to dispose of this poultry packaging.  Leave it out in the sun and it never dries.  Raccoons will find it and spread it all over the place.  It stinks with that disgusting cadaverine death smell.  I can't compost it; I don't have garbage pick up so I'm supposed to keep it somewhere for a month between trips to the dump (and who thinks that the landfill is a good place for something like this)?  

I mentioned this problem in the past:

https://somelightsomeserious.blogspot.com/2017/05/would-you-like-our-country-save-million.html 

Our American demand for convenience is a huge part of the problem of sustainability for planet Earth.  We all have to take responsibility, and we have to vote with our wallets in order to force sustainable practices from our suppliers.  Waste is a huge problem.  Stupid demand for convenience is making it far worse.

I can't imagine why I can't buy chicken in a better package. Not visually attractive enough?  OH! God! I saw some blood!?

Next time I'll give you the "Mother Bolgiano's Beans" recipe.

I had a couple of guys propose marriage to me based on it, and that was way back before acceptance of LGBTQ as an OK thing.

Very zimple very eazy.  Just Tell me what to do with the"waste".

Smaller pancakes are easier to flip, these kind are kinda schmushy before they're flipped.