The Cruelest Month?

These chilis are a feast the eyes and the palate! T. S. Eliot said April is the cruelest month, and I think I know what he means.In April, winter seems like it will never end; just when the buds break into bloom, the killing frost can come and destroy all of that promise.

I think October is the cruelest month. The poblano and Tabasco plants and their other flowering nightshade cousins, the bell peppers, and even the Roma tomatoes are still loaded with blooms. They want to go on and on, and the sunny days have them fooled. But, we are going camping this weekend, and just as likely now as with April, a killing frost is likely any night, most likely when we're gone, and we would be so disappointed! So ...

Today, I went out and pulled up a Tabasco plant by the roots. I picked all of the poblanos, at least three gallons of them, and broke apart and pulled up the plants as I went, being the cruel gardener who determines the end of the harvest.

I roasted the last of the eggplants. Some, I scored and baked to freeze for later use in a ratatouille, or a baba ganoush. One, I sliced thinly for a lasagne, for some cold winter night's repast (hear that drama?).

I say again, our garden was wonderful this year. Nature surprised us with the blessings of so much fruit, and enough to share and exchange. We Our friends were so generous with their fruits, also. Duane's cucumbers made a shelf full of dill pickles. I am so proficient now with the stove-top canning that I can quickly decide, as I did tonight, to cook up the last of the Romas with a couple of hands full of chilis, mix with some salt and cumin and a couple of the last of the bells, throw in some onion and garlic, and put away five quarts of taco sauce for later. We had so many tomatoes that I have another half gallon for our use in the coming weeks without having to use the sterile procedures.

The cold is beginning to settle around the doors and windows. You can still go out with bare feet, but not for long. Probably by Christmas, we will wish we had put away all of the vegetables instead of giving so much away. We will probably eat our way into winter and the freezer, now packed almost full, will dwindle before we are ready. But for now, I am smug. I remembered the lessons of my mother and grandmother, we can grow much of what we eat, we can find and share and exchange for what we don't have ourselves.

Let's go to the woods for a few days. This winter will come and we will go out to meet it.

Hey -- that's melodrama! We have a cozy Airstream. We'll be toastie-warm, and get our fire going for s'mores, not for survival!

Season's End for These Sweet Hot Chilis

From Hungarian Pepper Sauce

[Click on these images to see the whole album in Picasa.]

What a beautiful afternoon to feast visually and victually on some chili peppers! We planted a couple of pepper plants next to the deck. The man at the farmer's market in Greenwood said they were Hungarian sweet peppers, but he forgot to mention they are also HOT.

I canned some pickled rings using the earlier greener peppers. Now, after some weeks of growth and neglect with lots going on, the green has evolved to green with a blush of orange to the emblematic chili pepper red that anyone would recognize as a HOT pepper.

I would not say these are as hot as a jalapeño, not by far, not even in the same county; and they are not even in the same country as the habanero (literally). But, they have just enough piquance to make them into a sauce all their own without mitigating with carrots to cool them down, or adding them to tomatoes for a salsa.

I made this recipe up, so all caveats apply: This is for entertainment purposes only, please consult expert advice for cooking and preserving home grown vegetables; I am not responsible for the safety of this recipe.

I added all of the following to an average blender (5-6 cup container); I blended on the high setting for about 20 seconds after adding each vegetable.

1/4 cup distilled water
1/4 cup white vinegar (store brand)
1 tablespoon pickling salt
1 3" diameter onion, peeled, trimmed, chopped coarsely
6-8 cloves of garlic, smashed, peeled, trimmed, chopped coarsely
1 lb peppers, seeds removed, but membranes kept

From Hungarian Pepper Sauce

After adding all ingredients, I blended on high for about a minute. My ingredients made about four cups of mixture. (Blending adds a lot of air to the mix.)

From Hungarian Pepper Sauce

I poured the mixture into a 4-quart saucepan. I brought the mixture to a boil slowly. All of the air added by blending wanted to escape rapidly, so I had to remove the pan from the heat several times and stir to release the air bubbles. After the mixture reached a boil, I reduced the heat by half.

From Hungarian Pepper Sauce

Once I could see mostly pepper sauce and a little froth around the edges, I simmered the mixture on low for 15 minutes. I wanted the onion and garlic to cook well, to release the flavors and sugars, and to blend those flavors with the peppers well. Eventually, the froth was gone, and the mixture became a beautiful rich deep orange color.

I sterilized some containers -- an empty bottle of from my second-favorite sauce, Yucatan Sunshine; a plastic squeeze bottle from the grocery wholesaler's; and a pint jar. I ended up using all three. The half-pint in the jar will probably go into the next batch of soup or stew.

From Hungarian Pepper Sauce

The sauce was the perfect topping for my late lunch of white beans and ham, served in Margie's pottery bowl. Very tasty.

We have five Tabasco plants that need to be harvested before frost. I'm sure I won't come close to the flavor of my very favorite sauce, Tabasco Sauce, because I would not know where to begin with the aging process they use. But, I'll have fun coming up with my own take on it. Next!

Facebook Friend Wheel

Facebook is fun. This morning I became a fan of Guinness. Actuallly, I became a fan a long time ago, but just now on Facebook. I wish all of my friends from every era of my life would join Facebook so we can keep in touch.

One product of Facebook, the Friend Wheel, is bugging me like a little itch one of the sides of my brain. [Wait a minute: the brain is rather round, but is divided down the middle; what if mine is like a brick, with six sides?] I can't figure out which side, but the itch is real. The Friend Wheel is cool, showing the connections among all of my friends.

If I think about my life in terms of eras, I actually have several. First is the Athens, AL, era, from age 0 to roughly 18 [Era I]. Then, there is the UNA era, ages 18-21 [Era II]; the Asbury era, 21-24 [Era III]; Hattiesburg, MS, Main Street UMC, 25-30 [Era IV]; Hattiesburg, MS, USM Wesley Foundation, 30-35 [Era V]; Vanderbilt/Nashville, 35-43 [Era VI]; Jackson, MS, 37-41 [Era VII]; Dayton, OH, 43-50 [Era VIII]; Indianapolis, IN, 50-present [Era IX].

That's a lot of change in a lifetime -- 9 eras -- but not extraordinary. However, as I look at this Friend Wheel, I see very little crossover among these eras of my life.

I think this would be a very interesting ethnographic tool of study. So far, my social network shows that no friends from my Athens era have come forward with me into subsequent eras. In the Athens era, roughly 1957 t0 1975, I can think of no friends now who picked up on the use of email and internet to stay connected. My brother uses email when he can get to the public library, but so far, he is not an internet user to the extent of joining Facebook.

The presence of a person on Facebook does not appear until the fourth era, roughly 1982-1992. This person has no connection to any other era. Another individual shows up from the Jackson, MS era [VII], and he also would fit into the Nashville/Vanderbilt era [VI], but so far, there are no friends on Facebook to link between him and me.

One crossover is visible to me. Two people link the two Hattiesburg eras, and one of those links to the present era.

Why should I expect any crossover at all between my life's eras? Taking into account that Facebook is new, and most of my current online contacts are not using Facebook, the friends I do have on Facebook are in distinct categories. My life's eras are also so divided geographically, that I have made a new start in a strange location, by myself, 8 times.

Some of the transitions between eras have been normal developmental transitions: leave home to go to college; leave college to go to graduate school; leave graduate school to a job; leave a job to go to another job or more graduate school. A couple of transitions have been traumatic: death of my spouse and radical change to a new place, job, new friends, loss of ties to the past; leave a miserable job situation to start over again, find love, move to a new home.

I guess this Friend Wheel is a bittersweet visual reminder that life has taken unforeseen twists and turns. It also reminds me that I am pretty resilient. I do wish for more connection among these eras of my life, to be able to share all of my collection of freinds with each other. There is also a wish that probably is not realistic, that life can look like a journey of continuity with roots in the past and wings toward a fullness of presence. The reality is more like a journey with departures, lengthy sojourns in strange lands, flights away into places of survival, and a lot of traveling without a map.

I have some pain in realizing that not all of my friends have come along with me, and that I have let some friends go, perhaps knowing that they belonged to an era, not to me, and that I belonged to an era or reason for them. A student once told me that we have friends for reasons and friends for seasons, but very few friends for life. The recognition of the reasons and seasons friends sometimes comes late, bringing a lot of pain. Trying to hold on to some friends who will not come forward with me pulls on something deep, unconscious, a longing for something of the self that will not be fulfilled.

Not everyone I love and value appears on the Friend Wheel; some appear on the Friend Wheel for different reasons. This way of staying connected is not necessarily "electronic", and therefore "shallow" and "artificial." Facebook and other social networking is something new, leading who knows where.

Arriving where I am now has nothing of the inevitable about it, except to know that I have learned to trust my heart. I love my home, and this huge collection of friends that now is visible in my Friend Wheel.