Tennessee-isms

Apple Stack Cake from my neighbour, Ersie.  This is a traditional Appalachian cake.  She made it just for me!

Apple Stack Cakes were an Appalachian wedding cake.  Wedding cakes were expensive so friends of the bride would each bring one layer.  The brides family would make the dried apple filling and they would put it together for the wedding.  The taller the cake, the more popular the girl.


Well, this is my last day!  I am anxious to get home to Canada but I will miss my new friends here in Tennessee.  I have some 'saved' blog items that will come on in the next few days, but unless I find a restaurant worth sharing or an interesting roadside site, you won't hear from me for awhile due to the drive home.

It has been a journey of learning a new culture.  Not only am in a different country, but I am in a very distinct culture within that country.  I look back and laugh at the misunderstandings I have had due to the accent and vocabulary. 

The latest experience with not understanding what was being said to me was the evening I went to an Italian restaurant here in Maryville.  The waitress asked if I would like garlic nuts.  By now I know I cannot trust anything I hear but, what the hay, sure I'll have some garlic nuts.  Finally, a second person asked if I would like garlic nuts.  Sure!  I'm sure you know the results - I was served garlic knots.  I think it was pizza dough made into knots and slathered in butter and garlic.

I have been introduced to 'shoepay corn' which of course, was shoepeg corn (of which I never heard of before), fried okra and collards.   I was at a B&B and there was a 'pahsef' in my bathroom for storage.  Did you guess it?  It was a pie safe - the olden cupboard for storing pies.

I am still not a sweet tea addict.  I really would like to know how to make it but they can't seem to pass it on to me.  The recipe is, well, in their bones.  How can they explain it to me?

Barbecue is not grilling.  Biscuits don't tower high.  Ham is served for Christmas.  The trinity is not always holy.  And gravy isn't always brown.

The Food Channel is dominated by Paula 'butter' Dean, Emeril 'essence' Legasse and The Neely's.

I have been introduced to Hummingbird Cake, stack cake, fried green tomatoes, a kazillion types of bacon and the best smoked hams in the world.

My pantry now includes sorghum, Chesapeake Bay seasoning, White Lily flour, vidalia onion relish, chow chow, pure cane sugar, white and yellow grits, Hatch chiles, Tony Cachere's cajun seasoning, Zatarains Shrimp and Crab boil, Stubbs BBQ Sauce, Slap Ya Momma Cajun seasoning, sourwood honey, and file (pronounced FELA).


I have been to church suppers, Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners, fine dining restaurants, southern buffets and dives.

Bottom line?

I'll miss this place.

This is me with Miss Ruth.  She is 93 years old and still lives alone.  Her son drove down from Atlanta to tour us around Gatlinburg, Cades Cove and Bald River Falls.  Isn't she sweet!

Boredom, Crafting and Goats......

What do you do when you are housesitting a home that is almost devoid of furniture?  My kitchen is bare bones and I mean...bare bones...    I only have a few pots and pans, a baking sheet and a few things I bought like a mini food processor, Le Creuset cocotte, and a saute pan.

I can almost recite the dialogue of every rerun of CSI, Law and Order, First 48 and Criminal Minds.  My cat is even becoming bored and is watching television.  There is no sofa, no table,  nor a bedside table let alone a lamp.

I am cooking out of the pantry and freezer so they will be empty when I leave.

Today I made sushi rolls with some frozen crab legs and avocado.  That was nice!

And I am crafting!  Yes, moi, crafting.  I saw some nice little Victorian lady paper chains over a fireplace at the Biltmore Mansion.  They caught my eye and now I am making paper chains galore.  I have two Victorian lady chains, teacups and kitty cats!

One day at a time!  I can look forward to my walking buddies tomorrow morning :)  And the robins are here!

Last week we gathered a herd of goats (are they 'herds', I don't know).  On the way home from walking we saw at least 10 goats in the middle of the road.  Ersie hops out of the car and starts to herd them back through the hole in the fence from whence they came.  So, what could I do?  I hopped out of the car and helped her.  All in the day of the life of a country person!

Still not winter in Tennessee

I have been walking most mornings with my 80 year old neighbour, Ersie, her Mom called her.  We take turns driving and go the short 10 minutes to a Baptist church in Vonore.  They have a brand new gymnasium with an indoor walking track.  With each lap we look out over the lake and often there will be a boat with a fisherman.  Most times the mist and fog hangs over the water until we leave around 9:00am.

The drive back home takes us past a drive-thru post office, over the bridge and past the barge loading dock, onto the secondary highway past the church I attend from time to time and under trees that meet in the middle of the road.  One pasture is a favourite spot for wild turkeys to feast.  Another pasture has 4 donkeys grazing with the cattle.  The road is very windy (long i) and the speed limit is mostly 45 mph.  Then we turn onto the small road.

We drive past simple homes, single and double wides, brick homes, tobacco barns and more pastures.  Residents decorate their post boxes and lanes for the season.  It will be fun to see what comes with Christmas.

When I reach the lane with 3 mailboxes, I turn onto a yet smaller road.  It is rutted and barely gravelled with barbed wire fences on both sides holding in small herds of Black Angus cattle.  I soon make a right turn into my housesit.  Even with the fallen leaves, the house is quite secluded.  I can now see two neighbours' houses from my yard and the neighbour farther down the lane can hear if my car pulls into my driveway over the gravelled road.

The cardinal still comes to feed.  Maybe it stays all winter, I have no idea.  There are lots of blue jays and wrens and other little birds.  And I still see yellow butterflies.

The garden is going into hibernation but there are a few plants that look like crocuses and irises that seem to be awakening.  This is all very strange to me.  Why would something begin to grow now?

So we sit here, Sugar and I, blogging, relaxing, cooking and doing a bit of work around the house.  And make the odd day trip, like to Dollywood.  Can't complain, can we!

Oh, the joys of house sittin' in the country.....

Summer is definitely over and if I blink, autumn might turn into winter today.  So you know what that means on the farm?  Critters who normally live outside are looking for a cozy winter abode.  I found a couple of dead wasps on the floor.  No big deal, so I thought.  Then another couple of dead wasps the next day.  I know they have a nest somewhere at the back of the house.  Have they found their way into the basement?

So I go down to check and I could not believe my eyes.  There had to be fifty or more flying around the fluorescent light.  I sprayed.  Hours later I went to check and there were probably a hundred dead wasps on the floor, but still tons flying around the light. 

I found their access spot but there was no way I could get close.  They were hanging on the wall below.  I sprayed again.  Hours later I checked and another hundred were dead in the other room.

So every couple of hours I am spraying wasps in the basement.  Apparently the spray has to touch the insect before it will kill it.  I just pray I can get them all before it creeps me out.

This really trumps my experience yesterday.  On Tuesday as I am doing my mat exercises I catch a glimpse of something black moving outside the leaded glass window in the front door.  Two of Jarvis’ cows thought the grass was greener on my side of the fence.

They were harmless and when I opened the door, they took off like two delinquents.

I checked around the yard to see if they damaged anything.  No they didn’t, but I swear that cows are just ‘poop machines’.  Fresh cow patties all over the front yard.  With all the rain, there is no way they will dry out so I can just pick ‘em up and huck ‘em.  No sir, I was shovelin'  __it.

Hummingbird Cake - a Southern favourite

Today was the charity Feast, Country Store and Auction at the church.  The feast was a traditional southern picnic type lunch - pulled pork on a bun, coleslaw, potato salad, baked beans and home made desserts.  They had a hot dog lunch, as well.  And even the hot dogs were smoked!  They had a huge smoker on-site.

Anyway, I discovered Hummingbird Cake.  It was up for auction. I asked the woman beside what it was but she hadn't had one in a long time and couldn't put a finger on the flavours and only said that it was REALLY good!  I researched online and found a wonderful baking website.

I would think that something called Hummingbird Cake would be very sweet, such as a hummingbird would like.  Well, it is much like a carrot cake in texture but the flavours are crushed pineapple, pureed bananas and chopped pecans.  This is cooked as a layer cake and held together with creamed cheese frosting that also has pecans added.  It is very rich and a little goes a long way.  Check out this website for a picture and a recipe.                      http://www.joyofbaking.com/HummingbirdCake.html

Rainy Day Saturday

Rain, rain, rain, thunder and lightning.  When will it stop?  It is desperate in some parts of Georgia and Tennessee with the once in a hundred year rain.

Tonight I am going to a dinner party.  The hostess is making a whole deep fried turkey!  Hopefully this rain has not changed the plans because I have never had fried turkey.  I hope that big pot o' grease is outside!

So here I am making oatmeal cookies for the youth group on Wednesday.  I bought some sugar.  I don't ever recall seeing 'pure cane sugar' in the stores at home.  It was markedly more expensive than 'sugar'.  I asked another woman who was selecting 'cane sugar' what the difference was.  She was thinking with her taste buds and said, "mmm...I think it is sweeter".  So I bought pure cane sugar.  I don't think I'll notice the difference in making only oatmeal cookies.  It is a recipe I have never tried before, from Joy (my only cookbook).

Baking oatmeal cookies and watching Law and Order on a dull, rainy Saturday is my idea of cozy.

I Ate Wonder Bread today...

I don't think that is how it is spelled.  I think it's Wonderbread.  Or is it Wunderbread?  Whatever, OMG, I have not ever eaten anything remotely close to this stuff.  At first blush, the sandwich was tasty.  But as I lingered over my wonderful grilled chicken, I could taste sugar and....salt.  Once I recognized these flavours they became even more pronounced.  It was actually gaggingly awful.

How could I forget to take pictures?!?

I was making sandwiches for the YU at church.  I was told to buy the cheap bread.  These kids actually like it!  The bigger travesty is that they are stuffed with my wonderful baked ham and grilled chicken.  I have sliced garden tomatoes, marinated cucumbers and crisped lettuce.

Next week I am thinking of making potato skins.  I think I'll buy that shredded bag of cheeses.....yum!

Nothing exciting today...

I grilled a chicken on the BBQ.  I was able to find natural charcoal briquettes, which I prefer.  I bought the fryer at Food City for $.78/lb.  It was $3.75.  But a fattier chicken I have never seen.  The flavour was different, also.  Perhaps it is the way they feed them.  Maybe they like them fat.  Everything else is fatty down here, so wouldn't surprise me.  Season with salt, pepper and paprika.  Grill.

Here are pics of my latest art projects - 

Whole Hog...

Pork has always been a good buy even in high times but I have never seen the choices like I see here, in Tennessee.  Today I bought bacon.  Simple enough, I would think.  But I could hardly make a choice.  Hickory smoked, applewood smoked, hardwoods smoked, thick cut, extra extra thick cut, uncut.  And it was all fresh, not frozen.  And it was all beautifully lean, if that is not an oxymoron.  This is what I finally chose – hickory smoked and lean at $4.58 a pound.

In addition, there is a similar selection in hams.  They really know how to do hams down here.  They are so amazingly flavourful.

I finally saw spiral cut ham.  Perhaps they sell them in Canada, but I have never found them.  Pork butt is an amazing bargain.  It is also called pork shoulder. It is great for pulled pork sandwiches and carnitas.  Tenderloins, ribs, chops.  They are all amazing.

They don’t have quite this selection when it comes to beef or lamb unfortunately.  But, when in Rome…….

Volunteering at the Church

With so much time on my hands I volunteered to make the Wednesday evening meal for a youth group at the church.  I am attending a United Methodist Church in the country near my house.  It is exactly like the United Church in Canada, as far as I have seen, so it works for me.

 I had no idea when I volunteered that I would make any shortfall if we didn’t have enough money to pay for the meal!  Oh well!  I’ll just take it out of my Sunday offering.

 My task this week is to make sandwiches for 40 people.  The woman told me just to get some ham and cheese.  “And don’t bother getting that healthy bread.”  Real easy.  No problemo.

 I checked out the sandwich ham at the Food Lion and it was pathetic to say the least.  But, they did have smoked hams on sale.  For $13 I bought this ham and after baking at 335F for 2 hours and basting with a glaze of honey grainy mustard, orange juice and more honey, it was very tasty.  I don’ think I could do better price-wise if I had bought that awful packaged ham.

Labour Day Weekend Tomato Sauce

I had a couple of pounds of ripened garden tomatoes in the refrigerator.  I had sweet and hot peppers, basil, oregano and green onions in the garden, too.  I wouldn’t normally use green onions in a tomato sauce but since I wasn’t fixin’ to drive into town, I used them.

The result was a nice red sauce that I can use with pasta, pizza or seafood. 

For several years the September long weekend has meant the making of litres and litres of roasted tomato sauce. 

Kris and I have been making the tomato sauce for years, say, about 10 years. We buy cases of romas from the farmer’s market.  Claire and Peter dropped in one year and we sent them to pick up another case of tomatoes so they could join us.  We grill them on the gas barbecue, drop them into cold water and slip off the skins.  Then we simmer them with herbs, peppers, onions and garlic for an hour.  We process them in jars in a hot water bath.

This has been another year of upholding a fond tradition.

A Day in Tennessee

I have heard from at least 3 people who said they tried to post to my blog but it wouldn't work.  I checked my settings again, and I have no idea why it isn't working.  Perhaps you have to register?  But 5 people were able to post.  Please try again!

Meanwhile some pics

Rainy day at my house

Tobacco harvest

Guess who!

Okra and tin foil...who woulda thunk?

After a week in Tennessee, I have not had any ultimate foodie experiences yet.  The closest was finding veal demi-glace at Williams Sonoma.  It was $29.  Not inexpensive but I will probably pick some up before I leave for Canada.  I would never use a whole jar while I am here and it must be refrigerated once opened.

I am also living next town to the home of “tin foil”, the city of Alcoa, Aluminum Company of America.

A neighbour lady, Ersa, gave me a handful of sweet banana peppers and one hot banana pepper from her garden.  She had spent her day frying okra in grease and freezing them for use later.  The okra plant is about 2 ½ feet tall and provides a large crop.  I can’t imagine freezing 20 quarts of okra.

 She also told me how to make fried green tomatoes.  They are dusted with cornmeal before frying in grease.  I hate that word ‘grease’ but that’s what they call it.

 The little garden at my house has several herbs, tomatoes, green onions, hot and sweet peppers, canteloupe, eggplant, cucumber and a variety of squash.  Today I am drying hot chilis and picked squash for a nice arrangement in a dish.

 The fresh produce I have found at green grocers is quite expensive and there isn’t a great selection.  I have found corn, all types of potatoes and sweet potatoes, greasy beans (they looked like ordinary beans but a more purple striated colour and tough), tomatoes, romaine lettuce, cabbage and the usual root vegetables and squashes.  Peaches are also available.  

Perhaps there will be more interesting food at the farmer’s market on Saturday.

I bought andouille sausage. It is a typical Creole hot sausage.  I made a simple dinner of diced andouille browned in a skillet, added cooked red beans and cooked white rice along with a diced tomato from the garden.  

Simply divine!  So healthy and satisfying.   The andouille tasted a cross between chorizo and farmer’s sausage.

 I also found Amish butter.  Yum!  I haven’t tried it yet either.  I can hardly wait.  

I'll be in Tennessee soon

I left Winnipeg on Monday full of the usual anxiety with a border crossing!  Well, I wasn't disappointed.  They were unusually respectful but not so nice as to just let me pass.  The problem was my story.  I don't own a house, I don't have a job and I am travelling alone with a cat to the southern states for a few months, and no reason to return?  I had no idea they could pull out all that info and make it sound so bad in a few short questions.

They directed me into the garage, unpacked my car and asked me all those questions that totally intimidate a woman travelling alone with her cat - do you have any weapons (does a vegetable peeler count?), have you ever been fingerprinted, that's a long time to travel alone.  Are you sure you aren't meeting up with any other people?  Other people, yes, of course.  My Dad will likely come down and I have several friends who might come down for a visit.  Does that count?

Then, do you have any food in the car?  That was the one that really made me look odd.  I have every spice and herb from aniseed to za'tar.  I have my wonderful chai and Christmas teas from Paris, some dried bing cherries, white vanilla extract, box of Shreddies, baking powder, cornmeal, beautiful multi-grain bread, Morden's chocolate covered ginger, angostura bitters, ham sandwich, bag of raw almonds........well, you get the gist.  And my Weber charcoal grill.

By the end I was baring my soul to this poor woman who was really trying to find a reason why I wouldn't be a risk to their national security.  She even asked how much money was in my bank account.  I think I finally convinced her by saying that if I didn't return to Alberta, I would have no health care and that would be a desperate situation.

I won't have internet for awhile now....so....happy cooking!