Watching a bewildering world from the middle of nowhere
If you can make good biscuits, then you can make good sweet-potato biscuits. Substitute mashed sweet potato for a roughly equal amount of flour. Biscuit dough can easily handle a one-to-two ratio of potato to flour, and probably even one-to-one.
Your biscuits will be very tender.
Many kinds of bread, actually — both quick breads and yeast breads — benefit from some potato. I think of this as German thing, though I have had sweet-potato biscuits in African-American restaurants.
Carrot top pesto with roasted baby carrots and a quiche bought at Trader Joe’s
I am strongly of the view that what keeps us alive is negative entropy. When I bring this up with people who I think might be interested, their eyes glaze over with boredom, and I drop the subject. Entropy = disorder. Negative entropy = order. Life goes on only because life magically resists the natural tendency toward decay and disorder.
Obviously we eat to obtain energy. And obviously we eat to obtain certain nutrients. If we ate no calcium, for example, we would have no bones. We could eat compost and get calcium and calories. But that’s not enough. We would not be able to thrive on compost. We’d develop all sorts of diseases and then die. Why? Because all the order, all the life, is gone from compost. Once bacteria have squeezed the last bit of order out of compost (the bacteria then die and become part of the compost), only plants can use the compost then. Plants can use the compost because they use photosynthesis to create new order, in the form of complex organic molecules, out of the dead raw material.
I have written in more detail about this here. It boils down to a theory of nutrition based on physics rather than on biology. A theory from physics does not in any way negate a theory from biology. Rather, physics just takes us back one level to a more fundamental science of life.
What does this have to do with fresh leaves? It is photosynthesis, using energy from the sun, that is the basis of life on earth. Life has the ability to take dead elements (such as calcium, nitrogen, iron, magnesium, and water) and build the vast variety of complex molecules that are necessary for life. Those dead elements, as in compost, are simple and lifeless. The order, as in the products of plant life, is exceedingly complex — alive. It is photosynthesis that gave them life and order. Chlorophyll is a rich source of order. And chlorophyll is only one of the countless orderly molecules that plants produce and that we need to thrive and to avoid disease.
This, I think, is why people do not thrive on ultraprocessed foods. Ultraprocessed foods are like compost. The energy is there, some of the simple nutrients are there, but the order has been processed out and is mostly gone. Bodies live on, because they’re getting energy (too much of it, really), but the body breaks down, because it’s starved for order. It’s just a hunch, and I can’t offer any evidence. But I suspect that the reason we sometimes eat too much is that our bodies are starved for order, even though we’re overfed on low-order foods.
So then, carrot tops. If you can get your hands on some living leaves fresh out of the sun, eat them! They are a magnificently rich source of order.
My farmer friends Brittany and Richard grew the carrots and harvested them the morning before I made the pesto.
Carrot leaves — fresh chlorophyll!
Grilled salmon with green beans and garlic mashed potatoes
I had been waiting for this place to open for months, following their progress on their Facebook page. It’s the first real bistro in the benighted red county I live in. The place is named “The Dalton” (I’ll explain below why its name also is my surname), and it’s in the mean, racist, theocratic little town of King. I love bistros, but I’m also fascinated by the clash of what I might call bistro culture with white Christian theocracy, in a town that normally feeds on wings, barbecue, burgers, and baloney.
The main thing to know about King, North Carolina, is that it’s a white-flight suburb of the nearby (blue-voting and remarkably civilized) city of Winston-Salem. King is an ugly little town that consists mostly of a one-mile strip development with fast food, grocery stores, a tire store, and a “Christian Supplies” store, whatever that is. The town is politically dominated by a large Baptist church with a crew of nasty little Bible-college preachers. (I’ve seen and heard these preachers at county commissioner meetings when something like putting “In God We Trust” on county buildings and county vehicles is on the agenda.)
Baptists, of course, including those who are secretly sinful, don’t want others to have the freedom to buy alcohol. For years, the power of these Baptists was able to keep “liquor by the drink” and ABC stores out of King. In North Carolina, cities and towns can be either “wet” or “dry,” depending on how the town’s voters vote in a referendum. In 2022, proponents of liquor by the drink were at last able to get a referendum on the ballot. In November 2022, it passed, 63 percent to 37 percent. It has taken almost two years for King’s first bar to open.
The best restaurants make most of their money off of alcohol rather than food. So at last a bistro — with a big bar — had a chance to make a go of it in King. They got the best old building in town. For years, King’s high street had been run down and seedy, with only one strong business, a drug store. Several buildings on the high street are being renovated now. If the Dalton restaurant succeeds, it should lift the entire (very short) high street along with it. The high street is named Dalton Road.
The road is named for the old Dalton plantation that was a few miles north. The plantation is historically significant, not least for the wills and other records of the plantation’s owners, David Dalton Sr. (1740-1820) and David Dalton Jr. (1781-1847). The Dalton family papers are in the Z. Smith Reynolds Library of Wake Forest University. I am not descended from the Daltons who owned the plantation. Rather, that branch of the Dalton family and my branch forked in Albemarle County, Virginia, in the early 1700s and migrated south from the Charlottesville area separately. The Daltons arrived in Virginia very early, during the Williamsburg period. Two names come up again and again in the family trees — Timothy, and David. Where you find Daltons, you will find a David.
I have not yet met the owners of the bistro. I’d love to ask them some questions. They have made a huge investment in renovating and equipping the building. I asked my waitress how many people were working that afternoon. Fourteen, she said. That is a huge staff. Most country eateries operate with two to four people. The place is nicely furnished, though not lavish. They have proper heavy white china and good flatware. The prices are reasonable. My waitress said the place has been packed in the evening. It must be a tough calibration for “upscale” menus in downscale locations, where the food has to be good enough to justify higher prices and to satisfy customers with higher expectations, while not being too expensive or so citified that people don’t understand it.
King is sixteen miles to the south of me, so I won’t be tempted to go there very often.
As though to remind me that I was in Trumptown, as I was enjoying my grilled salmon an older couple came in. The man was “open carrying.” He had a pistol in a holster. This is legal in North Carolina unless a business posts a sign at the door forbidding weapons inside. This irked me at first. But the couple were quiet and polite and not out to make a scene. I’d never seen open carry in a restaurant before, but I’ve heard stories about how people who open carry want to make a show of it, like the people who make a show of holding hands and praying before they eat their barbecue and fries.
I have several reasons for wanting to support this place, but I’d do for only one reason — the fact that that ungodly Baptist church up the road didn’t want it there and lost the battle to keep it out.
⬆︎ The vanilla ice cream was only $2! Other dessert choices were $6 and $8.
⬆︎ King’s high street is on the National Register of Historic Places. I believe this was the old bank building.
Tofu and cashew lo mein over baby bok choi
I promise to back off on food photos soon. It’s just that I’m inspired by the attitude toward food and cooking that accompanies the fall change of weather. Instead of dreading heat from cooking in the kitchen, the attitude reverses: Get double service from the heat of cooking by both cooking food and warming the house.
Whole wheat spaghetti makes an entirely agreeable lo mein noodle. My farmer neighbors Brittany and Richard grew the bok choi. A neighbor gave me the sweet red pepper.
A baked pumpkin. I’ll scrape the goody out with a spoon. This pumpkin became soup. See below.
It’s pumpkin season, after all, so I hope you can put up with my pumpkin evangelism a little longer.
Once upon a time in America, a time that I can remember, everyone in rural America acquired fresh apples in the fall. Lots of people had their own apple tree. Those who didn’t have their own apple tree probably had neighbors who did. And many people lived near orchards where you could buy apples by the bushel or the peck. A family of four to six people could easily use a bushel of apples by Thanksgiving. If you bought enough, they’d last until Christmas, because apples keep well.
Pumpkin pie is as American as apple pie. Maybe pumpkins weren’t as much of an autumn must-have as apples, but plenty of people also acquired “eating pumpkins” for fall. Pumpkins keep just as well as apples, so there was your pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving, and maybe Christmas, too.
These days, you can buy fresh apples all year. I have no idea how that works, because, traditionally, any apples that lasted through the winter would be pretty shriveled by spring. In C.J. Sansom’s Shardlake novels, set in Tudor England, the London womenfolk sometimes sent the menfolk to market to get apples, even shriveled ones, because apples were an important food. As for pumpkins these days, you’d better get them before Halloween, because after that there won’t be any. That is a shame. Because pumpkins, properly stored, will easily keep all winter.
I came across an article at BBC News about pumpkins as an international superfood. They will grow in poor soil, they’re drought tolerant, they’re very nutritious — including the seeds and even the leaves — and they keep well without needing any refrigeration.
Pumpkins also are a good “prepper” crop. A few years ago I supplied some of my neighbors with seeds for what we call “little pumpkins.” The proper name of the little pumpkins is Long Island cheese squash. Several of my neighbors grow little pumpkins now, and each year they keep the seed for next year’s crop. A good stash of homegrown little pumpkins could help make winter a lot more bearable if something happened to our usual supply lines.
Pumpkin soup is a challenge. A savory stock is essential. I like to add just a touch of nutmeg and a teaspoon or two of sugar.
A neighbor gave me the little pumpkin for the soup. The local farmers from whom I buy vegetables grew the lettuce. I baked the bread for the grilled cheese.
Pesto with sweet peppers and walnuts
This was a hard gardening year here. During midsummer there was a prolonged period of heat and drought. It was so bad that the deer ate tomato plants and the leaves of young oak trees, something I’ve never seen before. Gardens without irrigation were ruined. After the rain returned, the deer of course went back to their usual diets. In spite of the rough summer, the spring and fall hay crops were good, so the horses and cattle should eat well this winter, even though, like the deer, the pasture animals had a rough time of it during the summer.
After the rain from Hurricane Helene in late September, my basil plants rebounded. Today I pretty much clipped all the new growth. The first frost probably is not far off. Basil is precious.
I’ll be getting fresh vegetables through late November from my local young farmers, Brittany and Richard — broccolini, baby bok choi, sweet potatoes, sweet peppers, lettuces, beets, and such. Last week I got the last of the summer okra. I’ve been roasting it and tossing it into pasta dishes with parmesan.
In today’s nomenclature, the two pumpkins in the back are “pie pumpkins.” The pumpkin in the front would be an “heirloom” pumpkin.
What is the world coming to? What once upon a time we would have called a pumpkin is now called an heirloom pumpkin. True pumpkins were in danger of being displaced by the large, ugly, inedible pumpkin-like objects that people (for some reason) buy for Halloween. I’m all for jack-o-lanterns, especially if they’re made from proper fairy-tale pumpkins. But the real purpose of pumpkins is to make them into pie. I’ll stop there, because regular readers are no doubt tired of my annual rant about how hard it can be to find proper pumpkins.
I’m about 14 miles from the nearest pumpkin farm. I stopped by the pumpkin farm this morning to get my first fix of fall pumpkins. The lady at the pumpkin farm told me that it was only four years ago that they started growing “heirloom pumpkins.” They sell out, so I assume that sanity is returning to the pumpkin market. People were hauling away pumpkins in little garden wagons and loading six or eight of them into their SUV’s. My guess is that 99.9 percent of those pumpkins will decorate front porches and will never have the honor of being made into pie.
When there are pumpkins in the field, there are acorns in the woods. The acorn crop this year seems to be good. That’s good news for the squirrels and the deer.
⬆︎ “Heirloom pumpkins” on the left, and ugly pumpkin-like objects on the right.
⬆︎ The iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max are the first iPhones to be able to shoot close-ups, or “macro” shots. The lens will focus as close as 1 inch.
Peppers in the garden continue to produce until frost. In fact they love the return of cool weather. A neighbor gave me some beautiful sweet red peppers. They’re not bell peppers. They look more like fresh pimento peppers — thick-skinned and sweet. I’ve used the heck out of them, because there are more where those came from.
Even if you make pimento cheese from scratch with good ingredients, you’re doing no favor for your lipid profile, what with the cheddar and the cream cheese. The New York Times ran a classic recipe for pimento cheese earlier this year. Yum.
I make a vegetarian version with mashed tofu and seasonings such as brewer’s yeast (also called food yeast) and turmeric or curry powder. There’s no substitute for the mayonnaise, though, I think.
Next time I’ll roast the pepper on the grill before I chop it.
Tickseed sunflower
I call September that yellow-flower time of year. As soon as September arrives, yellow flowers appear all along the roadsides here in the Blue Ridge foothills.
And there’s another thing that arrives in September — bread season. The kitchen, at last, is cool enough to want to use the oven. My first loaf of the season was barley bread. It’s about ten parts barley flour to one part gluten flour, plus salt, a teaspoon of yeast, and water. As long as you add gluten flour to the barley and keep the dough warm, it will rise, even though barley flour is a little harder to work with than wheat. I grind my own barley flour from organic hulled barley. You can get the barley — and grain grinders! — on Amazon. My grinder, though, is a classic Champion juicer with a mill attachment.
Barley bread with fixin’s
You do have an ice cream machine, don’t you? They actually work, and they’re not very expensive.
I’d be lying if I claimed that I can make a frozen dessert that’s just as good as ice cream but healthier. But it’s possible to make satisfactory substitutes, and with less work, too. Making real ice cream is a big job. You have to cook a custard, then chill it for hours, then freeze it. And the ingredients are heart-stoppers — egg yolks, cream, and sugar.
Bananas work remarkably well to make no-cream ice cream smoother and less icy. The ice cream in the photo is made from a banana, some dried dates, plain soybean milk, a touch of nutmeg, and a few drops of vanilla. Whiz it in the blender, then put the mixture in the ice cream machine.
