The Search for Sorghum

This past weekend I made a pie. Not a big deal you'd think. I make pies from time to time. I actually made two. One was my signature Chocolate Chess Pie, about which I have blogged on my historical food blog, Peacock With Stuffing. I was making these pies to take them to the annual Eastern Star Christmas Dinner, (Eastern Star being the woman's side of the Mason's Lodge to which my husband belongs.) The other pie was a new one for me, a Chocolate Pecan Pie, which I decided I'd make with Sorghum, a lovely syrup made with cane sugar, rather than the corn syrup commonly used to make pecan pies.

Sorghum, being rather particularly a Kentucky food, seemed more appropriate to use than corn syrup. Besides, corn syrup is just, well, rather yucky. And I found this great company in Louisville, Bourbon Barrel Foods, from which I could mail order this lovely stuff. A tin of it had arrived in good time, I had the recipe from their website to work from, and I was all set.

Except, well, I am persnickety, and a pain in the ass in general. I badgered the poor dear intern who runs Bourbon Barrel Food's Facebook Page with questions about the recipe. What kind of chocolate? Melted? Chips? Bakers? (Horrors.) She politely and in a timely fashion replied that she used chocolate chips. I tossed that aside and decided to get Ghirardelli, in at least a 60% cacao, and wound up getting two bars, one 60% and one 72% and using some of each to get the one cup of chocolate called for in the recipe. If I'd had time I would have mail ordered some Callebaut Intense Dark, but I didn't, so oh well.

Then there was the question of timing on the cooking. The recipe is vague. For how long should it cook? And should I cover the pie crust? (I did, I have those lovely pie crust covering things from King Arthur Flour that do such a good job.) I wound up cooking it almost too long, and it wound up almost but not quite burned, and I'm not going to post the photo in this blog post because, well, it twernt pretty. And besides, I'm going to do a follow-up post. But it tasted splendid.

But the interesting part was at the party. As I brought my pies in, I fully expected my Chocolate Chess Pie to be the hit. It usually is. It's my signature pie, and as it is somewhat obscure (although I have recently been told it's very common in Louisville), I expected everyone to oooh and aaaah over it. Nope. Not a peep. It sat there, at least for a while (eventually it was eaten.) But once I told people the other pie was a Sorghum Chocolate Pecan Pie, that thing flew out the door of the kitchen. One guy actually took two pieces, put them on a plate, and didn't even eat them, just jealously guarded them all afternoon. I think he took them home.

But the part that you could have knocked me over with a feather about came later. One of the older ladies came up to me, introduced herself, and get this, asked me for my recipe for my pie. I thought I was going to fall down. I was honest, said it was not my recipe, and told the several ladies who had gathered where I had gotten it from. But you have to understand. My husband and I moved to the extremely rural area in which we live here in Kentucky about ten years ago from Minnesota. Neither of us is originally from Minnesota, but that doesn't matter, we are known as "those people from Minnesota." And for me, that Yankee girl, to have the local matriarch of the Thompson clan (and clan they are!) ask me, me! for my recipe, is a thing of wonder indeed.

Later, one of the other ladies asked me where I got my "sargum." I told her, BBF. She said, "Oh, you can get it at "X Local Grocery Store." Hmm. I had no idea. So after the dinner (it was still early afternoon) we stopped by and bought a jar. Oddly, it did not say Sorghum on the label, rather Molasses, but the man who owns the place (a local legend with whom I would never want to argue, as I am Not From Here), insisted it was the real deal.

I brought it home, and compared it to what was left in the bottom of the can from BBF. Not at all the same color. Hmm again. The next day I called the number on the jar of the "Molasses that was called Sorghum", and spoke to the man who made it. He was vague and unhelpful, and even said he didn't know what sort of cane he made his syrup from. Hmmm a third time. I found that suspicious. So I mail ordered some more Sorghum from a third source, and once it arrived noted it was dark, but not as dark as the "Molasses that was called Sorghum" but not as light as the lovely stuff from BBF.

So today I broke down and got a case from BBF. And am going to make a whole suite of pies, and do some taste testing and recipe tweaking, and when I do I'll post more pictures and an update. And I know some friends and foodies who'll be getting some real Kentucky Sorghum for Christmas this year. Because this stuff rocks, and I am obsessed. So much so that when I wake up in the wee hours of the morning (as I do from time to time) I find myself thinking about Sorghum. And that just ain't right. But it sure is sweet!

Feed Dee Bees

Yesterday I noticed that there was a mob (and I do mean a mob, at least 25 or so) of honeybees all over the hummingbird feeders. I have two feeders out now, one with "bee guards" that keep the bees from drowning in the feeders, and one without, because the hummers seem to dislike the bee guards. I got the feeder with the bee guards because I generally get a lot of "sweat bees" who climb all the way into the feeder and drown, which makes me sad.

My older feeder, with no bee guards.

The hummers are tiny creatures, and seemed daunted by the swarm of bees. So I did some googling and found that one can move honeybees away from hummer feeders by feeding them. The ratio of sugar to water is much higher for bees than hummers. Nectar for hummingbirds should be made at a ratio of 4:1, four parts water to one part sugar. For bees, you can go 2:1 or even 1:1, depending on the time of year. I opted for a 2:1 ratio.

The new feeder, with bee guards.

As always, I boiled the water (to kill any molds or fungus) then mixed the sugar in. For the first batch I added some red food coloring, but then once I had the bees moved, left it out (and am using a red plate instead to attract them.) They drink a ton, but I figure they need it, we're supposed to have a high of 103 today with a heat index of 110. The thermometer on the back porch in full sun was reading 108 at 11 am, and I imagine it will only get higher!

Here's my set-up for the bees, I put rocks in the plate so they'd have someplace to land and tiptoe down to the syrup, didn't want anyone drowning in it. Not sure how long I should feed them for (have a query in to a friend who keeps bees), but for now, will keep making sugar water and adding it to the plate until some rain falls or they go away.

Using plates and rocks to feed the bees.

Cowboys and their Stack

I was trying to describe the term "stack" to someone not long ago, and went looking for photos of it to pass along a link. What came up first in Google made me cringe it was so wrong, so here I am writing a post about it (and will also be creating a page on our website too.)

Stack, for those of you who don't ride Western, relates to the length of your jeans. In order to have your jeans fit correctly when you're on your horse, they need to be overlong when you're not on your horse. The act of being in the saddle shortens the length of your pants leg, and without proper "stack", you wind up looking silly as can be once you're a'horse.

Here's what jeans with proper stack length look like when the rider is standing on the ground:

The right amount of "stack" in your jeans.

And here's what that (the correct) amount of stack looks like when you're in the saddle:

Stack gives your pants the right length while in the saddle.

So while the first photo may look rather strange to the uninformed, it's really quite the right length in order to keep your pants from sliding too high when you're riding. If I had one, I'd post a shot of "what not to look like when you're in the saddle", but don't have such a pic, and am not going to stage one. And for what it's worth, real cowboys don't wear silver buckles they haven't won or earned. That's for folks who are "All hat and no cattle."

Nutcracking Nuthatches!

This morning I was able to catch on film something I've seen a number of times before (but never had a camera readily available until today.) We have several feeders on our back porch, and I have my desk by the window so I can look down onto them and watch the birds when I am working.

Today I caught a Nuthatch using part of our porch to hold a black oil sunflower seed in place so that it could crack it open to get at the meat inside. I feel very luck to have caught this wonderful behavior on film!

Here's the Nuthatch perched on the porch railing:

He (or she?) grabs a sunflower seed, and jams it into a nailhead hole in the railing:

Then using his long sturdy beak, he pounds at it until the shell is removed:

And then pecks out the white nut meat inside:

Amazing use of avian intelligence (and our aging porch railing) to get at the inside of the seed! Nuthatches are brother B's favorite bird, and I thought he'd like to see this series of one of those clever birdies in action today. This one's for you B. XOXO

Chicks, Hens, and Daylight

A box of chicks ready to be shipped.
The green stuff is "Grow Gel" that
keeps them hydrated during the trip.

A dear friend of mine commented about a Facebook post this morning, asking me "There's a chick season?" She had thought I was hatching and shipping chicks out to customers now. While in theory, I could, I choose not to this time of year. Here's my reply to her (hi Zen!)

Yep, there's a "chick season." Egg production ebbs and flows with the length of daylight, which also coincides with temperature. Hens, especially in natural environments, usually take a break in laying when the days get short and it gets cold (it makes no sense for them to have chicks then, natch.)

They lay more in the spring, as the days get longer and it gets warmer. If I wanted to hatch now, I'd have to put lights on in their coops to give them a minimum of 14 hours of daylight a day. I choose not to do that.

Hens are born with all the eggs they will ever lay stored up in their tiny newborn chick ovaries. As they grow, their laying pattern will be dictated by their genetics and their environment. If they are bred for production, as in the common White Leghorn or Golden Comet or Black Star, they will start laying sooner, at around four months, and will provide the best "feed to lay ratio" of any breed of chicken. This means that they produce the most eggs for the least amount of feed, which is why they are commonly used by large production farms to lay eggs for commercial markets.

A White Leghorn in with
some Buckeyes in the snow.

We have about six White Leghorns, left over from A's 4-H project this past summer. Those girls lay up a storm, and at this point, when the light is lowest and temps are cold, are still laying. We're glad of that, as it means we don't have to buy grocery store eggs (we're spoiled, I admit.)

Our heritage birds, the Buckeyes, start laying a little later in their lives (at about five months), and lay between 150 and 200 eggs per year (as compared to a Leghorn, which can lay up to 300 or more!)
They have all but stopped laying at this point. I don't mind, as I feel it's a good thing to give them a rest, and I want to keep the hens as long as possible. If you put lights on birds, you force them to use up all their available eggs that much sooner, and they become "spent" hens at age two or three. I like to keep my Buckeyes until they are four at least, as an older hen will lay a larger egg, and that will produce a larger, healthier chick. So I don't force my birds to lay when they'd rather not. It just seems more "natural" to me that way.

"Or the horse may talk..."

We got the official news last night, the company where my husband works is shutting down the print facility of which he is Operations Manager. He and some 200+ others will be losing their jobs in the 4th quarter of 2012. (We had initially heard the numbers were higher, and are glad it's not 300, but J is still one of those who will be looking for work.)

J is almost 61. We were hoping his career would carry him through to retirement (we are not ready yet.) He's been in the newspaper industry for more than 40 years, it's all he's done in one form or another, all his life. My job, as lovely as it is, will in no way provide enough income for us to retire now. And by this time next year we'll have not one but two children in college.

It's an interesting time to be middle-aged, interesting ala the Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times." I grew up in the 60s and 70s, and once married my mom didn't have to work. She kept house, and did an inordinate amount of volunteer work all her life. I wanted to live a life like hers, and to an extent, I have. I gave up a lucrative career to stay at home and raise my children. Oh, I've always done some part-time work or another all along, mostly computer related. But never full time, and never outside the house. So for me to try to re-enter the workplace now, in the midst of the worst recession in decades, is not particularly viable. But I've tried, applied for jobs I know I could do well, at a salary far, far below what I ever made even 25 years ago. But so far have found nothing.

An old expression I've always believed in is "Do what you love, and the money will follow." What I do now, working with the amazing collection of vintage ephemera that my mother left behind when she died, is amazing, satisfying, and just my dream job. I love it. I'd like to keep doing it. But will I be able to? I dunno.

It's not like we haven't dealt with this sort of thing before, sadly. In 2002, when the economy tanked and businesses were pulling back, my husband was told the giant print facility he was to build and run wasn't going to happen, and the company he worked for then let him go. Prior to that, a paper he worked for brought in a new publisher who systematically fired every single middle manager she had, J included, for no good reason other than she could.

So it's a situation we've been in before, and have made it though. And each time what came after was always better than what had been before: better job, better home, better life. So I have faith that the same thing will hold true this time. It's just the "getting through" it all that can be stressful. In times like these, I am reminded of a story my family told when we were growing up, often enough so that the tagline has become enough to bring the whole thing home. It goes like this:

A man had offended the king, and was sentenced to death. He fell to his knees before the king and implored, "Oh your majesty! Spare me but for one year, and I will teach your horse to talk!" The king was amazed, and granted his wish.

The man's close friend and brother upbraided him, saying, "Why did you make such an absurd promise?"

The man shrugged and replied, "In a year, the king may die. In a year, I may die. In a year, the horse may talk!"

The point of the story being, one never knows what will happen in the future. Something amazing could happen that you'd never consider. And since we've been given time (nine months to a year) to figure this all out, who knows what could happen? Hell, the horse may talk!

At any rate, despite all the ups and downs of the past year, our family wishes all of you a very happy holiday, whichever one you celebrate (and even if you don't,) and we send you light and love, and hopes for peace and joy in the coming year.

Teach Our Children Well...

Last week I got a call from daughter A's FFA teacher at school asking if I could come in and make a presentation on what it's like to be a poultry farmer. Now, strictly speaking, I'm not a "poultry farmer." When I hear that term, I think of the folks who own the big battery farms, and raise ten thousand broilers or laying hens. That's definitely not me. I told Ms. W that, and she said it was fine, she just wanted to give the kids some idea of what it's like to raise poultry. That I can do!

Production White Leghorn

So in I went today to make a presentation. I had nothing prepared, no notes or Powerpoint, just a chicken. I had grabbed up one of our Production White Leghorns (which A got for her 4-H project and County Fair this past summer.) Popped the hen into a crate and off to school I went. I've done lots of presentations and demos in my life, so winging it was just fine with me, I can extemporize with the best of 'em, on any number of topics (being able to spout bs at length and sound like you know what you're talking about is a gift, not a skill, I'm just lucky that way.)

Off we went, the chicken and me, up to school where I did my presentation for a 7th grade class (when did 7th graders get so old looking, by the way?) We live in a very rural area, and I admit I was surprised at how few of the kids in the class live on farms, only 2 out of the 25 in the room. Most of the kids were from "in town", and few had ever gotten close to a live chicken. It brought home to me how disconnected most of us are from how our food is raised (those of us who eat meat, that is), as the average 7th grader really only thinks of chicken as something that comes as a nugget, or is wrapped in plastic in the case at the grocery store. I think this is a Very Bad Thing.

Fresh eggs are so much better than store-bought!

Part of my presentation was to answer eight questions the kids had on a worksheet, and as we worked our way through the sheet several things became clear. The first was, the kids were eager to display what they did know about chickens (several weeks earlier A had done a presentation for the class on a different breed we raise, called Buckeyes.) Most of them were happy to share what they already knew, and were interested in learning more about what it takes to raise chickens. We talked about doing chores; every day, twice a day, sometimes three times a day if it's really hot and the animals need extra water. One of the questions was "What is the hardest part about raising chickens/living on a farm?", to which I replied "Finding someone reliable and knowledgeable enough to do chores if we want to go on vacation" which surprised many of them. But the thing I came away with, is that most of those kids would be perfectly happy to not ever be a farmer. And that makes me sad.

Children in our communities need to get more involved with production of their food, not less. We need to have more community gardens, more cooperative animal projects, not fewer. Kids need to get dirt under their fingernails, mud on their shoes, pull an egg out from under a chicken on the nest, to really appreciate what it means to raise food, to connect with the process. We do our children a disservice if we keep them from that, raise them to think food comes from Wal-Mart or Kroger, rather than the back yard, or the neighbor's farm. I have no answers, just concerns. How do we reconnect people to the food they eat? I wish I knew. But I think it needs to happen, somehow.