Author Archives: The Sugarlump

Family Farms

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I love farms.

Every summer as a kid, when I visited my extended family in Kentucky, I loved to ride around with Papa and my cousins and check out the family farms.  Because I only saw the farms once a year, I never really knew them that well.  Now that I live closer and can visit more often, I have asked Papa to take me around and show me the farms more thoroughly as well as some of the really beautiful spots around the county.

Last week, he took me to one of the farms that has been in the family for several generations.  Most of it is covered in trees, but it’s still fun to drive around hear Papa tell me the history of it.

Apparently, before there was a paved or gravel road to the farm, this was a back way through the creek to get to the farm.

I see you hiding back there, little barn.

Papa said this hollow goes for a mile or two.

Maybe I can convince my cousin Lauren to explore up to the head of the hollow with me this summer.  Perhaps we could fix up Julio for our journey. I’m thinking “Ain’t Skeered: Part 2” might be in our future.

Now, let me tell you a story about me and this fairly moderate incline.

Growing up, I was obsessed with cars and driving and could not wait to get my license.  In the summers before I was 16, I always looked forward to driving Papa’s truck around on the farm, where no other parties were subject to harm.

One day, I was having a grand old time driving up and down the gravel road when I decided I needed to go across this little ditch and up the hill to this barn on the left. I didn’t (and still don’t really) know how to drive a truck on this mixed terrain.  Evidently, I did not give the truck enough gas because I proceeded to get stuck just past the ditch as my wheels slid on the gravel/grass/dirt hill.  Scared for my life, I yelled to my Uncle Brian who was standing nearby and he instructed me on how to put the truck in 4-wheel drive.  After a few dicey moments, I made it up the hill, all 50 feet of it.  Thank goodness I didn’t start to slide backward because I could have been seriously injured as I ran into…..a grassy field.

Ok, so maybe it wasn’t really a life-threatening situation.  It seemed very serious at the time.

For my farm touring adventures, I’m going to let Papa do the driving.

Y’all be careful,

Sugarlump

Bantams

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A while back, my dad and I were shopping at the Chestnut Hill Mall in Boston.  As we were walking through the mall between stores, we came upon an unusual display.

Want to guess what it was?

“A waterfall.”

Nope.

“Santa Claus.”

Close, but no.

“I give up.”

White Crested Black Polish Bantam Chickens!

I WANT ONE.

No, seriously.  I REALLY WANT ONE.

Or two.

Or three.

Or a whole brood of them.

I never thought I would say this, but that perm is sassy.

I think I’ll call her Elvis.

This is her husband.  Who said men can’t rock long hair?

He reminds me of Cruella De Vil.

In a good way.

Whoever is responsible for this display needs a raise.

And I NEED some of these chickens.

Y’all come back,

Sugarlump

Apartment Update

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I have been working hard to make my apartment feel like home since I moved in almost 4 weeks ago.  I brought with me most of my major furniture so I’m just missing the smaller accent pieces like a coffee table and an end table.

And barstools for my desk so I have a real place to eat a meal instead of on the sofa.

And an armoire for my bedroom, but that may take me a while to find just the one and, thanks to my closet handywork, it’s not critical.

Here’s a peak at the situation:

Currently, I have a pair of lovely storage bins from Walmart acting as my coffee table.  It’s a great look, don’t you think?

I think the label really sets it off.

And here is my end table.  Who knew that not only were the pots and pans useful, but also that the box they come in is the ideal end table height when turned up sideways?

This may start a trend.  I think it will be called “makeshift chic.”

While it may be a while before I upgrade my “tables,” I have been making considerable progress on the dreadful, soul-sucking white walls that come standard in my apartment complex.

I painted my kitchen and my bedroom in the past 24 hours and I painted my bathroom last week.  (I will post pictures once I get everything accessorized.)

My cats were super helpful with the painting.

Not.

They slept all day in the sun.

Can I be a cat?

The room in which they spent their leisurely afternoon is giving me some heartburn.  Not only does it have the makeshift tables and a chairless desk/dining table, but it also has lots of different walls that catch light very differently.  This is making it difficult to find a color that looks good on all of the walls throughout the day.

By the time I decide which color to go with, the walls will probably be covered in paint swatches, I will have taken out a loan for paint and it will probably be time to move.

I think I am up to 8 colors so far and they all are either too gray, too yellow, too green, too light or too dark. I’m seriously considering mixing some of them together to get my ideal color and then taking it to the paint store and having them color match it.

This is my “dining” area that houses my enormous desk and will also serve as a place to eat once I get some barstools…

So this is how all of the colors look on this wall.

This is the space between the living and dining areas on the window wall, which is perpendicular to the wall with the desk.  It is the darkest wall.

This is the wall opposite the desk wall on the other side of the rectangular room, behind my sofa.

I swear, these are all the same color swatches on each wall even though they look quite different.

Turning another 90 degrees, this wall is opposite the main window wall and thus receives the most natural light.  This is where we see the true colors.

Doesn’t that white make you want to cry? It does me.

And these are two more walls that form a bar-height counter around my kitchen.  That little bit of chair rail on the right is part of the desk wall.

Congratulations, we have just completed a 360 degree turn around the room.

There are actually 3 other walls that will also be the same color in my entry way, however trying to add them into the mix for consideration might just send me over the edge.

It’s a miracle that I can get dressed in the morning.

So you see, I have a lot of walls to consider and the lighting is kind of drastic, not only from one wall to the next, but throughout the course of the day since my apartment is South-facing.

These pictures make the colors look a little bit greener than they actually are, but if anyone wants to vote, please feel free to leave a comment.  (I don’t know how you will possibly describe to me which color it is since they are painted haphazardly and differently on each wall, but it’s worth a shot.)

You would think this would be easy for me since I’m a designer.  While I know exactly what to suggest for clients, it’s really hard to do my own place.  Please send help.

Y’all come back,

Sugarlump

Fried Chicken

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I would venture to say that every Southern cook knows how to fry chicken.  Not all recipes and preparations are the same; in fact, almost no two are exactly alike.  I have read dozens of recipes about frying chicken and they all offer different tips and approaches that they claim are the key to the best fried chicken.   I have yet to try any of them because I don’t know where to start.

I decided to go directly to the source of fried chicken in my life: Grandmother.

While visiting my grandparents in Kentucky last week, I requested fried chicken from my Grandmother, per usual, but I put in a special request for her to allow me to document the process so I could learn how to fry chicken once and for all.   She obliged and thought it was cute that I wanted to take pictures of everything.

So we started out with 2 chicken breasts that had been cut into 2 pieces each, for a total of 4 pieces of chicken.  Grandmother likes the pieces to be a little bit smaller so they cook evenly and all the way through without burning the crust.

(And by we, I mean Grandmother.  She was handling all of the chicken because she knows what she’s doing and I didn’t want any chicken gunk on my camera.  That would not be sanitary.)

It was just me and Grandmother, which is why we were cooking only 4 pieces, but when the whole family is together, she fries 2 or 3 times that amount (in several batches) and sometimes fries dark meat as well.

The first step is to brine the chicken (salt and water) to help the chicken stay moist and seasoned.  While you can let the chicken brine overnight, Grandmother says a few hours is fine.

The next step is somewhat controversial: selecting the frying agent.   This can be peanut oil, canola oil, vegetable oil, lard, vegetable shortening, etc.  Part of the selection usually depends on if you are frying or deep frying.  Grandmother fries her chicken with Crisco and uses enough of the vegetable shortening to cover the chicken about half-way, but not enough to deep fry it.

Grandmother added a couple of HEAPING cooking spoonfuls to the pot. Translation: a lot of Crisco.

I thought this was probably adequate.  Grandmother said not quite.  She then added another big spoonful of Crisco.

Surely this was enough.

Nope.

One more spoonful.  I would say this was about 2 cups of Crisco in all.  Grandmother concurred, but like any good Southern cook, she doesn’t measure.  She just goes by look and feel.

The phrase “ignorance is bliss” comes to mind.  But even knowing about the quantity of grease involved, I’m going to eat the chicken anyway.

Then turn the stove top to 5 and heat the Crisco.

That’s what Grandmother told me and just laughed because of course she knows that 5 is not a universal stovetop temperature.  We decided 5 was equivalent to about medium heat.

Meanwhile, coat the chicken liberally in self-rising flour.   Grandmother uses self-rising because it creates a crispier, more airy crust.

Let the chicken hang out in the flour bowl until the Crisco is heated.  Grandmother says it is ready when you sprinkle in a bit of flour and it sizzles.  Be careful not to get it too hot that it crackles and pops and “carries on.”

When the Crisco is ready, place the chicken, meat side down, in the pot and cover.  Covering the chicken helps to keep the meat moist, but you must let some of the steam escape so your crust doesn’t become soggy, says Grandmother.

To fry the chicken, Grandmother uses a Club Aluminum Dutch oven that has been in the family for approximately 75 years.   She thinks it’s important to cover the chicken so she prefers a Dutch oven to an open cast iron skillet, but she says to be careful with some of the newer, enameled cast iron because they seem to hold in too much steam.  She recommends cooking with the lid slightly askew to allow some of the steam to escape.

Check on the chicken after about 10 or 15 minutes.  If the crust on the bottom is nice and golden brown, it’s time to flip the pieces! Then let cook another 15 minutes or so, covered.

And please wear an apron, velvet house shoes, and your best Wilma Flintstone necklace while fryin’ chicken.  (Picture courtesy of Grandmother)

Then, as the chicken is finishing to its golden brown on the second side, allow it to cook uncovered for about 5-10 minutes to crisp up the crust.

When chicken is crispy and golden brown (after about 30-35 minutes of frying total), remove chicken from pot and allow to drain on a paper towel for a few moments before transferring to a serving dish.

Then, stand back and admire this beautiful work of art.  (Don’t take too long or it will get cold.)

And then, most importantly, please eat it blissfully as you forget about the amount of Crisco used in its preparation.

Thanks for teaching me how to fry chicken, Grandmother!

Y’all come back now, ya hear?

Sugarlump

My Garden

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These are some of my flowers in past years at my parents’ house.  I considered it my contribution to the household to plant and take care of the flowers.

I got really into gardening when I was in college and decided I needed a perennial flower garden a few years back.  I dug out a bunch of the rocks in the soil around the edge of my parents’ yard (New England has very rocky soil).  My dad and my sister helped.   I then used the rocks to build a low rock wall (pictured below), which I then backfilled with better dirt for my flower bed.   My sister helped with this as well.  It was the last time she participated in any gardening activities.  She discovered that she does not like manual labor involving dirt and rocks.

A year after I built the rock wall, I convinced my dad to help me put in a patio.  He did a lot of the heavy duty prep work, like using his John Deere to level the dirt and remove large rocks and dead tree roots.  I helped with spreading and leveling the sand and then I laid the stone pavers.

Thank you for helping me/doing the hard part, daddy!

And then the John Deere and I got to work planting new plants and transplanting plants from other places in the yard.

I did some transplanting from the front yard….

…and from the backyard….

…and then I bought some new plants and planted them.

And then I did some more planting and there was still a lot of empty space, but the plants needed room to grow and I would fill in new plants over time.

Apparently, I wore very strange attire one day when I did some planting.  I don’t know what to say about this ensemble except that it was very hot outside and I was trying to keep my feet (but evidently not the other 90% of my body) free of dirt. I must have been delirious from heat exhaustion at this point to strike such a pose, in such an outfit, in such a setting…with a shovel and without a tan.

Moving on…

This is what my garden looked like last summer, the third summer of the perennial garden/patio’s existence.  Two years ago, my dad and I transferred 4 cubic yards of good dirt one lawn tractor load at a time from the driveway, where the truck dumped it, to my garden at the edge of the yard.   This definitely improved the growing conditions for my plants.  It also improved my appreciation for every poor soul in the landscaping business.

But my plants were happy.

I’ve always loved to play in the dirt and I’ve spent every birthday for the last 5 years planting something in my parents’ yard.  This year for my birthday, perhaps I will plant something at my grandparents’ house or maybe I’ll see if the landscaping crew at my apartment complex will let me volunteer for a day.  I’m not sure how well that will go over, but it’s worth a shot.

I added this rock wall (behind the hammock) 2 years ago from even more rocks that we uncovered when mending the soil.

I was constantly moving things around, into the sun or into the shade.  I would sit in my hammock with a book, but after about 30 seconds I would be staring at my garden, thinking about my next move or project.  It was such a therapy for me.   I can’t wait to see how much the garden has grown this year when I go back to Boston to visit my parents.

So this year I’ll be gardening on a very different scale.  I will be confined to container gardening for my flowers, but I am determined to make the most of it.

Thankfully, my papa has agreed to let me help with his vegetable garden so I will at least have a decent amount of square footage to play in when I visit my grandparents in Kentucky.

More to come on the container gardening on my 50 square foot deck.

Y’all come back now, ya hear?

Sugarlump

Scarlett’s Birthday

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It was Scarlett’s birthday today.  The vet sent her an e-card.

What is this world coming to?(!)  Even our pets have gone digital.

Scarlett is 5 years old today.  I can’t believe it.  Off to kittygarten in the fall!

This is her in her big-girl bed.  She loves to lounge by the window and keep tabs on what’s happening outside.

She also LOVES plastic bags, so I gave her a bunch to play with today.  She went nuts.

All of the excitement wore her out so she took a long nap on the sofa.

I think Gus was jealous that Scarlett was getting special treatment on her birthday so he decided to act up and get in the dryer.  What a little daredevil.

Good thing he didn’t try to get in the washing machine.  It would have been hard to decide if he should go in with the “whites” or “colors.”

Clearly his plan to get my attention worked as he made it into Scarlett’s birthday post.

Happy Birthday, Scarlett. You’re such a funny little poodle.

Y’all come back now, ya hear?

Sugarlump