Summer Cooking : Pickled Okra

PICKLED OKRA
4 or 4 1/2 lbs. sm. okra pods
7 cloves garlic
7 hot peppers
7 tsp. dill seeds
1 qt. vinegar
1 c. water
1/2 c. pickling salt
Wash okra well. Drain and set aside. Place 1 clove garlic and 1 hot pepper into each of 7 hot sterilized pint jars. Pack jars firmly with okra, leaving 1/2 [...]

Summer House : Your Home Away From Home

by Robin Arnold
     Walking through a dream is one of the most enjoyable activities of living. If you breeze by Summer House in Currituck near Carolina Club Golf Course you are taking part in Melody Clopton’s dream which brings “the eye” to Currituck. “The eye” is what someone has when they spot [...]

A St. Valentine’s Day secret - for men only!

If thanksgiving is colonial, and Christmas medieval, then the tradition of Valentine’s Day is Victorian. The custom of sending love tokens is much older historically (St. Valentine, the martyred saint whose name is honored, lived in the third century), but it seemed to find perfect expression in Victoriana - Hearts and flowers, poetry, cupids, doilies, ceremony, Flaubert, Chopin, Poe. “For love’s sake” had a mysterious, forbidden drama then. Although I don’t see many of my lady-friends receiving lace-edged handkerchiefs, hand-dipped chocolates, or unsigned cards anymore, I have clear memories of my own Valentine’s Days, mostly from my childhood.

GOBGB: The Most Special Day of the Year!

Everybody’s got to get their licks in, don’t they?” Bubba inquired of his good friend.

The pair were perched on the edge of the bench seat in the front of ol’ Betsy, watching the low ditch line ahead.

“I’m not quite sure I know what you’re talkin’ ‘bout,” LeRoy replied questioning the direction his friend was taking the conversation.

GOBGB : The Milkman Cometh …

Don’t you read the darn newspaper?” LeRoy asked his good friend Bubba.

“Well I try not to when I can help it,” Bubba replied, adding “it just gets me so darn tore up, all the crap going on over in Elizabeth City, and then some politician is whining about this, and some bureaucrat is cryin about that.”

GOBGB : An OLF this way shall come?

“Alrighty, I have a one question for ya!” exclaimed the Old Fart. Bubba and LeRoy had wandered into the Currituck Shell, only to be cornered by one of themembers of the illustrious Currituck Speaker’s Bureau.

“Where do YOU stand on the OLF?” he pressed Bubba for an answer.

Delicious Inner Banks Soups (and a Salad)

 ”… and the best cook
cannot alter the first quality.
 They must be good
or the cook will be disappointed.”
 - Amelia Simmons in American Cookery, 1796
 The whole essence of casserole cooking in the South would be lost without the familiar red-and-white can of Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup.  But there’s so much more to soups and stews than [...]

GOBGB : It Ain’t EZ Bein’ tha King!

Well, here we are at the end of another year,” Bubba reminisced with his good friend, LeRoy.

“I tell ya, time surely flies when you’re having fun!” LeRoy added.

“Yeah, seems like just yesterday, we were back at the beginin’ of the year, lookin’ out over the New Year, while workin’ on some black eyed peas and collard greens,” Bubba noted, with a twinge of hunger.

GOBGB : A Currituck Christmas

‘Twas the night before Christmas,
when all through LeRoy’s house

Not a creature was stirring,
not even LaVerne, his spouse;

Their stockings were hung
by the old wood stove with care,

In hopes that St. Nicholas
soon would be there;

GOBGB : Happy Trails Buckaroo

“I swear, that last meeting of the Commish almost brought a tear to my eye,” Bubba professed to his good friend.

“Oh how is that?” LeRoy queried Bubba.

“Well it was just such a touching moment, when E.Z. Rider presented Ernie with that plaque and read the letter from Marc B.”, Bubba explained.

“Ahhh,” LeRoy expressed.

I swear, it just ain’t gonna be the same without the Ol’ Carova Cowboy up there,” Bubba lamented.

Advent IV: Familiar Sides Dishes with a new twist!

It isn’t always easy to determine whether a vegetable dish is something to serve “on the side” or as the main attraction. Think about a typical Christmas table: At the center, a large, glossy brown turkey, a nice Standing Rib Roast or a Baked Ham; arranged all around are a banquet of vegetable sides: Brussels sprouts with chestnuts, green beans flavored with nuts or bacon, creamed corn or spinach, baked squash drizzled with honey, sweet potato soufflé. Adding a variety of vegetable dishes to your meals livens up any main dish, even main dishes that feature vegetables.

Advent III: Gifts from the heart and hearth

Christmas for me and my family is a time of intense domestic involvement. Many of the visible tokens of celebration, the decoration of the house and the presents for friends, are in fact family projects that are relaxing and pleasurable.
My daughter, Mary Courteney, now married and teaching fifth grade, undertakes her own preparations, and they are beautiful…

GOBGB : Semantics

You know, I’m gettin tired of all these E cono mists up there in the Capital, trying to tell us that they are just figurin out we’re in a recession,” Bubba grumbled to his good friend.
Leroy chuckled, “sure enough, doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that …

Advent II: Gifts from the Kitchen

by Eddy Browning
eddybrowning@mchsi.com
One of my fondest memories is going to my grandmother’s home and assisting her, Fat Annie and my mother make Christmas “goodies” for the family and our friends. We usually arrived just before lunch so I always anxiously looked forward to eating grandmother’s traditional bread pudding for dessert. Since my grandmother [...]

GOBGB : Bail Out

ubba stood in the old flooded skiff, the water well over knee deep on his chest waders.
     “Hand me that bailing pump, would you?”?he motioned to LeRoy as he pointed at the old hand bailer made of galvanized sheet metal.
     “Looks like the water got ahead of you in that old boat,” LeRoy observed.
     “Yeah, kinda reminds me [...]

Advent I: Pot Likker and Aunt Puss!

Every year, a few days past Thanksgiving we’d drive to my grandparents home to spend the day. It was a family tradition and ours believed they should be kept. My mother felt her mother’s back porch was the only place to make that “perfect” Advent Wreath. Daddy usually didn’t make the [...]

GOBGB : LeRoy - The Alternative Candidate

“Did you ever decide which commissioner’s seat you were gonna file for?” asked Bubba.

“I never really gave it a thought beyond our first conversation”, LeRoy answered.

LeRoy continued, “the way I understand it, if you file for one of the township seats, you have to live in that township. You can live anywhere in the county and file for what they call the ‘At Large’ seat.”

GOBGB : Old Christmas

Pray tell, what are you doing?” LeRoy asked Bubba.
Bubba continued on his mission, wrapping the small box in brightly covered foil paper.
“Why I’m gettin’ ready to celebrate Old Christmas,” Bubba replied rather matter-of-factly.
LeRoy scratched his head in wonderment, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that one.”
“Well that’s probably ’cause you’ve never had occasion to [...]

GOBGB : How much wood could a Woodchuck chuck? (#26)

The late summer sun warmed his skin. He squinted in the brightness of the noonday sun, standing motionless, sniffing at the air, watching the traffic stream by the end of the long field.

His attention was diverted to the approaching sound - growing louder and most definitely closer. Across the end of the field, the red combine moved along thrashing and whirling.

GOBGB : Bubba and the Ten Foot Pole (#25)

Bubba slogged through the knee-deep water carrying several slender saplings over one shoulder and his trusty axe in his free hand.

As he neared the edge of the swamp, he noticed his good friend LeRoy waiting in the yard for him.

As Bubba approached, LeRoy saluted his friend and asked, “What have you been up to?”

GOBGB : $20 doesn’t get you very far… (#24)

The old blue Chevy rounded the corner and glided down Waterlily Road.

LeRoy was perched behind the wheel, guiding the lifeless vehicle. At first glance, Bubba was no where to be seen, but on closer inspection he was leaned down behind the truck pushing for all he was worth.

“That’s it!” exclaimed LeRoy, “put your back in it!” He did so enjoy ribbing his good friend.

GOBGB : trouble with a Capital ‘T’ (#23)

Hand me that open ended wrench will ya?” asked Bubba, while leaning under the hood of the old Jeep Wrangler.

LeRoy scanned the veritable smorgasbord of tools present on the expansive workbench.

Bubba, sensing his partner’s apparent bewilderment, prompted LeRoy; “it should be on the far end, just right of the monkey wrench.”