Monday, September 29, 2014

This is the place!




Word on the Prairie Streets is that this slight elevation in the field in the Prairie des Femmes is the location of one of many Indian mounds that has been plowed many times over for agriculture. I pass here often, waiting for a chance after they harvest, plow and then it rains a big rain so I can go arrowhead hunting. I have even stopped a few times at the elevation in the road. It is definitely "the place"!

Thursday, September 11, 2014

LES CCC




Les community crime cameras
va venir avant longtemps!
va venir avant longtemps!
va venir avant longtemps!

Les community crime cameras
va venir avant longtemps

community crime cameras
va venir avant longtemps

community crime cameras!
community crime cameras!
community crime cameras!

va venir avant longtemps!

Saturday, September 6, 2014

Friday, September 5, 2014

A Perfect Persimmon Bread from Monsieur Menard

 

Persimmon Bread
 
Two 9-inch Loaves/ 1 bunt pan
 
Using the higher amount of sugar will produce a moister and, of course, sweeter bread.


3½ cups sifted flour
1½ teaspoons salt
2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 to 2½ cups sugar
1 cup melted unsalted butter and cooled to room temperature
4 large eggs, at room temperature, lightly beaten
2/3 cup Cognac, bourbon or whiskey
2 cups persimmon puree (from about 4 squishy-soft Hachiya persimmons)
2 cups walnuts or pecans, toasted and chopped
2 cups raisins, or diced dried fruits (such as apricots, cranberries, or dates)
1. Butter 2 loaf pans. Line the bottoms with a piece of parchment paper or dust with flour and tap out any excess.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
3. Sift the first 5 dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl.
4. Make a well in the center then stir in the butter, eggs, liquor, persimmon puree then the nuts and raisins.
5. Bake 1 hour or until toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
Storage: Will keep for about a week, if well-wrapped, at room temperature. The Persimmon Breads take well to being frozen, too.

recipe and photo via the Virtual Table et Monsieur Randal Menard

Collecting Sassafrass for File'

Pick the leaves before the first cold snap, ideally the last full moon in August. The nutrients are still in the leaves then. Hang the branches to dry in a pillowcase on the line, or in a the cabanne, and at Thanksgiving, with the family all get together, clean out the twigs, crumble the leaves by hand, picking out the leaf stems. Then use a spice mill, blender or mortar and pestle to grind and then you can sieve it to make it a very smooth powder.
If a tree is not near, replant it before spring in the new location, before the budding begins, while it is still dormant. Usually you can find a few younger plants near the older, as the roots run, and offshoots develop.

Rime de Rose du Bois


Ça c'est ma portfeuille 
ça c'est mes mouchoirs, 
ça c'est tout mes piastres de l'or 
pour aller au festival.

Thursday, September 4, 2014

A la recherche du sassafron

When we first moved to the PDF, there was open cow field on all but one side of the property, and on that side was a swamp wilderness I call the oxbow woods. Back on the prairie, near the treeline of the cow field de Monsieur Vacheur there was a small grove of native sassafrass trees with their leaves in all sizes and shapes. I remember Miss Kary giving me some sassafras root to chew on a kid and I loved it. The first winter out here I had harvested some from the little grove and made file and root beer and tea with it. But then the neighbors (who love their bush-hog) started to clear that land more and more, cutting their trees and some of ours in the process. They ignorantly chopped the only native producing plaquemine that grew on the very corner of our property. The fruit I ate from it that first fall out here was like no persimmon I had ever eaten off of the trees that are in people's yards, those are Japanese varieties. This native persimmon was like une cuillère à café of velvet spice butter. Then when the parish came in and started ripping out our tree-line (for drainage, and, I was told, paid for by "BP stimulus money") we stopped them and asked they leave our side of the ditch and tree line alone. Half the damage was done but at least we didn't have to watch them tearing out any more of our trees. They agreed to leave our trees alone, but then one day on our walk, I saw they had left every tree on our side alone except the big producing mulberry, my favorite tree.... ahhh.... La Prairie des Femmes. She giveth, and she taketh away.

So imagine my surprise and elation this morning when I took a walk back there to see if any sassafras could still be found. I had looked recently, but wasn't able to go far enough to where I believed it was. I could remember when there was the little grove, but now it's all grass with a few mowed-around hardwood trees. At the back of our pasture where the overgrowth shadows fall on the uncut grass I stopped and stomped my feet. The grass was dripping wet with dew and the left overs of a the morning fog. As I proceeded from the shadows and to the spot where the sunlight hit the grass making it gleam, a black snake slithered in front of me and back into the green jumble of the tree line like a long smooth piece of silk. I frissonered and thanked God that I always have the presence of mind to watch the ground as I walk, but seeing the snake told me something: I would find the sassafron this time! Sure enough, at the base of a few of the trees, the odd shapes of the leaves caught my eye. I collected some and prepared the soil around the root of a sapling for a little transplant. When I got back to the house, I put some of the small branches to dry in the sun on the old Burger Chef Table and made a tea with the fresh loose leaves. Today, the Prairie giveth!

Monday, September 1, 2014

A New Crop of Random ECards

YOU need to put some kerosene in the cistern to kill the tadpoles!


If you T-Galop all the way from la Pointe-aux-Pins to T-Mamou, you will burn some calories.


OUAIS! And I can name them... Allons 'oir.. there's drought, flood, bolls weevil and worm, rayon, nylon and .... hmmmm....


Ohhhhh she is as fine as a syrup cake!

La Ville des Manteau....

Go West Young Man! Go West and Go To Mamou!

Just Stop.

This reminded me of when Mr. JD was at the Mamou Mardi Gras and all the young guys were dancing on top of their horses and he stood up and said  "Hey! I'm fifty years old!"

Watch em, now!


So THAT's how they knew to come to Ville Platte...

C'est vrai!
Here's some veggies and cheese for yall to snack on.