Off  Trail                                                                                                                                                                                        

We walked out our back yard gate in Mayfield and down the alley to Lake Montebello Dr. , over the dammed side of the lake  and  into  the bowl of green below.  Turning West at a break in the woods we  found  a large downed tree that bridged a sluiceway.   Crossing was a little hairy,  but served to get the adrenalin flowing.  We had crossed over to what was  a vine drapped  peninsula formed by the sluiceway and the Herring Run.

Indulging a favorite passtime and remembering  the the long history of 19th century grist mills that  were active upstream, we hunted the bank for evidence of the past and then picked a route of stepping stones to ford the stream and expand our search.    Came upon  a group of kids throwing stones to move a floating ball back to them and a mother from from the burbs showing her son and daughter where she used to play as a child. 

 There is a decrepid  building that looks like something the parks department abandoned years on the West side  of Hall Springs.   For some reason a pathway of young saplings had been recently cleared from the side of the hill to its delapidated entrance.  The lady with the two children said it was abandoned when she was a child and that hill side then was a grassy slope mowed by the city.  I tried to imagine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We returned by way of  Hall Springs bridge to Lake Montebello Ave pictured above.    Me thinking how fortunate I am to find this  moment 1/2 block from my house. 

Later, sorting what we picked up found it included  two bricks that when paired together reminded me of a love that  goes beyond the grave (See  pictured below).  Additionally  an industrial size 19th century brick  embossed “TROPOL..” below that the word “CANTON”,  and a teaspoon stamped Read’s…

 Read’s drug store chain closed in 1974.  I attended the final auction of  its combined soda fountain equipment centralized at Jack Makowskie’s Auction House on 25th street.    From Read’s many locations they had left nothing behind.  Acres of glassware for sundaes, milk shakes and straws,  stools, all their counters and back splashes. .  The lot sizes were huge.  If you raised your hand you could suddenly be thinking of serious hauling resources?   It was a brilliantly orchestrated  auction – overcoming all reasonable consideration among bidders with an irresistable price per unit and No Mixed Lots.   If you wanted to serve  both sundaes and milk shakes there was no choice, but to over buy or plan on  openning an additional ten stores.   

In my case, it was one store and Ponfields.   54 boxes of sundae stemware and heavily-footed milkshake glasses were distributed between  Beagles Ice Cream Parlor in the 600 block of Fells Point’s  S. Broadway and next door  on the 3rd floor of Ponfield’s Store for Men.    After about three years Mr. Ponfield came over and said the weight of the 30 or so boxes had cracked a joist and that he was not sure how much longer they were going to stay in business.  No one to pass the business onto and families who had  became Ponfield customers  were moving  to the County.   That sense of  loyalty–  father to son or mother with son – and  where  they always shopped  withered on a vine that had no takers.  Two months later the building was on the market and those boxes were forced into a  journey that followed my life for the next 28 years.   Always in their original boxes that over the years suffered bad roofs, wrestled up and down  flights of stairs by free labor, trotted out to a dozen yard sales and back, retrieved from a string of bad relationships -  leaking ice cream ware the length of three decades until 4 years ago.  The last of them were left with the last of the bitches, as they say, and I hope and pray.  

Luck has passed my way since then;  gratefully married three years and now this teaspoon.   I think many have  their own Read’s Story of useless baggage carried through life to hopefully one day reverse a mistake.   By one act of finally letting ago what attrition did not,  the job finally gets done and we feel released from all but the why.

 

                                            This will soon pass!

 Take Delaney  Valley north to to junction with 23.  Stay Straight on 24 and get lost.  If you make your way to Stewartstown,  stop in at the Taylor Haus just South of town and try the Maryland Crab Soup.  Return South on 24 and merge onto 23 towards Norrisville.  You will soon  find Blevins Orchard and Shaws Orchards both selling fresh cider, apples and pumpkins.   We took about three hours for the round trip.

Chicken & Peppers – Recipe tweaked a little from  Renee Rosso’s  Great Good Food because I had a bunch of peppers that needed cooking and increased the basil as I thought the frost would soon get mine.  Served with mash potatoes  gives those suculent juices developed during the long cooking process, a perfect  place to run to.   

3 chicken breasts split in half with bone & skin retained

12-15 plum tomatoes chopped

4-5 green/yellow/or red peppers sliced thinly in strips

2-3 tables. minced sun dried tomatoes

1 tablespoon  capers

optional ½ teas. brined green peppercorns.

3 garlic cloves minced

¼ teas red pepper flakes

¼ cup minced parsley

2/3 cup chopped fresh basil

1/3 cup grated parmesan

black pepper and salt

 

1. Preheat Oven at 350
2. Place chicken breast in a glass baking dish with the tomatoes, peppers, sundried tomatoes, and capers.  In a bowl combine garlic, red pepper flake, parsley, ¾ of the basil and pour into baking dish.   Cover tightly & bake for 30 min.
3. remove cover and bake for another 40 minutes, basting every 10 minutes.
4. Remove the chicken from the oven, sprinkle with remaining basil and parmesan. salt and pepper and bake for another 15 minutes.

 

Important: Serve dish with mash potatoes.

      

Announcing a winner to Mayfield’s Lizette Reese Poetry Contest!  The votes are in from a panel comprised of  Lake Ave resident Kimberleigh Eagleston “who has always loved poetry.”, a published poet and Mayfield resident Nate Butler, and three poet friends of Nate.  Here are their comments.     
 

• 1.  A Michigan friend who publishes a poetry blog said, “Tuscan Lady” had some interesting imagery but “Grind” was the best of the bunch, very condensed & evocative.

 

• 3. 2..immediately liked “Grind”. I was struck by the spareness of the language & the familiarity of the feelings & experience described.

 

• 4. They were taken by the concreteness of “Grind” but spent a lot of time discussing the imagery of “Tuscan Lady”.

 

• 5. was impressed by the images in “Tuscan Lady” but was very taken by the condensed language ( almost haiku-like) & the universality of “Grind”.

 

• 6. “The Grind” was the my pick.

 The “Grind” by Courtney Barlett takes First Prize and dinner for two at the Parkside Restaurant.  Runner up is “Tuscan Lady” by Russell Wedekind. 

 Thank you all for your entries and hope for your submission in next year contest remembering Lizette Reese, Mayfield’s first nationally recognized poet.

 The Grind     

 

Bean beginning

Grind, spin, soften, separate

Scoop, sprinkle, saturate

Brew, steam, drip

 

Stainless crib

 

Fill, steam, warmth

 

Carton, cold, milky-white

Pour, blend, rise

Stir, sweeten, cool

Sip, swallow, sigh

 

 The Tuscan Lady by Russell Wedekind

White shoes, white house, white wash to wash

the white days out,

introducing the royal huses;

blues so thick, so rich,

I lose.

 

Tuscan Lady, of many hues.

 

Over dinner, you made me greens,

a rainbow in their shimmer – glisten -

flavors escaping sumptuously

over the brow of your fork,

raised corssed over mine;

 

My lemon drop lover,

the daughter of artists,

prone to fancy and whim,

love, passion, tenderness -

 

you were red in my mind’s eye,

my head ensnared around the thought

of your crimson ways,k bold,

fervently passionate about whimsical

pursuits of passing fancy;

magenta soul

 

Tuscan Lady, sun kissed,

too bright for me to miss

 

In fields, in showers, in days not measured in hours, you threw

me lady, for your brightest color was darkest, antithesis of

mine.

 

Tuscan Lady, o woe of woe’s

Refract some shimmering goodness to those

Who words wish to know the answer

as to where the breath of the shoreline goes

 

Black rock, a point, scar

Upon the façade of our town,

Hazy smeared coast fade

 into the stormy sky of taupe,

 

and you, Tuscan Lady,

are at the reins

of tomorrow

When an opportunity for free lodging on Cape Cod taps you on the shoulder you turn around to take notice from the routine of life that stretches out ahead of getting  the bills paid and the projects moving forward.   It becomes an easy thing to drop the shovel and and say yes.   Our opportunity came in the form of house sitting for my sister’s neighbor’s mother in W. Dennis about half way up the cape.   Out of the blue we suddenly were packing for a week in lobster land with my sister and husband

Fell in love with the beauty and peace of Cape Cod in the Fall off season and discovered the sport of surf casting for Stripers when they come close to shore during their migration South.  I found out a lot  by talking to local fisherman and from a great book I read on the subject called Striper Surf by Frank Daignault.   I met one grizzled old man nestled down against a drift fence with a pair of binoculars looking out to sea for birds feeding off   minnows wounded by feeding stripers.   Such a feeding leaves a detectable oil residue on the surface that will calm the water.   I asked  if he came out there often.  He said “In season, every day for the last 30 years”.  If you’re into stripers, send me an email.  I would love to learn more.

 

a poem                         Summer Late

On the Cape,  it’s summer late with spare limb in the forecast . Hunger drives up migrating stripers and blues smashing into swoops of minnows driven against the shore,  sky bound to escape. 

 The news I hear volumned low on the TV in which every fourth word comes through, “…unemployment …..record high….stimulus…”,  remind me gratefully I am on vacation.  Moving out into a warm sun for a new perch I sit among the enlarged stage of  neighboring sounds from sky and bush that now can hold forth in the quiet leavings of summer’s end.

 

     3 fillets of catfish

     2 squash (a yellow and a green) sliced  ½ – ¾”  rounds

     2 ea. ½” thick slices of large yellow onion

 -Press 5 or 6 fennel seeds into the flat side of each onion with the flat of a broad knife.

-Sauté in butter or oil for 2 minutes with salt and peppered squash slices then add lid and turn down heat.

-Cook for 4 minutes. Remove squash from pan and hold.

Remove onion carefully and transfer to broiler pan (I used our toaster oven).  Place fillets that have been salt and peppered on top of onion.  Add 3 or 4 slices of lemon and some small bits of butter here and there across fillets.  - broil for 4-5 minutes (3/4 cooked through)

Return onion and fillets to sauté pan you cooked squash in.  There should a fair amount of liquid from the squash and the fish.  Finish cooking fillets on medium/high heat.  Remove fish then reduce liquid to make sauce. Assemble yellow and green squash around fillets & onion on serving plate.

 Restaurants requiring reservations a week in advance will not serve better….catfish.

The Northwest corner of our neighborhood.

 

 MIA orders replacement swings and carpenters repairs on equipment >MIA applies for a Harbel Neighborhood Grant > Grant application is presented and  successfully defended at application meeting > Parents Group collects $200 in donations >MIA makes $800 purchase of mulch, sets up delivery > sends out a variety of list serve announcements > receives delivery and low and behold…..

 Wheel barrels, trash cans, shovels and rakes appear at the Mayfield Neighborhood  playground Saturday around a virtual mountain of mulch.  It was 32 yards to be exact.  Ever order a couple of yards of mulch?  Fortunately for those who showed up, their numbers proved a good turn out.  The objective was to transfer that huge pile of mulch to the 2400 sq. ft of playground and spread it to a bounce-able six inch depth.   By 9:15 the place was a beehive of activity.   Shovelers kept 5 wheel barrels continuously rolling for three hours, rakers kept spreading  and about 20 miniatures raced around, pitching in and pitching out, helping themselves to a great good time.  Division of labor stepped into the needed tasks magically and found no need for a leader.  The pile yielded to this indomitable force and by noon we were sweeping the last bits into a scoop shovel.

 When you think back from the day help was clearly needed in the playground, the trail of    events tells a tale of many hands over 6 months with large and small parts, interdependent, persistent; all  joined in making this something good happen.   Have a great summer Mayfield.

 

  

I met Tom who has lived for many years on Kentucky for the first time on a Tuesday in the Safeway parking lot.  We both had been to the new Lauraville Market to be held every Tuesday across the street from the Safeway.  The meeting was another example to me of what can happen when neighbors cross paths.  We discovered quickly a mutual interest in cooking which gave vent to the c.chili recipe.   I wish there were more opportunities to get together with  Mayfield residents; like a coffee shop in our little commercial strip or short of that porch parties.  We do have the annual Mayfield Block Party July 10th.  See you there.

Tom’s Cincinnati Chili

2 lbs of ground beef

2 onions, finely chopped (I mince it in a food processor)

1 quart water (or beef stock)

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 ½ teaspoons cumin

2 teaspoons cinnamon

2 ½ teaspoons allspice

1 ½ teaspoons salt

½ teaspoon Mexican oregano

1 teaspoon black pepper

1 ½ teaspoons ground cayenne pepper

2 tablespoons chili powder

2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

1 tablespoon Worchester sauce

2 bay leaves

1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste

1 ½ tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

or ½ ounce unsweetened chocolate

 Cooked spaghetti

 Toppings:

Oyster crackers

Finely shredded mild cheddar cheese

Diced onions

Red kidney beans (heated separately)

 Cook the beef and onion in a large skillet with a little olive oil over medium high heat, breaking up beef into tiny pieces with a potato masher (important), just until meat is barely pink. Drain and place in a large Dutch oven, Stir in water, garlic, cumin, cinnamon, allspice, salt, black pepper, chili powder, Mexican oregano, apple cider vinegar, Worchester sauce, bay leaves, tomato paste and chocolate. Simmer uncovered for 2 ½  to 4 hours. Stir occasionally and don’t let the chili get too thick-add water when needed. This is not a thick chili like a Texas Red. It has the consistency of a pasta sauce.

 Cincinnati Chili lovers order their Chili by number: Three, Four, or Five Way.

Three Way Chili: Chili served on spaghetti topped with cheese

Four Way Chili: Additionally topped with chopped onions

Five Way Chili: Additionally topped with kidney beans

 For a Cincinnati Coney-style Chili Dog-Spread mustard on bun, place hotdog on bun and cover with Cincinnati chili, onions and top off with finely grated mild cheddar cheese.  Enjoy