Around The Backcountry Blogroll

More coffee!!!While resting up from a difficult week and guzzling coffee to keep my brain at least halfway in gear, I've been occupying some time by looking around the Backcountry Blogs list -- it's over there in the left-hand column, in case you hadn't noticed -- and finding interesting articles that others have posted.  These are a few good ones.

Stack cake: In Appalachian History -- "The dried apple stack cake is one of the most popular southern Appalachian cakes--- no surprise considering apples are found aplenty in the mountains. . . . It looks like a stack of thick pancakes, with apple preserves, dried apples or apple butter spread between each layer. At holidays and weddings, early mountain settlers traditionally served stack cake in lieu of more fancy, and costly, cakes. Neighbors would each bring a layer of the cake to the bride's family, which they spread with apple filling as they arrived. It was said that the number of cake layers the bride got determined how popular she was." Link: Stack cake.

Go Devil & A Mystery: A "go devil" is a tool.  If you don't know which tool, you can find out on Blind Pig and the Acorn.  Link: Go Devil.

Protecting Yourself In The Supermarket: In Southern Highland Reader, rules to shop by, such as, "Don’t buy anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food." Link: Ten ways.

Brain-Dead Headlines: A nice collection of boneheadlines on Joyful Reflections, including such gems as these: "Panda Mating Fails; Veterinarian Takes Over" and "Cold Wave Linked to Temperatures." Link: What did you mean?

Abner, The Wild Monkey Of The Smokies: In Holler Notes -- "On cold mornings like this one when the last leaves of autumn are riding a chill wind through Rhodes Cove, I sometimes think of Abner, the wild monkey of the Smokies. It was mornings like this when I used to hear stories from folks in Deep Creek or Big Cove who claimed that they sometimes heard a knock and opened their doors to find a little shivering monkey on their porch." Link: Abner.

Yes, You Can Buy American

I saw a piece on the news recently which said, in essence, that even if you want to "buy American," there are so few American-made items in the stores that it is almost impossible. Sad, and if you insist on buying the trendy stuff at the mall, probably true.  But there is an alternative.

You can buy American by buying from Americans who make the products themselves.  Here's one suggestion: if you are within striking distance of Seagrove, North Carolina, go this weekend to the two top-notch pottery shows taking place in that hamlet. See Seagrove Potters Promise Great Shows November 21-22. The selection of ceramics made and fired in North Carolina, USA, is fabulous.

All across our land there are artisans, craftsmen, and artists who produce Made-in-America items which are far superior to the brummagem stuff made in China. Their wares cost more per unit than the imports -- and they should.  They make better products; they must, in order to survive.

What we need to do is take the time and trouble to seek out these folks and go to their shops.  You know someone who would rather have a hand-stitched quilt, or a stoneware vase, or a woodcarving, or a scenic watercolor, than an electronic geegaw with a lifespan measured in weeks.  You already know how to use the Web -- search for organizations in your local area like Round The Mountain, an artisan network in my own bailiwick.  Drive past the mall to events featuring artists and crafters.  It's worth the extra effort.

Yes, you can buy American.

New in Backcountry Cooking -- Livermush

Odd and unusual foods in the Southern Backcountry cover a broad range of delicacies (and indelicacies) -- fried pickles, deep-fried Oreos, fried green tomatoes, frogs' legs, fried grits, chicken-fried squirrel, and others, mostly with the word "fried" expressed or implied.  Outstanding among these is livermush, including liver pudding, a Backcountry phenomenon with its epicentre in central North Carolina.

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More @&#%^!*# Side Effects

Alas, my semi-optimistic assessment of Monday morning proved to be unfounded and the @&#%^!*# side effects have continued virtually unabated.  Minor items, to be sure, in the greater scheme, but numerous and annoying and cumulatively debilitating.  Witness the lack of writing in the past several days.

The good news is that yesterday was Rack Day XI, which means only one more treatment to go before re-scanning and re-assessment.  Remind me to write about re-scanning when I'm in a really foul mood.

@&#%^! Side Effects

After resting up Saturday and fininshing the art-pottery pitchers article and looking forward to getting something useful done on Sunday, I instead was beset and battered by side effects all day yesterday.  Shoulda stayed in bed, but that wouldn't have worked out so well, either.  @&#%^! side effects! I have fallen way behind in answering correspondence, so don't feel neglected . . . I appreciate the notes and comments even when I don't seem to.  I seem to be halfway mobile this morning, so time for a deep breath and back to life.

North Carolina Art Pottery -- Pitchers

Long-necked pitcher attr. to Thurston Cole, CC Cole PotteryPitchers and jugs are my favorite forms of art pottery --  and I include along with pitchers, cream and sugar sets, which provide a pitcher plus a bowl.  Bonus.  If a potter sees me coming, he or she will place a few colorful pitchers at eye level.  I actually use some of them, mostly for watering plants and other low-risk tasks, although most of these illustrated live in display cabinets or on high shelves.

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The Fading Of Fall Colors

Click on any image for a larger viewWe still have bits and pieces of Fall color -- no big stands of maples left, but a tree here, another there, providing a splash of red or yellow against the background of brown and gray.  The oaks provide muted colors, which I like, even if others don't.

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Rack Report

Click on image for larger viewWednesday was Day 1 of Cycle 4 -- the long day.  This one went 7 hours. Fortunately, with the help of the Benadryl hit, I drowsed through a lot of it.  Two more Wednesdays on The Rack, then back for another scan in December to see how far back the cancer has been set.

Got tired of the old illustrations, so I used this image of the last of the maple leaves instead.

Can You Spot Bambi?

Our local deer normally stay on the ridges, venturing downhill now and then to browse or find water.  There is a deer in the picture below, well-camoflaged in the trees.  Can you spot Bambi?

Click on image for larger view

Hint: look in the dead center of the frame.