Moved – to http://www.folo.us

This website moved Sunday, Feb. 10, to a new address – http://www.folo.us. 

[This first one doesn’t really fit with the childhood memories that follow, but I’m re-stashing it here so I know where to find it when I need it (which’ll be frequently).]

I dunno how to embed videos, so turn on your speakers and click here.

Snowball! 

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Earliest memory
October 11th, 2006

I have so many deep memories of the presence and absence of water. In fact, my very first:

In the summer of 1948, we still lived in Amory, Mississippi, where my dad was a claim agent for the Frisco Railroad. His territory extending from Memphis to Pensacola, he’d met a wonderful Greek couple, the Bouroses, who owned a restaurant in P’cola and a little tourist court out at Destin. Their Seaview Cottages was the scene of our family’s vacation every June of my childhood and adolescence (dad was NOT an adventurer — that’s from mom).

Anyhow, this I’m gonna tell you about was actually my second trip to Destin, the first having been the previous September, when an approaching hurricane ran us (I just days old) outta there back to north Mississippi. But this was the first I remember, and the following is all I remember of it.

In the hot car, the heavy felt upholstery making me even hotter, I squirmed and fussed in my mother’s lap, until she held me up to see — wonders — green, black, yellow, white rushing by. I’d never seen woods like that, not rushing like that. They held my attention until hotness overcame their charm and I squawled some more.

We stopped at a redbrick house with redbrick porch columns, and a little old lady and little old man came out to greet the strangers. They gave me a wonderful dipper of icy artesian water: the delight! All would have been fine if only the sweet little old lady hadn’t wanted to hold me — but that skeered me so, of course I tuned up again.

Back to the dang old hot car. Now, you’d think such an early lesson would cure a sensible infant of bitchin’ forevermore, right?

Noooooooo . . .

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Peacocks
November 10th, 2006

A friend remarked today that, to her, the calls of peacocks sound like women in labor.

To me, they sound like my childhood. There were some at a farm the-better-part-of-a-mile from my grandmother’s, and I could hear them from way across the cotton fields. A very minor-key, haunting AWWWWK. My grandmother kept a jarful of peacock tail-feathers in her pantry, and somehow or somehow else, I’ve managed to keep six of them to this day. They’re pretty bedraggled now (impossible to dust, and the quills are now very brittle), but they’re still very much themselves, and I love them.

The year I was three and we lived in Memphis, my folks took me to the zoo where peafowl strolled around free on the grounds. During our picnic, I spied and toddle-ran toward one — but he spread his tail so fully, so suddenly that I immediately took a seat and said AWWWWWK myself.

Twelve years ago, when I was, for the first time in 20 years, back in Amory after my mom died, I went to see Miz Margaret Creekmore, my granny’s old neighbor. When I told her I was in law school now, Miz Margaret hollered, “[lotus]! Well, I mighta known that somebody who could catch a peacock could do anything!”

To this day, my all-time favorite compliment.

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Lake Louise
December 3rd, 2006

I saw some photos of Lake Louise, in Canada, today.

Ah, my Lake Louise memory … which is actually a Mississippi memory, you won’t be surprised to learn. My grandparents’ house was one of those that had started small in the early years of their marriage but was much bigger by the time I knew it (beginning as 4 rooms on one floor to end up as 13 on two). The “everyday living room”/pinch-hit bedroom in which we visiting grandchirren spent most of our time had, as did three of the other rooms, a small, shallow fireplace (small and shallow because conceived for coal-, not wood-burning).

Over the mantel of that fireplace hung two prints that I’m willing to bet my mom brought home from her big post-college western and northern adventure in the mid-1930s (a story or set of stories for an/other day/s); anyhow, they were both NW landscape scenes.

Yeh, pretty kitschy, but hell, we tots didn’t know that, so we could and did get lost in ‘em for hours. One was a view looking down over the rapids of a stream flowing past towering conifers toward a sunlit Mt. Rainier in the far background. The other was Lake Louise from exactly the vantage point I saw again today, except that in our print, the terrain is bathed in sunrise (?): much pink, white and orange, and very little shadow. (You’d be amazed what cooling could be obtained on muzzy pre-AC Mississippi afternoons by losing your young self in Canadian scenes. After our big adventures in the hot barns, fields, garden, or magnolia trees, you’d always find a passle of little Brooks arrayed in momentary quiet before them, slurping ice-cold Co’Colas or — our big favorite — frozen cubes of green Kool-Aid. Ree-lief!)

Just before I started my first teaching job and needed furniture of my own, Mama Brook died. So I got the sleigh bed from that room and its matching vanity (which Mama Brook had used in her own sleeping-porch room next door). The chiffarobe (”armoire” to you Yankees) that went with them had always lived in the central hall of the Brook place, with the two floor freezers that froze our Kool-Aid cubes so nicely and the steps to upstairs; now it would be consigned to the next 25 years in the purgatory of the old chicken house out in Mama Brook’s pecan-grove back yard. Only after my mom’s death in ‘94 did I get back there and rescue the poor thang for restoration. But now that the set is approximately a century old, it’s finally all in the same bedroom at once. And am I glad.

The two prints having made their way to Ma’s, my brother and I were finally faced with choosing one apiece. We had the hardest time with that, since neither of us could pick a favorite. But Tim’s turn in the choosing was up, and at length, he decided for Lake Louise. It’s living in San Francisco now. The stream leading to Mt. Rainier is right here between the window and the book shelves, just above my monitor, where I see it every time I lift my eyes from you who live in my computer.

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Hot Cross Buns
April 6th, 2007

You know that story about the afternoon at the Memphis Zoo when I saw my first peacocks? Welp, that was Easter afternoon of my third year (1951), and here’s what had gone on earlier:

After breakfast, Mama got me extremely gussied-up in all new clothes and socks and shoes (that didn’t feel awfully good but looked interesting), and off we went to our big ol’ Gothic-looking gray stone Methodist church downtown.

From the Sunday School room tended by a couple of very ancient ladies whose breath smelled, the other chirren and I could hear some grownup fella talking real loud in the sanctuary, but we liked it better when a whole buncha grownups and an organ made real loud music in there. Well, after a WHOLE lot of both, Mama showed up (whew!), and off we went to the car . . .

But you know what? We didn’t go on home. Nope, we went to this other HUMONGOUS building downtown — way bigger than the church, which was already the biggest building I thought possible — and Mama said it was “the Peabody Hotel.” Scary-big though it was, here we went inside.

Well! It looked like Heaven or Fairyland in there! There were all these colors and stuff — big ol’ tall windows with beautiful drapes, all this rich dark wood, the MOST wonderful couches and chairs, more flowers than I’d seen in my whole life put together, a shiny speckledy floor made of this stuff I’d also never seen before (”marble” they called it — but it didn’t look like marbles to me, ’cause it was flat, you know) — and right in the very middle of all that, this big ol’ pile of different-colored “marble” holding a big pool of splashy water in it, and in the middle of THAT, some more other-colored marble taller than the rest, with water running out of it into the pool.

Okay, we no sooner got over to look at that than a chime rang somewhere, and Mama said, “Oh, here they come!” — and she pulled me right off this pretty red carpet we were standing on. Well, it’s a good thing Mama was on one side of me and Daddy on the other, cause I sure needed them to grab onto when the next thing happened!

Here came a man all dressed up like a toy soldier or something, and do you know who was with him? DUCKS! A whole buncha DUCKS! Beautiful ones, too, with gorgeous green heads that looked like they’re made of jewels. “Wack wack wack,” they went, and do you know what they did? They went marching and wacking right by us, right up to that pile of marble with the water in, and they jumped up on that marble, and then they jumped down into that water and swam all around! It was wonderful!

I coulda stayed there all day, but we got hungry, and Mama and Daddy took me into this other great big room with lots of people at these beautiful white tables, and all these other toy-soldier-dressed grownup men making sure the table-people got what they wanted (think of that — a MAN bringing your plate to you!). Then we got a table too, and Daddy told a nice man what to bring us to eat, and pretty soon, here he came back with all these plates of food. It all tasted real good, but the only food they had that I hadn’t seen before were these bee-yoo-ti-ful bread rolls with CANDY in them and a cross of CAKE ICING on top!!!

Well, I mean, I thought those “Hot Cross Buns” (as Mama told me they were called) were certainly the most wonderful thing in all the world — by far the prettiest and nicest food there could ever be — and it made me sad to get too full to eat any more of ‘em. So to cheer me up, Mama and Daddy said we could go to the zoo, and after my nap, we did. And there we met up with these “peacock” birds that were the only other thing in the world as strange and wonderful as Hot Cross Buns and the Peabody Hotel ducks . . .

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Family visit
June 10th, 2007

I saw some photographs today of a family visit – grownups sitting in chairs, children frisking about in a yard – and Maine-y as they were, they took me back to 1950s Mississippi, when every Sunday afternoon was viz’tin’ time, and if the whole constellation of uncles, aunts, and cousins didn’t come to us at Mama Brook’s, we’d go to them. It involved many cane-bottomed chairs, stools, and hammocks out under the oaks; a great many ice-cold bottles of Co’Cola; and all the reminiscences that carried the Crook and Brook families’ social DNA . . .

One time, though, I caused a hoo-raw. Lazing in a hammock, looking up into the oak branches as I listened to the grownups talk, I vaguely announced, “I do bleeve I see a snake.” Ma, deathly afraid of anything even remotely snake-y, commenced to whoop and pitch a fit, and all the dads and uncles hopped up, on alert. It was just a little skinny tree-snake, about a foot of whose white belly lay draped at ease seven or eight feet over my head. But nothing would do but it be rousted and, if possible, killed. So the dads and uncles did their best with sticks and hoes and whatnot, but I think it got safely away. I felt relief that at least it lived — but much guilt over having been the cause of its and everybody else’s trouble.

After all, this was just one of those muzzy Mississippi Sunday afternoons when all even a cold-blooded person wants to, or can, do is lie there enjoying the stories . . .

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Like buttah . . .
July 1st, 2007

One of my favorite things about Sunday mornings is the food column in The New York Times Magazine. Quite often, when I’ve glanced at the appalling headlines, it’s the either the first or the only thing I’m willing to click on. It’s certainly all I was ready for this morning.

Today the headline is Curd Mentality, the author is Daniel Patterson, chef and owner of Coi in San Francisco, and the subject is making your own butter. For want of a stand mixer, I probably won’t be attempting the trick. (It certainly looks easy enough, I just don’t want to be chained to my little hand mixer for who-knows-how-long, replaying that misadventure with the Dastardly Dough.)

Anyhow, of course I no sooner saw where Patterson was heading than deep memory took over, blurring his images and hushing his voice. Instead, I was reliving the hand-making of butter in my own experience. This goes back to my very earliest childhood, more than 50 years ago. I’ve lost some of the details by now but still have most of the implements, so I’ll tell you what they help me remember . . .

The barn. Big, roomy, wooden, deep red sides, tin roof, stalls for the mules and cows, big loft full of hay bales great for playing in (except for the itchies after), an occasional snake to watch out for. The milking stall was first on the right, nearest the house. I had my own little stool in the corner, from which I watched Mama Brook as she pulled her bigger stool up beside the hind-end of a cow and commenced to squeeze the teats. Spraw spraw spraw sounded the tin pail — I can’t tell you how long it took per cow, or how she knew when to quit squeezing on one and bring in the next, but there were at least three or four of those laden ladies to be milked morning and evening, every day of the year, no matter what. At least an hour’s worth of work there, I feel sure.

Mama Brook would let me “help” her haul the big sloshing pail back to the house, then she poured the milk into a big flattish pan where, left alone, the cream would eventually rise. Next morning, she’d ladle the cream into a big white crock with one big and two little deep-blue stripes around its chest. She’d put on the wooden lid with the plunger in the middle, but before she started churning, she’d set me up with my own miniature churn just like hers — except that I was trusted only with soapsuds (both those churns now sit atop my fridge, but without their wooden plungers, alas). We’d churn away, splurg splurg splurg, and visit. After a long time, even strong Mama Brook couldn’t budge the plunger anymore, and it was time for molding.

After we’d had us a ice-col’ Co’Cola, she’d pick up a flat wooden spatula and slip it into the pale new butter, transferring hunks of it to thick-sided wooden canisters a few inches deep and wide, with one solid end and one slightly-wider open end. In the center of the solid end was a round hole through which protruded a short thick stem with a knob on the end; inside the mold, this stem was all one piece with a thick disk whose face was carved with a design to transfer to the butter. The two I’m looking at as I type feature a pear and a pineapple. Anyhow, Mama Brook would pile the fresh butter into these molds as tight as could be, smooth off the tops with the spatula, and set them in the icebox (by my day, actually a refrigerator, but still known as “the icebox”) to chill. When it was good and cold, she’d hold the mold over a dish and press in on the knobbed stem to release the slightly-tapering round of golden butter with a fruit design on top. I wish you could see how beautiful those looked at table, taste how rich they were on hot biscuits.

Well. I’m sure Daniel Patterson’s butter is mighty fine. But I’d trade a year of my life to taste Mama Brook’s again.

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Clickety-clack on home
July 19th, 2007

I’m a Frisco brat who spent many a childhood hour on the train between the Missouri Ozarks and rolling northeast Mississippi. Would you like a ride? ‘BOAAAAAARD!

Now, I know it’s a little tough to get awake in the middle of the night (especially when you had trouble settling down to sleep), but, well, there’s just no way around it, because the train to Amory and Mama Brook’s leaves Springfield at 3:30 AM. So c’mon now, sleepyhead, let’s see your teeth brushed and your hair combed and your Sunday clothes on, ’cause we’ve got to get downtown to the station! You’ll have a nice Pullman berth to crawl into and finish your sleep soon’s we’re aboard – will you want the upper (fun because of the ladder) or the lower (fun because of the window)?

At the station, just look at all these people so busy in the middle of the night! Ticket sellers, conductors and brakemen, redcaps, and of course all the folks antsying on the benches or in the dining room for the train to pull in — everybody looks so much more awake than they ought to. Yay, there’s the announcement: “Number 103, southbound to Mountain Grove, Cabool, Willow Springs, West Plains, Thayer, Hoxie, Hardy, Jonesboro, Memphis, Holly Springs, New Albany, Tupelo, Amory [after that doesn’t matter, but eventually it’s Pensacola] … .”

We stampede out to the platform just as the big red-and-gold locomotive screech-rumbles past, dragging all the freightcars, the diner, and finally the Pullman sleepers — so much power and weight, the concrete shakes with it as the brakes scream and bring it all to a stop in a great steam and stink of hot steel and creosote.

Give Daddy a hug and kiss, then let’s scramble up the steps and along the corridor to our compartment. The berths are all clean and turned-down so nice and warm — but do you need to weewee first? Okay, into the little bathroom where everything that’s porcelain at home is shiny-polished steel here (Kindly Do Not Flush While Train Is Standing in Station). Now then, off with the Sunday clothes, on with the jammies, and let’s snuggle into this wonderful bunk — oo, we’re rolling . . .

When we wake up, it’s light outside in beautiful hilly Arkansas, and Spring River’s coming up, so hurry and dress so we can get to the diner! Oh, I just don’t know what’s better, the gorgeous rapids outside or the gorgeous French toast on our plates. You know, the whole dining car is dreamy: linen tablecloth and napkins, heavy and white as snow; silverware that really is silver, and so heavy it’s hard for a little kid to pick up; crystal glasses with their beautiful clean lines (the glasses, heavy plates and cups, and silver coffee- and teapots all with the Frisco emblem that Ransom, our favorite waiter, tells us is based on a stretched skin that a trapper showed to the man who started Frisco); that big sepia-tinted photo of a beach with palm trees on the wall at the end of the car to inspire your dreams of #103’s final destination (even though Pensacola doesn’t have palms on its beach, we‘re big and worldly enough to know).

Yes, all that’s a marvel, but when Ransom brings our French toast and honey — wow, nothing else matters. How do they get bread that thick and square, and how do they cook it so that it ends up so perfectly uniform a dark dark brown just short of black, and where do they find that warmed honey just like the angels must have in Heaven? Even Mama and Mama Brook, great cooks that they are, can’t say. Mmmmm, perfect.

Eventually Spring River’s rapids and cabins are over, and about the time we finish breakfast (bye, Ransom — thank you, and we’ll see you next trip!), the train comes down out of the Ozarks, through miles of swampy woods into the flat Delta of Arkansas: mile upon mile of cotton and rice fields, all the way to the horizon. Not much remarkable outside, so let’s plop down here on these big couches in the lounge end of the diner and look at the magazines in their big black Frisco binders — do you want Life or Look first?

When we get back to the compartment, somebody’s folded the berths back into the wall and made up the room in its daytime form with nice big seats instead. It’s mid-morning now – soon we’ll be in Memphis. Oh look, here’s the Mississippi — gawrsh, we’re on this bridge for a good mile or two (it must be the widest river in the whole world!), and I never know whether to watch the big ol’ barges on the gravy-brown water or the big city over there — so much to see! But before long we’re at the station, and since we’ll be here for over half an hour, let’s get off and go investigate. I know it’s a little scary — the ceiling so tall, the rooms so huge and marble — hundreds of strangers in this ginormous echoing space — but let’s stick close to Mama and we’ll be okay. Look at all that’s going on, and how different every single person is from all the others! Isn’t that fascinating? C’mon, let’s ask Mama to go to the cafe and split a Co’Cola (wish I weren’t so full, those big doughnuts smell so good)!

But okay, hustle back aboard to our compartment — the train’s almost ready to pull out again, and we can’t be left behind with Mama Brook this close! Yep, here we go rolling again, and now — Woohoo, we’re in Mississippi! Cotton field upon cotton field, but also Olive Branch, Byhalia, Holly Springs, Potts Camp (Mama says they say it “Pottses Camp”), Hickory Flat, New Albany — ooo, we’re getting close! — Tupelo, Nettleton, Bigbee, and, around 1:30 in the afternoon: WE’RE HERE — AMORY!

Mama Brook! Look, she brought cousin Dan too, and there’s Sister Burdine! Let’s get offa this train and hug ‘em to pieces, then get to the car and out to the country — I’m HUNGRY! Fried chicken? Oh goody!

But you know what, mark my words, even tonight around the supper table, Mama Brook’s square wooden stools, stable as they usually are, may buck us off. They’ll be bouncing and rolling like #103 . . .

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Getting to pie
August 2nd, 2007

Okay, I can’t handle another second of political or any other kind of strife right now, so let’s talk about pie. And getting to pie.

Yesterday in NYT, some poor soul named Melissa Clark wrote:

IF it weren’t for a certain 10-year-old friend of mine, I might never have contemplated a summer fling with deep-frying. But when I heard that Madeleine got an electric mini-deep-fryer for her birthday, I begged her mother to let her take it with us for the weekend.

“I’ll supply the candy bars!” I promised.

Deep frying begets more deep frying. They know this in Scotland, where deep-fried candy bars are the favored dessert after a meal of deep-fried fish and chips. So my friends and I spent three grease-splattered days testing the relative merits of deep-fried Peppermint Patties and Tootsie Rolls versus Mars bars and Snickers. The Peppermint Patties, which ballooned into intense fudgy orbs, easily won.

Back in my own kitchen, I found that the urge to deep-fry lived on. I didn’t have an electric deep-fryer, but I did have a big pot, which was quicker to clean than the gadget. And using it was nearly as easy: just pour in the oil and turn on the heat.

The only trick is to use a deep-frying thermometer, the best way to keep the temperature steady. If the oil gets too hot, the ingredients burn on the outside before they’re cooked through. But if it’s not hot enough, any batter or coating absorbs the oil, transforming into sodden, greasy sponges.

At first I focused on adult fodder like olives, salami and Camembert. But soon enough my sweet tooth got the better of me. I craved a fried dessert that was classier than candy but more summery than doughnuts and beignets.

An idea flashed in my mind: individual deep-fried fruit pies. …

She went on like that and threw in a recipe, too. But somewhere between deep-fried candy bars and egg-in-pie-pastry, I hope you came to understand that she’s tetched in the head and utterly untrustworthy.

However.

There’s a great luscious lot to be said for home-made fried pies, and Melissa does have it right about the dried fruit as Southern standard. I’m fixing to tell you all about that — but I warn you right now: don’t be expecting a recipe because, to my everlasting grief, I don’t have one.

Now . . . stand with me on Mama Brook’s back steps and let’s look at the yard. Over here to our right, just off the side porch, is the pear tree. We don’t want to think about that too hard, for it provides the dread peah-tree lim’ with which a bad child (say, one who climbs in the pear tree and breaks one or more of its limbs) gets switched. So let’s roll our eyes a few feet over to the pretty crape myrtle tree that’s so good to climb and that drops tiny, lacy fuchsia blossoms in the bluing water on washday; behind it, the tin-sided garage where the car lives; yonder there behind the garage is Mama Brook’s big ol’ vegetable garden, half an acre’s worth. And that’s what’s to see on the right.

Cut your eyes around to the left, and we’ve got, first, the pipe coming up out of the ground with a handle on top that you pump to get that wonderful stream of ice-cold, iron-tasting Artesian water that’s so good to stick not just your mouth but your whole head in on a hot day. Then we have the line of tin buildings — the two-hole privy that’s a blessing when the whole family’s here at once (like for 4th of July); then the long building with three doors: the root-vegetable room full of potatoes and onions, the smokehouse room full of hanging hams and bacon and hog jowl (”hogjoe” as it’s known in our family), and the henhouse room full of roosts. Way out yonder beyond and over-around-behind them is the main grove of huge old pecan trees. What shade!

Now look straight ahead: over here by the crape myrtle is the washday stuff — the big black cauldron that Mama Brook starts a fire under for heating the wash water (I don’t know what that is she puts in the second potful to make it that milky blue, but that sure is pretty water); her “washing machine” that’s a big tub with metal legs, a hand-cranked wringer that swings to the side so we can wring the clean clothes dryish before pinning them on the clotheslines, and a big thick electrical cord to plug into the garage wall; then finally there’s the dry tub to receive the wrung-out sheets and clothes. And of course, beyond this set-up are the posts and three clotheslines, running alongside the garden fence. Out a piece from where we’re standing is the hammock and some cane-bottom and fabric-sling chairs and stools for sitting and visiting under the first big ol’ pecan tree, then beyond there the rooster coop, the second pecan tree, then finally out at the very end of the yard, just before the cotton field, is the Tin Barn. It isn’t really a “barn” like the red one behind the garden, because instead of cows and pigs and mules and straw, it’s got the tractor and plows and lumber and stuff like that in it. But squinch up your eyes and look real good there to the left of it — see those little trees in amongst the pecans? Let’s walk on out there and take a good look.

Don’t be afraid of the hens and chicks pecking all around, but you might want to watch out for their doodoo — and DO watch out for the big ol’ red roosters, ’cause they’re mean and want to spur you. The little black banty rooster has nicer manners. Notice how they all step away from the big ol’ stump that’s the chopping-block? One of these days soon we’re gonna want chicken and dumplings again, and that big mean red guy’s gonna be in trouble, heh.

Now here we are: the apple trees, and a little farther beyond, more into the full sun, the peach trees. It’s a fact, these apples sure don’t look like the perfect ones you see in the grocery store — they’re smaller, for one thing, and yellow instead of red. They aren’t shiny but have some spots on ‘em, and they’re not as sweet as store apples. But wait’ll you see what comes of them! Let’s pick up all these ones that fell off the tree since yesterday, okay? Here’s you a basket. We’ll haul ‘em back to the house for Mama Brook to wash and peel and cut in pieces.

Now here’s the best part. Follow Mama Brook with the washpanful of apple pieces all the way upstairs and OUT THE BACK WINDOW ONTO THE ROOF, WOOHOO! Yeah, looky what she’s got out here — thick crokersack sheets spread out right on the roof shingles. So what we do now is reeeeel carefully spread these apples nice and wide apart so they don’t touch each other, all over the sheets in the sun. Isn’t this fun up here?! Looky how you can see all over the yard and garden and even way off yonder in the cotton field!

Okay, now we go on back inside and leave ‘em alone for a couple of days. You know what’s funny? The flies and bugs leave ‘em alone too. You reckon it’s just too high off the ground for them to notice? I guess so.

When we come back, the apples are all dry — shriveled up little, brown as Daddy Brook’s hatband. So we gather ‘em up and haul ‘em down to the kitchen, and Mama Brook stews ‘em with some sugar and ladles ‘em into Mason jars. She puts their lids on and sticks ‘em in the big ol’ pressure-cooker until the thingie on top goes >POP< and they’re ready to haul out and put to cool in the pantry.

And then anytime you want apple pie, fried or dish, all you gotta do is ask Mama Brook real nice, and if she says yes, here’s what’ll happen . . .

Since we want fried, she’ll make plenty of her biscuit dough (that eggs go WITH, NOT IN), only she’ll roll it out thinner than for biscuits and cut big circles in it. She’ll open a jar of apples and plop some on one side of each circle, fold over the other side, and mash the open edge with her cooking fork so it looks like a half-moon fringed like Davy Crockett’s sleeves. She’s got a skillet hottin’ up with lard in it (same lard as she makes biscuits with, but now it melts; she never deep-fries pies but just pan-fries ‘em like chicken or catfish), and she slips in a couple of those half-moons at a time and lets ‘em fry on one side and then the other until they’re this beautiful brown color (she never heard of anything so silly as a thermometer, the very idea!). Then she slips ‘em outta the pan and onto a paper sack to drain and cool off a little.

And we just can hardly stand to wait for that, ’cause they’re so GOOD. Like her biscuits, the outside crust snaps and crunches when you bite it, but inside it’s springy (not fluffy, springy). And the filling — oh! I guess drying out in the sun must concentrate all the natural spiciness of the fruit, because now the apples taste all cinnamon-y and nutmeg-y and clove-y, even though I think Mama Brook just cooks them with some sugar. All I know is, I love to go stand in the pantry with all those shelves of jars of put-up apples and pears and peaches and scuppernongs and vegetables — just stand in there and snuffle up the spicy air.

Okay, finally the pies are cooled. Here, let me give you one — yeah, you’ll need both hands. Bury your face in Good. You ever tasted anything like that in your life? Try to go slow, though, ’cause get to the last bite and you fall back out of Heaven.

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