Homemade Corned Beef, Potatoes,
Cabbage, Carrots, pressure cooked
—with my own made from scratch
spice packet —consisting of
Bay Leaves, Coriander, Peppercorn Mélange,Turmeric, Red Pepper Flakes,
Cumin. I used beef broth, but water
would have worked well also. This
one turned out so well, I could cut
the corned beef with a plastic butter
knife!
“I would love to travel around the world like you do”
Like I said in my previous post, I hear that a lot.
My First Assignment
It was mid-February, 1993. I had just finished my 6 weeks of application software training. I was given my first assignment. Travel to Waltham, Massachusetts and train users on the new manufacturing software.
I was staying at a full service hotel in Stamford, Connecticut. An army of roadies from my company was also there. All of us were packing our bags and preparing to checkout. Most would join me in Waltham while others would head to downtown Boston.
After checkout I was on the road. I decided not to take 95 North. Though it was early Sunday afternoon, that route could still be congested. I would leave Stamford l, Connecticut and take 95 South. From 95 South, I would cross the New York state line and take 287 West. From 287 West I would take 684 North and pick up 84 East. It was sort of a roundabout way to go because I would end up in Connecticut again but the traffic would be light.
Traveling 84 East gave me a chance to see the Connecticut countryside. There were no leaves on the trees, therefore I would have full view of the neighborhoods and towns along the way.
Waterbury was the most interesting to me. You could clearly see most of the town center from the highway. A few steeples and spires stood out amongst the old brown and red brick buildings that adorned the streets. The terrain of the city was not plain flat. It consisted of hillsides and ridges thus adding to the charm of the town. It was not a town filled with brand new buildings. Most of the structures seemed old. It seemed like the structures were built in the 1940’s or perhaps earlier. Again, I thought this look just added to the city’s charm. Looking at it from my window reminded me of many scenes painted by Norman Rockwell.
I smiled as I kept driving on 84 East towards Hartford.
Stay tuned for my next post in this series.
My cucumbers sprouted first. Thursday! Cucumbers and zucchini usually sprout right away. At least that is my experience. What’s yours? Feel free to write a short comment.
Speaking of experience: firstly, i am not a gardening expert. Gardening is a hobby of mine. This hobby began when i was in 4th grade. It was the Spring of 1966 and i lived well outside the suburbs of Columbia, South Carolina. Some would say that “i lived in the country” or that “i was country”. Anyway my neighborhood consisted of 3-4 houses within a 3 block (“country” blocks, not city blocks — “country” blocks are a little bigger) radius and after that the nearest neighbors were at least 2 to 3 miles away. In between the neighbors was farmland, livestock, wells, springs, wild hogs, bobwhite quails, vultures, snakes and many other critters.
I lived with my uncle and aunt at the time. My uncle had a large garden wherein he grew tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbage, corn, squash and green beans. I was so fascinated by the work that he did that i decided to pursue gardening myself. First i joined the 4H Club at my school and began to learn about soil and how its quality is important to planting and cultivating vegetables. I remember that we were given small boxes to take home. Our assignment was to collect soil samples, fill the box and turn it in to the 4H Club leaders. Our boxes would then be taken to labs and the quality of the soil would be sampled. A report would be generated that rated the quality of the soil in each box. I grabbed a sample of soil from our back yard (not the garden area) and turned it in. This sampling and report generation process would take several weeks.
In the meantime, I asked my aunt and uncle for permission to plant my own garden. You should have seen the grins that question elicited. They knew that I had no clue about cultivating a garden, nonetheless, I was a spoiled nephew and they gave me what i wanted.
We lived in a wooden house that my uncle built himself. The house sat in the middle of an acre of tract that was cleared of trees and brush. To the right of the house was another large clearing. This is where my uncle’s garden was planted. Behind the house was a large chicken coop. In back of the coop was a forest, referred to, by the kids of our small community, as “the woods”. To the left of the house was the lawn with a few trees scattered about. My garden would be in the rear section of this area. Early on a Saturday morning, my uncle got me out of bed, we ate breakfast –grits, fresh eggs and fresh sausage of course … after all this was rural South Carolina– and we headed to the garden spot. He picked up two tools that we would work with: a pick axe and a hoe. My garden would be a small garden. The spot was no more than 10 x 6 feet in length and width. He taught me how to break the ground with the pick axe. I was a small and the pick axe was nearly taller than me. After a few swings, my uncle gave me a “good job” and asked for the pick axe. He then began to finish breaking all the ground in my junior garden.
After breaking ground, we proceeded to pull out all the clumps of grass, dandelion weed, other weeds and rocks from the broken soil. This is where the hoe came in handy. You would rake the clumps of broken soil in a back and forth motion to discover the rocks. You would remove the rocks and the excess weeds and then you would use the hoe to break up the clumps into fine soil that was ready for seeds. Finally we used the hoe to make 4 long furrows. We were close to finishing.
My uncle showed me how to make little holes in the soil with my fingers, about 3 to 4 inches deep, for planting the seeds. He showed me the proper spacing between the holes. This was especially important for vegetables that grew on vines. We finished planting all the seeds and filled all the holes with soil. The first row was yellow squash, the second row was tomatoes, the third row was watermelon and the fourth row would be green beans. We finally finished and I stepped back and admired my garden. The large rectangle of broken soil, organized into long furrows surrounded by green grass looked very swell!
Two weeks later, the sprouts were a sprouting!
Stay Tuned for Next Week’s Chapter: Finally, The Soil Report Arrived
Jerry T. Johnson, Poet 