Friday, I took a drive. A two hour
drive.
Instead of writing or working in the
garden, I wound my way through the countryside, checking out cows and
goats, searching for acreage with “For Sale” signs for the
theoretical flower farm I'll own one day. For two hours, I hunted
horses and houses with wrap-around porches. I crept along like a
Sunday driver, glancing at directions on both on my iPhone and my
backup GoogleMaps printout, because my phone tends to lose navigation
at the most inconvenient times. When I looked up, two cars and a
truck tailed my Prius, anxious for me to pick up the pace.
I officially became a Sunday driver. On
Friday.
When I was young—Kristen's age, maybe
younger—my parents believed in Sunday drives.
Mom and Dad in the front seat, me in
the back. By the time I was 10, my sister Becky was off to college,
my oldest siblings already graduated and working. I sprawled out in
the backseat, seatbeltless, holding my nose against the smell of
cigarettes, using my book to fan away the smoke, while my dad drove
through the country.
I never understood Sunday drives.
Or sweet corn.
Sometimes, our Sunday drive had a
purpose. Sometimes, we'd drive to a farm stand. I would fling open
the car door, eager to escape to fresh air. Mom would select a few
tomatoes, while Dad chatted up the person manning the stand. How was
the corn? Bi-colored? Fresh picked? How long ago? What time did it
come from the field?
Once the preliminary screening
satisfied him, Dad then investigated the corn. He pulled back a bit
of husk to expose a few kernels and popped a kernel with his
thumbnail. If the juice shot a foot in the air—now, THAT was fresh
corn! He repeated the process for each ear, carefully choosing only
those ears that shot juice a mile high. He'd buy a dozen ears, along
with the few tomatoes, and off we'd go.
Of course, my pre-teen self slunk away
from my parents, mortified that my dad would man-handle the farmer's
corn. Couldn't he just pick 12 ears and be done? Couldn't we skip the
Sunday drive and pick up some corn at Burger's Supermarket, like
normal people? I stuck my nose in my book and pretended I didn't know
him. The whole farm stand spectacle lasted no more than ten minutes.
Then we'd head home to shuck corn.
My dad grew up on a farm, and he knew
the difference between fresh sweet corn—and grocery-store corn.
While he often told us stories of farm life, he more often shared
stories relating how glad he was to escape the farm, attend college,
and build a career in corporate America.
There is, after all, no glamour being
the guy in charge of the manure spreader.
No matter how high he climbed the
corporate ladder—and he climbed to General Manager of an
international petrochemical company--he still possessed a farm boy's
heart. His need for a country drive and fresh sweet corn remained
with him for life.
Once, after our parents moved to South Carolina
where—oddly--my siblings and I all lived, Dad called my sisters and
me, telling us he had a pile of sweet corn. All he needed was an
assembly line to help him get it ready to freeze. We showed up at my
parents' house, rolling our eyes behind Dad's back like our former
teenage selves, disbelieving that we planned to spend a Saturday
shucking, blanching, cutting, and freezing corn.
But guess who ate delicious sweet corn
at Thanksgiving?
Dad continued the country drives, past
the time when he should have relinquished his driver's license. When
Mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease, Dad took her on long
drives in the country—sometimes to find sweet corn, more often to
give her a change of scenery when she became agitated.
Which was often.
We worried.
No one understands how hard it is to
care for a loved one with Alzheimer's. I didn't. We visited on
Saturday nights for dinner, fussing over the latest dings on Dad's
car, where he “might have bumped” a mailbox when he drove Mom to
look at horses. We saw the anxiety and stress and tried to help—but
we didn't live with Mom 24 hours a day.
And while we worried and badgered him
to let us run his errands, while I offered to pick up sweet corn, he
continued the country drives while we kids said daily prayers to keep
our parents—and all people on the roads with them—safe.
So Friday, when I drove 52 miles one
way to pick up sweet corn, the irony of the drive wasn't lost on me.
And oddly, when I came home with my six
dozen ears of perfect, juice-shooting sweet corn (five dozen to
freeze, one dozen to eat), I felt relaxed and ridiculously excited to
shuck corn. The kids came home from school, eyed the pile of
unshucked corn and their mother with silks stuck all over her black
t-shirt, and quickly disappeared.
I didn't care. Somehow, I knew Dad was
supervising.
Now, in honor of my dad's annual sweet
corn obsession, I thought I'd share how you, too, can eat delicious
sweet corn at Thanksgiving (and all winter!)
First, contact your local farmer to
find sweet corn. I waited a little late this year—thus, the hour
drive to find corn.
Remove all husks and silks and wash
well. Honestly, it's a challenge to find organic sweet corn in our
area. Last year, our local farmer grew organic sweet corn.
It was phenomenal.
However, he stopped growing the corn
organically, because customers complained about “worms.”
Please—give me organic sweet corn, and I will happily cut the tips
off the cob to remove the worms. I'd much rather have a few tiny
caterpillars than pesticides.
In a large pot, place corn in boiling
water. Blanch for approximately 5-7 minutes. Blanching helps destroy
enzymes that break down the nutrients and change the color and flavor
of food during freezing. Start counting the blanching time as soon as
you place the corn in the boiling water. (You can reuse the same
blanching water several times.)
Remove the corn from the pot and
immediately immerse the cobs in a bowl of ice water to stop the
cooking process. If you're freezing a large quantity of corn, you may
need to buy a bag or two of ice. Chill the corn in ice water for the
same amount of time as you blanched the corn.
Remove corn from water and drain. Using
a thin, sharp knife, remove the kernels from each cob. I found it
easiest to hold the cob on the thin, pointed end and cut the kernels
directly into a bowl.
Once all of the corn is removed from
the cobs, label freezer bags or storage containers with the date.
Spoon corn into bags (I used pint-sized freezer bags) and remove the
air from bags to prevent freezer burn. Of course, if you have a food
storage system—lucky you! I just squeezed the air out of the bags,
but I have been known to use a straw inserted into a small opening in
the zip top to suck the air out. I know, it sounds goofy—but it
works!
Freeze your perfectly labeled,
delicious bags of corn immediately. Enjoy all winter.
Cheers!
Julie
Such a sweet story. I found you on Pinterest. Thanks for sharing a story filled with love and how to preserve the corn!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Jen. Isn't it ironic how, as adults, we embrace the day-to-day traditions of our parents--even though as kids we found those traditions inexplicable?
DeleteKnow the heartache of a family member with Alzheimer's, so sorry about your Mother.
ReplyDeleteWhat a treat to have so much sweet corn. We have been eating some sweet corn this past couple weeks...better than the first Silver Queen.
One summer I put up 100 ears of corn.....felt a little like Henny Penny with no help from my chicks.
Janet, 100 ears? Wow...I thought 5 dozen was a lot! I, too, understood Henny Penny better after my marathon session. However, my children would be perfectly happy letting me do all the work--and because it's something semi-healthy, they'd be happy to let us eat it all, too. Honestly, how can I have a child who doesn't like sweet corn or potatoes? I think the hospital switched him at birth. ;-)
DeleteNicely said, and nicely done.
ReplyDeleteThat's yummy corn!
ReplyDeleteSorry about your mom....!
Anyway do you receive any malware warning when go to my blog? I don't knw why.....but no danger actually since I try using another acc to enter...strange....
Thanks, Malar! I haven't received any strange notifications when I visit your blog. Hope it's fixed quickly for you!
DeleteI had to laugh when you mentioned no seat belts and smoke filled air, How on earth did we all survive those sunday drives??! Actually very well I'd guess. Some of the best sweet corn I ever had was from a farmer on the side of the road in the depths of nowhere Manitoba. Within an hour it was in the pot, I've never had such great corn since.
ReplyDeleteOh, yes, I remember going for car rides with my parents and sometimes grandparents. My dad's dad would drive us to a smaller town than ours to go to the Dairy Queen. I'm glad they didn't smoke in the car. My mom's mom was an alcoholic, though, and her parents took us into bars sometimes, where there must have been smoking. I dearly loved her, though, and was sad when she died from cirrhosis of the liver when I was in high school.
ReplyDeleteWe have been eating sweet corn from the farmer's market all summer, and I have been putting some into vegetable soups that I have frozen in individual servings. Your bags of corn are lovely! You will enjoy them this winter, what you have of it there.