beautiful photo, Norm. Check out this link for the pears http://clevefruitshare.ning.com/

Debbie 

 Did you pick them?  Can you explain Food on the Move?
 

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One of the things I've seen lately that I think is great is the "International Gardens" sprouting up over and around Clark Avenue and West 48th Street.  There were a number of vacant lots in that area and I don't know how they got started but I think the idea is good.

There is nothing as tasty as fresh vegetables from the garden and gardens is something we don't have enough of or enough space for.  Gardens seem to be an ideal way of utilizing vacant lots.

Just my opinion.

Jerleen, on Clark, I think between 52 and 54, some one did something real creative with old tires by stacking them, painting them neon colors then planting in them and keeping the lot in beautiful shape. Any idea who?

And fruit trees in vacant lots? Safety? I'd say if you know the area, knock on a nearby door or two and inquire rather than let it go to waste. At least if you don't take any, you're pointing out that it is there.

The Fruitshare group seems pretty savvy and have been doing this for a while.

Debbie

One of the Stockyards block clubs did the tire thing.  Did you notice the new mural?  Again SRO.  I had to smile when I saw the two lawn chairs in tandem, facing mural just waiting for someone to sit and chat.  Surprisingly, no one has stolen them........yet.  Kate

Oh yes, I did see the tires and it crossed my mind that if acceptable, it would be a good way to get rid of some abandoned tires that get thrown out around here.  I thought the snake looking one was great -  painted to look like a big coiled up snake.   Tires do make great flower pots, we have a couple on our tree lawn - but the brightly painted ones on Storer I just loved.

Fruit - wow - first thing I think of when somebody mentions fruit trees in homemade jellies and jam.  A few years ago there was a little pear tree growing outside my sister's window - we just reached out and picked enough off to make about 10 pints of pear jelly - jelly and biscuits in the winter time - nothing like it.

This morning my mom and I were just contemplating heading to Amish Country and loading up on vegetables and fruits (apples) to can.  I'm going for fresh cow butter and Honey with the comb in the jar.

My one regret about living in the city is that I can't be as countrified as I would like to be.  Down in the hill, we do a major portion of our canning outside - with a big washtub sitting on a couple of rocks and big fire going underneath.  Cold-packed green beans is one of my favorite not to mention pickled corn in a big churn.

 pickled corn, yum. I grew up on that stuff, only it was pickled corn and greens beans. I missed the opportunity to learn this stuff as I grew up, which I now regret. I am learning how to can now, and my jelly and jams are pathetic.  I plan to continue on, but I will buy those botulism stickers that go on home canned goods so that I don't cause food poisoning. I also gave in and just bought pectin stuff for my next batch of jelly and jam. My Mom says that if I do it right I do not need that stuff but it just isn't working no matter how much I try, I end up with syrup.

How do I get more info on this? Tomatoes should be available in a few weeks. 

Well, I've heard about canning lines, but it takes the fun out.  My first experience with applebutter was when I was 5 and went to visit my grandma near Princeton, Wva.  She had a big big kettle that she hung  over an open fire outside.   Occasionally, she would hold me up and let me stir with  these really big wooden laddles.   The smell of that applebutter still lingers. 

To "hole up" apples for the entire winter, they would dig a big  hole back into the side of a hill and line it with straw, then pack the apples inside and spread straw all over and through them.  re-fill the hole and then some time during the winter if you wanted fresh apples - say for a holiday pie, etc., grandpa would go out and dig in the hole and bring in a basket of apples - they would be as fresh as if they were just picked.  They would hole up potatoes the same way. 

This is reminding me why I hated summers as a kid. I had to wash the jars, and string beans and apples, and was always busy. I think this is why I rebelled and did not learn as I should have. I now string cayenne peppers for my Mom.

I have to take you to visit my Mom. It would be a real treat for her.

Maybe I will learn more about using the stuff we grow in our yards to focus on extending the produce into winter by listening to you two talk.

I read in the Plain Dealer that 1,700 abandoned homes in Cleveland are to removed with the help of Federal economic stimulus dollars. While it will take a while for orchards and groves to come to fruition, tomato plants can produce within a year. The question: will the stimulus dollars remediate for lead and other threatful substances in the soil? It may take a few years of harvesting plants that suck the pollutants out of the soil before we can have eatable tomatos, etc. At least the remediation plants will help with CO2 overload in the atmosphere.

I am enjoying this discussion and recalling the pickles my aunt made with the cucumbers from her garden. When I moved to Cleveland and began my own family each year she would send two jars of pickles to us at Christmas time.

I, too, recall the diamondback rattler my brother and I found while picking blackberries among the rushes near the bayou where we lived in North Florida and the blackberries that grew along the path between my aunt and Grandma's houses in Georgia. Those were the days. My cousins and I collected fireflies - we called 'em lightninbugs - after dinner in ball jars with holes poked in the tops with an ice pick. We made little lanterns and watched them until our eyes could not stay open.

I have blackberries growing in my front yard here in Cleveland Heights - no rattlers, but not as much fruit as I would like. Each year I threaten to cut down the "hedge" that shades their west side from the sun so they can produce more. Now that the house has been vacant for a long time, I may actually get to it.

I loved reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and learning about their winter saving.

Here's a local tale of good food:

Eating regionally: A winter's tale of good food
Originally published in 1996 in the EcoCity Cleveland Journal

By Mary Kelsey (Mary also did the illustrations for Warren Grossman's book To be Healed by the Earth)

Jerleen - I get a tinge of sadness when I read your writing. All but one of my mother's family have passed - my Mom, too. Oh, I never thought I'd read "britches" on realneo, but there it is. Sidenote: I had always heard that my mother's family at one time had large land holdings in Georgia. We sold the last of our land there to support my brother before he died - land that had only been timbered once in the last two centuries. My momma's family was Bailey. Her Dad was one of those who were told to "not grow his cotton crop" during the depression. He pretty much drank himself to death out of boredom after that. But last night I found this interesting bit of family history. My grandpa (I never met him) was named Seaton Grantland Bailey. I can still recall the smell of my uncle Jack's (another David Jackson Bailey) smokehouse and the taste of his breakfasts with grits he had been cooking since the break of dawn. Thank you for keepin' it real.

Oh and while I laud the idea of a canning line for local producers, I also would love to learn some of the in home methods you describe, Deb and Jerleen. We're gonna have to relearn these methods in a world made by hand.

Just so you know, catching "lightnin bugs" is still a favorite past time for some.  Last weekend my 6 yr old grandaughter stayed over and she and her little friend had a jar with some holes poked in the lid by a nail and they spent hours in the evening catching ligthnin' bugs.  She insisted she could keep one in the house and name it for a pet.  We were up half the night keeping watch over the little bug in a jar. 

We cannot forget the smoke house.  Everybody had a smokehouse - for hog killin' time and for storing lots of good stuff from the garden.  We used to hang ears of corn in there to dry for seed, and store pumpkins, kuchshaw and squash.  The onions would also be moved from under the floor to hang in the smokehouse.  Do you remember making hominey.  My mom and grandma used to make big kettles of hominey on top of the frontroom heating stove. 

One of our pasttimes was to build a fire outside and put potatoes in the hot ashes to bake and in the wintertime, we slice potatioes and lay them on top of the hot cooking stove to cook, salt 'em and you had a real treat. 

How about jarflies, june bugs and whipowils.  Did you ever catch jarflies and june bugs?  That kind of life made people survivors.  Today, modernization has made people cripples.  If you can't pay these big utility bills, etc., nobody knows what to do. 

A meal you couldn't buy.  Get up on a sowy morning to fresh ham frying on the stove with some "red eye gravy" over it, a couple of fresh eggs, a big pan of homemade biscuits and open up a jar of homecanned blackberry perserves next to a bowl of fresh churned cowbutter. 

When the hollidays came, you didn't have to spend a dime for dinner.  A big smoked ham from the smokehouse, baked yams from the hole, greenbeans from a jar that tasted as fresh as they day they were picked, jar after jar of pickles, peppers, suckotash, tomatoes, corn on the cob and apples, pears and berries for cakes, pies and cobblers, jellies and jams, not to mention canned peaches and flitters along with jars of honey with pieces of the comb inside - and homemade gingerbread was a staple - and then somebody would send you a homemade applebutter cake and.........I got to get up and do something before I go off the deep end.

Oh, did you ever notice, that under the nicest big plump berries is where you'd always find the snake.

Yea, I know a lot of suzies that became bacon, ham and other stuff.  Have you ever helped to "dress" a hog.  There would be everything from pork rinds, hams, neck bones, ribs, ham hocks, smoked and salt bacon, even down to pig feet.  Hog killing time was always a big todo where I came from.  Big tubs of boiling water, sharp knives, big tables would be constructed out of lumber and covered with all kinds of paper - mostly brown paper polks, several neighbors would come to help out - it would always be a day up in the fall - usually late October.  Each helper would be given a "mess" of fresh meat.  The women would work inside dressing out the meat, wrapping it up for the deep freeze, or laying it out on a board to be salted down.  Big slabs of pork would be hung up in the smokehouse over  smoldering wood (usually hickory) and left to become a hickory smoked ham, etc

I think I still have an old  sausage grinder somewhere - my brother might have taken it as a collector's item.   

 Hog killing time came and I would run to my room with a book and try not to think about it. My grandpa was good at it, and I grew up looking at those racks and hooks where those hogs would be hung to bleed out. You know, I am a real wuss at this particuliar kind of thing and I am lucky that others did not share my views. My Mom and a brother who lives in southern ohio were talking about hog killing time down there the other day and how he could by the sausage ground up unspiced and she could add her own spices. So she has me picking and drying sage now and no doubt in a few months, I will be helping to season sausage. Have you ever canned sausage? We did, and I think that it was cooked before hand, packed in a jar, some liquids, and it kept all winter.

You make apple jelly like my Mom and this is what I tried last year. I had neighbors save their peels. I had a lot of syrup in the end so I will use some pectin this fall so that I can give it away as gifts. 

Love the recipe for whipped butter. I have both buttermilk and butter so I am going to whip some up this week. Thanks!

My sister does the same thing, she wants a sure thing so she used sure-jel.  I guess it is just a matter of preference.  Canning for me is just like everything else - it's the old fashioned way of doing things.  Just like making pickles - you can buy the already mixed pickling spices or add your own - I add my own - otherwise I don't feel like I did it myself. 

I do the same thing in sewing.  A lot of people sew up beautiful quilt tops and then get somebody else to quilt them - it you do that then you didn't make the quilt yourself.  I have quilt tops that are nearly 30 years old - that I haven't had the time to quilt - but that's ok, I'll wait until I get the time - and eventually I will.

 outside the home?

Try those canning tongs - I used to use them (after several seasons of burned fingers, ms. frugal broke down and bought some). They work really well - speeds the process up too!

I bet you can find them at Castro's Hardware on Clark (thank god for local business).

 Jerleen, it is time for you and me to start getting back to the serious business of talking food. The holidays are coming, I have a sack of dried apples, and a desire to return to the kitchen, I am still waiting for you to give the word on when your book is to be published, the book about the way it was. In the meantime, have you made an apple stack cake? The 7 layer cake with the dried apples cooked in a little water and spices, several days ahead of when it is to be served?

Speaking of apples, where can I find some information about pruning and spraying apple trees?  I have two trees in my yard that are producing fruit, but the fruit is wormy.  I want to make sure I prune or trim (whatever it is called) my trees and spray them with something non toxic so I can use the fruit or give it away next year instead of allowing it to fertilize my yard.  Keep in mind when replying that I know nothing about taking care of fruit trees. 

It's been awhile but oh yes, always a Thanksgiving staple along with stacks of dried apple pies.  Just the mention of them and I can smell them already.  Of course,  there's got to be a sweet potato pie as well. 

My ex mother-in-law made the best dried apple pies.  She would start about  week before Thanksgiving.  First she would put the dired apples in water to soak for a bit and then she would cook them on an old coal stove - a couple of days before baking the cake or pies.  We would spend a couple of days baking cakes and rolling out pie crust. Sometimes we'd bake 8 - 10 pies depending on how many apples we had - the last day would always be spent using up the remainder of the apples in fried apple pies.  Those would be the pre holiday treats, samplers so to speak.  Dried apples were only used for two occasions. Thanksgiving  and Christmas. 

She was really old fashioned, everything had to be done a certain way - when we were finished and the dishes were done, everything put away, she would put on a pot of coffee on that old cook stove and I'm telling you, the aroma was so different that an electric pot, when that coffee started perking,  then we'd take a cup of coffee and - always in a cup and deep saucer - everybody poured their coffee in a saucer and slurped  - then we'd retire to the "front room" with a plate of fried pies - fresh coffee and sit by the grate (fire) - with no lights on - and just chat - talk about who was coming to dinner and such. 

Jerleen, I love your stories. 

Jerleen,

You've got the stuff - now you just need a business plan. So many people need the skills you have. Not unlike Loretta Paganini's Cooking School, but your school would have an "old school" bent. It could teach young and old folks the older methods for all these things remembered from a world made by hand.

I recently saw this film clip about a Homegrown Revolution. Many of the methods the family practices are "by hand"; by hand washing, butter churning, blending, milling. It could be a mix of old and new "off grid" homemaking skills. We need those. When my son was in high school in recent years, I don't recall any of the girls that hung around talking about having to take "home economics" as my generation did. Heck, my older sister turned her home economics courses into a job running welfare in Atlanta at one point. She began working with poor families teaching them how to stretch a dollar, save and find educational things to do with the kids on the cheap, and ended up as an administrator in Five Points. These skills are needed and they're becoming sexy, too as midlifers who always planned to "get back to the land" are finally faced with being put out out into the field.

And the stories - they warrant a book. I hope you're collecting them. I enjoy them, too. They are reminiscent of Bailey White.

Most people laugh at me about the "good ole days stuff."  I like to remember a lot of it because can you actually see many of today's young ladies spending their time stringing apples to dry for a Christmas pie - because along with drying the apples, you'd have to chop the wood to build the fire to bake the pies -  and it takes awhile because you have to give the oven time to heat up - not like turning on an electric or gas oven.  Ever hear about somebody testing the oven to see if it was hot enough - you open the door and stick your hand in to feel the heat - that actually works. (glamour nails just wouldn't have worked back then). 

To churn the butter, first you have to milk the cow -  skim the cream off the top - and let it curdle  - fresh butter goes so fine with homemade jams and jellies and a pan of homemade biscuits fresh from the oven.  A lot of the work was actually fun and I am so glad that I learned as much as I did - but the stuff I know is really backwoods - raw edge - hill stuff.   People learned and did these things without questions out of necessity and survival.  They were just a part of everyday living  - I actually feel like I come from two different worlds. 

Here's a funny story, when I first moved to Cleveland - the hardest thing I had to get used to was that nobody here got up at 4:00am and cooked a full laid out breakfast.  My ex-husband went to work at 6:00am, he worked at a sawmill for awhile and then a strip mine - but there had to be biscuits, gravy, eggs, some kind of fresh meat, butter jelly and fresh perked coffee on the table for an actual sit down meal before he went to work - then I packed his lunch which included a thermos of hot coffee and a jug of water and sent him on his way - (by the way the sawmill always blew a whistle at noon everyday)  When quit time came, he came home there was a sit down supper on the table WHEN HE CAME HOME - it was just part of the program. 

Last week a new milk showed up in my grocer's dairy section - Hartzler's. I had heard about it, but hadn't found it in the store yet. Ah, a big chunk of cream on the top of the glass bottle. My roommate immediately suggested we purchase a churn. Yes, we can - Lehman's Low Voltage Hardware. We'll get one.

I think Debbie is on to something - Gather 'Round to listen and learn with Jerleen. Gather 'Round to Stitch and Bitch. A series of recipies and how tos and regular classes. It needs a home - a house with a big kitche would be preferable (with afterschool intergenerational storytime and activity programs, too), but a storefront can be made homelike, too.

And just think of Gather 'Round able to expand if Bodnar leaves and the neighborhood blocks a McDonalds.

OK, I need to get up and stop dreaming here and get a tool in my hands!

I know it's easy to get caught up in the dreams.  The old time wooden churns are best.  You do know that you when churning you got to "get a rhythm."  My dream has alway been to have a country store with calico yard goods, eggs in a basket, homemade jams and jellies for sale, old time looking quilts, rocking chairs, sewing bskets, aprons and the like.

I just finished making two bibbed aprons for a lady and now I'm on to boxer shorts for my son.  They have been a Christmas special for many years,  He always gets 13 pair.  I for each month and I pair of satin ones for a special occasion.  this tradition started a long time ago one Christmas when we didn't have a lot of money.  I found a piece of red satin in my fabric stash and I made him a pair of boxers.  I needed to make them special so I searched for a motif to put on the leg.  He could draw really well and I found one of his drawings of a little mouse in a pair of shorts.  I colored the picture and then iron transferred it onto the leg of the boxers - on Christmas morning, he loved the shorts but couldn't figure out how in the world did his drawing get on the leg of his shorts.  He kept and wore those dang shorts for about five or six years - they were nothing but strings when he finally parted wtih them.

You are more than doing to get by, you have the creative touch.

I will say this, it sure sounds better that all this fussing over community politics that seem to be going nowhere.  I would much rather be knee high and elbow deep  in a pile of fabric scraps and a bowl of pie dough that all this crap that is so stressful.  

As I'm sure you can tell, I am in dire need of some mind distractions today so this is where I go when things get overwhelming but I can easily see a room filled with shelves of old time {tin} measuring cups, the aromatic smells of nutmeg, cinnamon and pumpkin spice.  Shelves of old time pie pans, iron skillets, bread pans, cookie sheets.  Pretty glass jars filled with pre measured dry ingredients for the best soft batch chocolate chip cookies in town and a recipie all tied up with a bow.  Baskets of fresh eggs, with pictures of the ladies who laid 'em hanging on the wall, homemade aprons, quilts, laying around the room.  Pretty strings of dried peppers, garlic, etc., hanging on the wall.  Rocking chairs with soft cushions welcoming visitors to drop in and sit awhile over a cup of hot tea and sharing some fresh baked gingerbread - laughing and telling tales of the "good ole days,"  before they venture back out into the world of chores, work and daily duties.

 This stuff is a balm to the mind and soul, can be hard on the body, though. Today is the last day of my vacation, and tomorrow looms, with all the stress and noise of the modern workplace. I just took a loaf of bread out of the oven, and admired the beautiful shape and color. I would admire my rows of jelly and jams but Mom told me that they should not be in the kitchen with the heat so I moved them. I covet tin measuring cups, the plastic just measures but the tin speaks of artisan works. I do have cayenne peppers that need to be stringed, so pretty and red. I have the glass container of sage that I picked, and am looking forward to the smells of sage and thyme in my meatless stews and lintel loaf over the winter. 

My mom used to make rag dolls for Christmas gifts for the girls. She made one a few years ago for a great granddaughter who politely accepted it but was taken aback. Doing this came from her grandmother. The head is stuffed with small rags and tied, the whole is made from some pretty leftover cloth and a face is drawn on. I think I will have Mom over for the day after Thanksgiving, and we will make a bunch, one for each granddaughter. I will distribute those in the years to come when they will be cherished. We will make the Appalachian rags dolls on Black Friday and let the commercial world go on by, and be better off for that.

Now, Black Friday sounds like a day especially making rag dolls.  There is nothing that makes a kitchen smell so good as all the spices.  A fresh loaf of bread sounds wonderful.  I can't wait to get started baking for the holidays.  

We should have a day for sampling and sharing homemade baked goods - over coffee or tea.  Tell some stories and maybe even make some gifts? 

What if Black Friday was not about buying, but instead was about making?

Several years ago, I made pomanders as Christmas gifts. They are still extant in bathrooms in my house and in my sister's house. Here's one version of a pomander. Me, I just stick cloves into a smallish apple covering the entire fruit. I tie a ribbon loop to the stem of the apple so it can hang usually in a bathroom or kitchen. Even years later when wet with warm water, they smell wonderful.

This one doesn't have the ribbon yet.

That Christmas - a particularly lean one - I wrapped all gifts in newsprint or kraft paper and tied them with twine and sprigs of pine, fir and spruce. I used pine branches instead of styro peanuts for packing the boxes. The parcels, sent out to family members in their faraway homes, were fragrant upon opening.

PS Two other realneo members are skilled at making candles. That could be another thing for Jerleen's Kitchen, Porch and Reading room.

 We can make gifts and swap treats. I do have a question, Susan, about the apple that the cloves are stuck in. Does the apple go bad? 

sorry

I tried to find a map - you'd think there'd be a link to the new map or a find your "new" ward on city council's website, but, uh... no. Maybe I missed it. Can someone post a link to the old map and the new map?

 Cuyahoga County Board of Elections have the maps that all the politicians used (and Cleveland City Council did have the old maps up a week ago).

 Goats do eat everything, I love the fainting goats and the tree climbing goats, they would not be a good combination though.

They also have pigmy goats now as well, everybody is into minatures?

Then you could cross breed them and when they climbed the tree and fainted...you could just catch them. 

Funny.

LOL!  I would rather have the cow.  A nice friendly one.  I like cow's milk better too. 

When I go to fairs, I can be found in the cow barn. These huge creatures are just so nice, gentle, maybe dumb, but that is ok. Even cow poop smells good. You can let the pies dry, scoop them up, and compost them for a great garden a year later.  I learned not to go  through fences to visit groups of cows cause that cow over there with the horns is really a bull and they protect the herd and they are not gentle and they use those horns.

don't forget you can play "cow pattie" with the cow pies.  that's always fun unless you get smacked with a wet one.

Jerleen, that is a new game for me. All the more reason to have a cow. Maybe if we got a baby calf and leashed trained her from the get go, we'd have cow pattie heaven. It would be a new game for the city kids, they'd love it, and it would get them off the couch. Who'd pass up a chance to throw cow patties?

Jerleen you are going to tell us how to play "cow pattie", right?  Please do. Your stories are entertaining. 

I though everybody knew how to play "cow pattie."  Ok, you ask for it.  You get out in a field or pasture where the cows hang out and there are lots of cow pies.  you can either play one on one or a whole group.  You simply throw cow pies at each other.  You use the cows as shields to duck behind  to keep from getting hit.  Just sort of a "shitty" snowball game - except they are a little less round and you usually try to find the dry ones - but on occasion you get one that is still wet in the middle and when it hits or you get hit it splatters.  You hear this smacking sound, you're covered with cow shit  and then you really stink. 

When you have a bunch playing it's more fun - we used to play in a big field and had the poor cows scared to death.  They'be be running and mooing,  grandma and grandpa would hear the cow bells ringing and think that some animal was after the heifers and come and find us throwing cow patties - They'd have to try and calm the herd down and threaten our lives and send us to the creek to wash the crap off before we went into the house. 

Thanks Jerleen.  First I am hearing of this 'game'.  My brothers would have loved it but we didn't live on a farm so no cow plop to play with in the city.  My grandparents did live on a farm in Asthtabula County but they didn't have cows, only chickens, and they were well protected from us kids because they had to lay the eggs that were sold for extra income.  In some old family movies before my parents I noticed that they used to have a cow on their farm, but not when I was old enough to remember.  I think they were paid by the government not to farm their land. 

 This thread was fun, and I wanted to go back to read it as it came to mind today as I made the parts for a dried apple stack cake. I say parts because I will put it together Wednesday night. Today was the only time I had to spend hours in the kitchen. I made 5 layers that look like huge molasses spice cookies. On one layer, I took care to smooth it and make it nice for the top layer. I then cooked a pound  and half of dried apples rings, what a chore. I did not count on the bottom layer absorbing the water quickly and bubbling the rest of the apples out and over the edge of the pot. A larger pot took care of that. I cooked this for awhile, and stirred and stirred and more water added as needed. Then I mashed them, but not all were ready. I added brown sugar and spices and cooked a little longer. I will reheat them in two days (and maybe the hard pieces will be softer) and layer the apples in the cake parts. What a chore, but important to do as my Mom talked about how her Grandmother did this for Christmas. The cookies type layers will absorb the apple filling. I will know that I succeeded if my cake reminds my mother of her grandmother's cake.

She also talked about her Grandfather's favorite cake for Christmas: white with lots of coconut. Tea berries were used as decoration (if any decoration were done) as sprinkles were not even a thought then. If you wanted decorations, you went outside and got them!