Pepper Vinegar and Brockian Hot Sauce

I don't usually have much success growing peppers, generally just winding up with only enough to put a few in salads and a pot beans every now and then.  This year I lucked out, however, and got a bountiful amount of two different kinds from two different sources. 

A friend of mine, Tommy Stone, has an incredibly green thumb, and donated some Jalapeños for the St. Peter's Church Youth to use for a fund raiser.  He said he had plenty more and gave me a grocery bag full. I decided that with such surplus I should make Brockian Hot Sauce. I first found out about this method of hot sauce production about 2 years ago listening to Sean Brock at the SFA Field Trip in Bristol.  Since this was the first time I've tried this, I pretty much followed the instructions.  I started them August 1st and on October 1st I stopped the fermentation process and added the vinegar.  Exactly two months after that I strained it off and here's what I got:

First I tried it some on a Ritz Crackers. It's pretty powerful stuff, but not insane.  The flavor reminds me of Green Smoked Tabasco, but it is significantly hotter. It goes very well with well with Collards!

Late this summer Mom and Dad began gleaning some at Barefoot Farms up near Belton.  Mostly they've been getting Okra, (lots and lots of Okra), but last month before the hard frost came,  they pulled up the last of the pepper plants.  They brought me probably close to a bushel of Hot Hungarian Peppers and a few fruits of various other kinds. We used plenty of them in cooking and making stuffed peppers,  and I made several bottles of pepper vinegar.  We haven't tried them yet. I figure I'll let them set about a month or six weeks, so they should be ready by Christmas. Don't they look real purty in bourbon bottles?

A Fruity Foodie Old Friendly Fathers Day Weekend

A friend of ours from the SFA, Sheri Castle, from beautiful Carboro, NC. has just had her first cookbook published. She’s travelling around the South for 4 months promoting it, and we’ve been trying to meet up with her since April. Unfortunately when we’ve been headed to NC, she’s been elsewhere, and when she’s been in SC or Georgia, we couldn’t make it happen. About 6 weeks ago we found out that Heidi and Joe Trull of Grits and Groceries were featuring recipes from Sheri’s book for their June Dinner Club. Grits and Groceries is kind of in Belton, SC., just down the road a piece from Mom & Dads house in Williamston. Since this was Father’s Day Weekend, we called Mama Glenda and Big Phil to see if we could take them down for a celebratory meal. Now we’ve been fans of Grits & Groceries Breakfast for years, (Glenda and Phil rave about the Stuffed French Toast) but none of us had never been to Dinner Club.

Sheri’s book is all about using the South’s wonderful fresh produce. It’s arranged by crops, which is really pretty cool. So that got me thinking about farmers markets and such, which led my brain to Callaham’s Orchard, owned by some wonderful folks I went to high school with a hundred years ago.

As it turns out their Blackberry U-pick operation was in full swing. So Saturday morning we all went picking! The berries were absolutely gorgeous, and almost, but not quiet, at peak. In about 2 hours of not hard work, 5 of us picked 11 gallons of berries! We froze 3 gallons whole, kept one to eat on, and juiced the rest. We wound up with over 3 gallons!

You’re probably thinking I’m going to make wine with the juice. Well, I’m not. All that juice is reserved for Breakfast Smoothies in the dead of winter. (Although I will admit to using a small amount of whole berries for rumtopf.) I can’t say that juicing all those berries was a lot of fun, but it sure beat picking and canning couple of hundreds quarts of James Island tomatoes in a tiny un-air-conditioned kitchen on Folly Beach, which is what we used to get into this time of year! Big Phil wound up looking like he had the measles.

The event at Grits and Groceries was wonderful, ‘ceptin’ for a little bit of rain, which really wasn’t that bad, especially since Mama Glenda quickly grabbed the last available table inside! And Lo, there right inside the door was Bobby and Suzanne Callaham! So it was so good to see old friends, especially with such fantastic food all around. Bacon Wrapped Pork Loin with Fig Sauce, Squash Casserole with Swiss Cheese, Black-eyed Pea Salsa, and Peach Upside Down Cake were just some of the deliciousness they set forth for us to enjoy. Heidi and Joe did an impressive job with Sheri’s recipes. We came back with her book and have already started using it!

We’ll definitely be back to G & G for a Dinner Club, although it’ll have to be a while. Heidi and Joe have the good sense not to do outdoor events in July and August!

Busy Weekend!

         Wow!  What a busy weekend we had!  We left Thursday evening ,heading to Birmingham and FoodBlogSouth, at which I had a blast.  Some SFA folks were there, and I made some new friends from Dallas Texas all the way on back this way to Cameron SC!  I learned some neat stuff from some great folks and . . . .I won a door prize to the Atlanta Food and Wine Festival. How cool is that?

        Birmingham is home to a great many Greek immigrants, many of whom started restaurants.  One endeavor has become a fairly large chain in that part of the South.  We tried Zoe's in the Federal Building downtown.  It reminded me somewhat of SUBWAY with a Greek attitude, except you didn't see the folks making your food. It was very good, and when we told them it was our first Zoe's experience. . . . FREE CHOCOLATE CAKE!  

         Birmingham is also the home of Jim 'N Nicks, who helped sponsor FoodBlogSouth. Alice got to partake there for the first time and was duly impressed by their collards, among other things. Good Stuff all around!

         On the way back we stopped in Oxford, Georgia, and ate at a placed called Jefferson's.  They specialize in wings, burgers, and oysters(?).   As we are want to do, we asked the waitress what her favorite menu item was, and she told us about the double dipped wings. Fried, dipped in hot sauce, and fried again. Well, we just aren't that big on wings, but she sold us, so we got a platter.  They were very good: crispy hotness, or hot crispiness, however you want to call it. Enough of each, but not too much.

         When we got home on Sunday afternoon, Alice made a big pot of Liver Nips for a Soup Supper we were having at church last night. (She already had everything pretty much ready before we left.)  The Annual Soup Supper is a very fun event the Worship and Music Committee does every January to raise money for a Summer Music Camp for children in the community. Check out all the soups:

You can get regular sized bowls or try several smaller amounts of different kinds.  In addition to the soups and stews,  folks bring salads, deviled eggs, pimento cheese sandwiches, etc, and a variety of desserts.  It's not near as heavy as your basic Dinner-on-the-Grounds type of event, but it's still a great meal and a great time! Man, the Liver Nips were some of her best ever!  We took about 2 gallons up to church and only brought back about a quart, (which Stewart took back to USC-not sure if that's legal, what with crossing the county lines and all).

Tonight, however: Salad!

SFA Mountain Empire

We had a blast in Bristol! We had the best time! The Fabulous Food, Fellowship, & Fun and Learning made the week zoom by as fast as cars at BRISTOL MOTOR SPEEDWAY! We made a bunch of new friends and we’re looking forward to seeing you again in August at the Pot Likker Film Fest!

Special Thanks goes to SFA Staff! They did a truly incredible job! It was as high as the mountains.

And a Super Special Thanks to all the Folks from Bristol who made us feel so welcome!

This is Chef Sean Brock's Trout fused with Bacon!