Early Tuesday, Tommy uncovered the plants he kept safe with plastic bags. The front of the house is in shade until noon, so there was no chance of the sun and plastic bags ruining the plants. Wednesday evening, he recovered them as we are expecting below freezing weather once again.
I washed my hair and ate the scrambled eggs I had cooked the night before. After I bathed and threw on clothes, we left. A spectacular vehicle fire slowed traffic and we arrived just in time to get lunch.
Wednesday, we went to the pickup lunch in Cullman and picked up a lunch...lol. We had spaghetti, bread, and salad. We ate all the spaghetti, a bit of the salad, and a bit of the bread. Since he had called and found out the menu, I took parmesan cheese for mine.
The next program was under a pavilion about 80' x 40 '. The floor was concrete with an open space about 6 feet wide running down the middle. It was full of rocks and covered with plywood. A portion of the plywood was uncovered. In the opening were large logs burning. Where we sat, the smoke and ash made it almost impossible to breathe. The ash covered the new sweater I wore. My eyes and others' eyes were stinging. After about 45 minutes, the wind died down and changed direction. I was miserable.
I had worn my mask the whole time since nice fall days with falling leaves are almost lethal to me with asthma. Finally, I held my sweater over my face.
The director of the center is a great niece of a friend of mine in Cullman. She and several other people helped me with food, well, putting my pouch of food in the fire and then retrieving it.
The program at the agriplex was cooking over an open fire. I had repeated to Tommy the purpose was building an open fire. The showed us how to make a pouch from foil, heavy duty foil. It was pretty easy, but lots of people had trouble. When we had the pouch made, we went to fill it with vegetables. I took carrots, zucchini, yellow squash, mushroom, one piece of onion, clove of garlic. There were also diced red peppers, Conecuh sausage. I passed on those. Tommy took sausage and Worcestershire. There were multiple seasonings--soy, Worcestershire, pepper, salt, other ground seasonings. I just used water.
Tommy's pouch did not make it. His burned and everything spilled. Of course, I shared mine. We could have flavored water of some sort from a dispenser or bottles of water. We chose water.
At the beginning, water was boiling on the fire. Boxes of elbow macaroni were dumped in and cooked. Later, a bag of shredded cheese was added.
For dessert we had banana boats. A banana and foil were used. The banana had a small strip of the skin removed but left connected. A portion, a little strip of the banana was removed. In the little trench there were goodies to put in for the boat. I chose chocolate chips. I think there were peanuts, other nuts, marshmallows, and various other items that I don't remember. Wrapped in foil, too, the boat was place amongst the coals.
It was all delicious. I had shared some of my vegetables with Tommy and still brought some home. I brought most of the banana boat home. I ate most of it on the way home. The leftovers of mac and cheese and the vegetables made it home.
When we first arrived, I told the director we had three butternut squash to share. She called the person in charge of gleaning who retrieved them from the car. I did not even know there was a person in charge of gleaning. So, those were not wasted.
I went to the store with Double Luck greens beans for $0.69/can and bought ten with date of October 2023 and two 48 oz cans of Argo peaches with a date of Nov. 2025.
Getting my mail was at top of the list of things to do. Well, we forgot it! I need to go back Friday, so I suppose it will last until then. There was nothing appealing in the ads from this small store.
We did nothing else at all. I did not even have to go to bathroom. We arrived home by 3:30 pm and I took a nap from 5-7 pm. When I awoke, Tommy had had the second plate of spaghetti and a salad we got, and I had mine and the salad I started at lunch. The bread I bought home is still here.
The highest temperature was almost 60F, but we were hot in the car and hot at the event outdoors. Our seats were in the sun and the fire was in front of us. With sun it was a warm and pleasant day.
There was one question and a prize of a thermos for the answer to one question--when is the first evidence of fire being used to cook food. Answer--1.9 million years ago. Neither of us guessed right.
The smoke smell is still in my hair. It is going to be rough sleeping with it all night. I hope all my meds, pills, nose sprays, and inhalers for allergies work tonight so I will not wake ill tomorrow!
When was the last time you cooked over a open wood fire? When was the last time you cooked on an open wood fire with a foil pouch? When was the last time you were exposed to wood fire smoke?! Does smoke affect your health?
Susie, how is Fritzi?
