Thursday, August 25, 2011

pieces and squashes

Some days ago Jimmy, I mean, Warren Buffett wrote a piece about how the rich in the US should not be "coddled", meaning they should be taxed more. While I know both sides of that argument, that's not what interests me about it.

The real strength of that article, the real strength of what he was saying was that he was talking about himself: Today's problems and what he himself could do to help.

Almost no one does this. Go listen to people asking for stuff from the government (legislative hearings). The only people there are people who are going to be directly affected -- the people working for the programs and the people benefiting from the programs. There is no generally recognized "need", not really. Milk and midwifery are not outlawed because they are dangerous but because someone (some group of someones) wants to keep those profits for themselves. The NEA isn't against school choice because it really thinks choice is bad but because choice takes money away from the schools that employ the NEA teachers who want pay raises. People who are for drug testing welfare & food stamp recipients mostly just think they themselves would never be be a welfare or food stamp recipient themselves -- and they don't even bother to think through the cost of doing that testing.

And I'm not saying that whatever it is that I'm doing is what needs to be done. Or even that I'm doing everything that I could do. But I hope that my thinking is on the level of what I can do. Of course, a lot of what we're doing is living at a level diametrically opposed to Warren Buffett. I do not find that sort of wealth enviable nor in fact do I think it is moral. But hey, at least Warren Buffett is talking about what he can do. I don't know many other people who are doing anything other than waiting for "the economy to come back", or to vote some some lying politician who promises to bring "good jobs", or for some state to drug test welfare and food stamp recipients.

Ok, so Buffett's point was weakened by the fact that he could go ahead and do it and not wait until the government forced said payment. It may well be for him, as many choices are for me, that there isn't a "win" choice to be made -- I can see a new paradigm coming and that needs to come, and I try to help it, but we ain't there yet and I still have to find a way to live in this current paradigm. Still, would that Warren Buffett and Jimmy Buffett and all of us would engage in a bit of bread labor every day.

Well, anyway. Here are some photos of some things to do with your summer squash.

This is an experiment this year. On the high recommendations of other bloggers, I got the library to get The Resilient Gardner by Carole Depp. I must admit, I'm a tough sell on gardening books anymore: it's hard for a normal gardening book to be interesting and informative to folks who have been gardening forever. Carole at least had an interesting concept -- what would you concentrate on to be resilient, which is her version of self-sufficient. And she picks, in my opinion, the right stuff mostly. But I still didn't find anything really that I liked about the book. And as hard as I looked, the only new idea I got was about summer squash.

When she mentioned squash as one of the resilient foods, I knew she was talking about winter squash. A good winter squash year is a thing of beauty and deliciousness. But summer squash? They're really just a summer treat, aren't they? She promotes the idea of drying them and says that, not unlike green beans which when dried become a thing that is an entirely new vegetable -- shucky beans, dried summer squash becomes an entirely new and different winter veggie. So we're experimenting. She had a lot of blather about varieties and tastes but not a lot on how to use them except in winter soups, and honestly I'm just drying whatever we've got and we'll see if they become a staple or not.

This is another way to enjoy them, even a little larger than usual -- skewer them and roast them after the chicken on a spit!

10 comments:

Kate said...

Well said.

el said...

I concur: well said.

You're reminding me to ask you, though, CG: tell me more about your experiences with shucky beans. I am an absolute slut for all beans...and I have only tried stringing and drying one kind of bush green bean, one I found from Southern Exposure specifically grown for such a purpose (and whose name of course escapes me). What say you, do you string them too?

I would be curious about your squash experiment too so let us all know. I remember watching some re-enactor doing such a thing at an old house museum once.

CG said...

definitely string your green beans before drying. The most traditional one to dry around here is a white half-runner, let go a bit full (not tough), but any will work.

They are easiest to dry on something like a screen in your attic (that's how we did it when I was a kid). Break them only right before you cook them and just like green beans, you'll find tough ones so just shell those out. Cook them like any other dried bean basically. Serve with chow chow.

I'm sure the squash will be fine in soup -- I'm wondering if it is good for anything else. Like just cooked for a side.

Mr. H. said...

You know I read that book and was also interested in her bit on drying squash so it is neat to see you putting it into practice. Maybe I'll give it a try too.

CG said...

Did you get anything else out of it Mr. H? We've been working to save our corn from the coons and the crows lately . . .

Mr. H. said...

I actually enjoyed the whole book...especially since it mainly focused on only a few "survival" crops. I also enjoyed hearing her thoughts on health and diet..even though my thoughts are quite a bit different than hers. While I didn't care too much for her recipes (we don't have a microwave:)I really liked reading her thoughts on self-reliant methods of feeding poultry as this is something we have been working towards for a while now. She almost convinced me that we needed Ancona ducks...thank goodness my wife talked me out of that one.:) I pulled her book back off the shelf and plan on reading it again soon.

Anyway, wanted to let you know that I dried a few young papaya pear squash, thickly cut, on raised racks positioned on our barn roof and they turned out great...even taste good. I have tried zucchini this way before but didn't care for it...this squash had a nice sweet flavor to it and I will definitely be doing more.

One of my favorite lines from her book is to "become native to the land of our living".

CG said...

Perhaps I expect too much for non-hillbillies to have a sense of narrative, as opposed to pompous pronouncements and disjointed anecdotes.

CG said...

hmmm, I really didn't think I was feeling grumpy tonight, but I really didn't like her book I guess.

Diane said...

I dried zucchini & yellow squash last year. I didn't like them so much rehydrated & cooked simply, but they were pretty good added to a stuffing/dressing -type casserole. As usual, I didn't write down the recipe...

CG said...

aaa, I don't really do recipes either. That's a good idea for another way to use them. I'm thinking stews (which I also really like dried sweet corn for).