April in the Garden

 by Celia Hayes

Ah, the rain which fell last week; glorious, bountiful rain, just when we had given up all hope of seeing such again. And just about when I had concluded that we had skipped over spring entirely and gone straight into summer. Having to run the air conditioner because it's ninety degrees outside – freaking ninety degrees! – in March! That is just wrong ... especially when most of the rest of the northern hemisphere is suffering cold, rain, snow. If I could have figured out a way to swap about twenty degrees of Fahrenheit for about ten inches of rain over a week or so, I would so do it.

On the other hand, the cycle of undue warmth and a sudden generous rain has worked out in the long run, so I ought not to

Korean Delights

by Celia Hayes

So, many of the headlines this week concern themselves with Korea, a country which I have some slight connection to; that is where my father was serving a tour when I was born. And a good few decades later, I did a year-long tour there myself. About the very first thing that I realized was that Korea in the 1990s looked nothing like the TV series MASH ... and only very little like what my father remembered. Dad and his platoon with their mobile radar set-up lived in several different tent encampments near the DMZ. I spent the year living at Yongsan Garrison, in the heart of a bustling and very cosmopolitan Seoul. The garrison was itself a fairly un-crowded green island in the middle of a very built-up city – rather as

IH 35 Road Trip – Part 2

(<--IH 35 Road Trip - Part 1)

by Celia Hayes

The road was long, and went on and on in the dark. I thought that we'd see the sunrise about the time that we passed Round Rock, but no – thanks to daylight savings time, we didn't see it even begin to get light until we passed through Waco. At that juncture, something moved us to want to take a break. Well, actually three things moved us: we were getting hungry again, my daughter wanted to top up the gas tank, and we both needed to use the bathroom facilities. And there was a billboard advertising the Czech Stop Bakery, and not a truck plaza or another Buc'ees in sight, in a little hiccup of a town called West. So, pull off the highway onto the access road, looking for the

Lentil and Brown Rice Compost Broth

This was one of these things that I read so long ago that I don't remember when, or who, save that it was an interview with a rather clever and creative chef being interviewed, and just about that time I had despaired of finding any broth – canned or as a bouillon cube – at the commissary or local supermarket which wasn't expensive, unbearably salty, or both. Now HEB, Sprouts, and Trader Joe's all offer a nice variety of flavored and low sodium broths and I have used them for some splendid soups, especially when nothing sits very well on on a fractious stomach except chicken broth with a smidgeon of rice or fideos in it ... but nothing beats home-made broth made

Comfort Food – Mac & Cheese

by Celia Hayes

When my younger brother and sister and I were in elementary school, my father was a grad-student in hot pursuit of a doctorate in zoology, and my mother was – in the tradition of the time – a full-time stay-at-home mom. This was in the late 1950s to early 60s, and it was the commonly accepted practice. As there were three of us (later to be four) it was really the only practical option – and one of the reasons that it worked was that Mom was a fair to middling cook, very much into the traditional D-I-Y household arts (including sewing childrens' clothes and decorating our home with cast-off and inexpensive furniture. I would hasten to add that it was usually quality stuff; ages later, when Mom and Dad were

Guten Tag, Y’All - This is Texas!

by Celia Hayes

When I first came to Texas, at the express request of the US Air Force some (mumble) seventeen (mumble) years ago I thought I knew all there was to know about the place: the Alamo of course, and the Riverwalk, too. I knew that Houston had a Grand Opera, that Lubbock was a flat as a pancake griddle with some Monopoly houses set on it, I had read Edna Ferber's Giant, and I knew about cattle drives and the King Ranch, and that Texas was called the buckle of the Bible Belt ... I knew pretty much what any well-read traveler could pick up through the medium of pop culture and the base library.

What I did not know, until well after I got here and began to look around – was how very much more there was.

A River Flows Through It

As the Riverwalk of San Antonio is such an ornament to the city and such a popular tourist attraction (only second after the Alamo) that one of the nicknames for our fair town is 'The River City' you'd think that any municipal organization possessing the necessary attribute – a permanent body of water deeper than a puddle in, or flowing through downtown – would have been been seen as a gift and an opportunity to do something like it. Maybe not cheek by cheek eateries and boutiques – but at least a pleasant string park, paralleling the river bank can this be created, for the benefit of the residents, the enriching of those retail establishments lucky to overlook it, and the sheer

Fine Figs Grow Well in San Antonio

by Celia Hayes

For the last month we have been having a harvest season. Not of our own garden bounty, although the tomato plants produce generously enough that we can have fresh tomatoes in a salad every other night or so; rather, we have been harvesting figs. They are ripe just now in our San Antonio neighborhood, where two of our neighbors have bearing fig trees and have given us permission to pick.

The trouble with bearing fruit trees is that very soon, the owners of it get sick and tired of the output, so cheerfully welcome anyone who will come and take some of it away. I know this: I have been there, in Utah, where my rented house had fifteen bearing apricot trees in the back yard. Eventually couldn't even

Sizzling Summer Vegetarian Supper with Tomatos from Our San Antonio Garden

by Celia Hayes

The first of the tomatoes from the garden are coming along slowly – but this week we had a good double-handful of small cherry tomatoes, in all colors; the usual red, but some lemon-yellow ones, and some of them so-called ‘black’ which were actually a kind of pale purple. Having a couple of ears of fresh corn in the refrigerator, I decided to make a summer corn and tomato relish out of them. This recipe was pulled from Cuisine at Home, issue #52, August 2005.

Whisk together ¼ cup cider vinegar and 1 TBsp sugar, until sugar is dissolved. Combine with 2 cups grape or cherry tomatoes, 1 cup of fresh corn kernels, (From two ears of corn), ½ cup thinly sliced red

Adventures in Home Canning

by Celia Hayes

This latest adventure in home food preparation was my daughter's notion, upon noting that the aisle in our local HEB set aside for housewares and appliances had a new section for home canning supplies; including a sort of starter kit for novices; a large light-weight enamel lidded kettle, with a rack and some implements to shift around the jars ... of which there were also a nice assortment in various sizes. I was certain that we had a huge canning kettle in the garage – a gift from a military friend who was moving to another state – but we couldn't readily find it, as the garage is stuffed with items that my daughter has bought for that residence of her own which she hopes to have one day. But we might