Wednesday, December 02, 2009

This Nut's Nuts About Nuts .....

One of the perk's to the cooler temperatures we've been experiencing ... it's time to get out there and gather pecans. There's nothing like the approach of winter to convince even the hardiest among them to split-open their outer husks and drop to the ground ...

... where they find me waiting. A couple times a week, after dropping Elder Son off at Math Lab, I proceed to the nearest public pecan tree, bag in hand, and gather-up a few dozen candidates for my next batch of cookies, muffins, cake frosting, pralines, whatever.

And while I don't "work" the public trees the way some do, there's still plenty to meet my needs for my brief forays into the kitchen, and the needs of others I encounter under the trees, gathering their own batch of fresh pecans, and making their own culinary plans.

And there will probably be more pecans on the ground a few days later. Pecans seem to drop like that, in fits and starts, following intermittent pauses ... different, really, from crops like cotton, which seems to follow a much stricter timeline in opening-up for harvest, responding to man's prodding as much as - or more than - nature's.

2 comments:

Rob said...

I often snack on almonds as a way to satisfy munchies without guilt. And like you, I love pecans too, but it's this time of year that I always find myself hankering for roasted chestnuts. Now mind you, I've never had roasted chestnuts, but that danged Christmas song sure makes me want to! If you happen across someone selling those, please lemme know!

Jeff said...

Rob, it's something you can do at home. But it always seemed to be more special to buy it from a street vendor's push-cart, in the midst of shopping, with the snow falling, Christmas music on some PA speakers somewhere, and all that.