A Traditional Farm Life
By Shasta Hamilton
Greetings from Enterprise, dear friends! Here’s a news flash for you: Hollyhock
Growing in sidewalk, Downtown Enterprise.
Maybe this is not exactly a front page headline, but it sure
does fascinate me. Hollyhocks are
traditional cottage-garden flowers that can grow 6 to 8 feet tall. They are one of the few flowers I am familiar
with, as my mother and I brought hollyhock seed back with us from a trip to the
former Mennonite vlllages in the Ukraine nearly twenty years ago. She planted them in her “heritage garden” in
back of her house and since then they have gone to seed every year and popped
up anywhere and everywhere.
So you can imagine my surprise last fall when I saw a young
hollyhock popping up where a brick was dislodged in the cobblestone sidewalk in
front of The Buggy Stop. Now that spring
growth as begun, my little hollyhock friend is back again.
It now has three leaves, each growing larger everyday. So far it has not been stepped on by an
unobservant pedestrian, but I wonder how long such good fortune can last. I’ve considered pulling all the weeds in the
cracks around it, but might that perhaps draw unwanted attention to my little
friend?
Aside from my sentimental attachment to hollyhocks in
general, I’ve decided that I’m interested in the welfare of this particular
hollyhock for one simple reason: It’s an
underdog.
Everybody likes to cheer for the underdog, right? From basketball to the presidential election,
it’s human nature to cheer on the team that doesn’t seem to have a chance.
The chances probably aren’t very good that my hollyhock
friend will attain six-foot stature as a fixture of downtown Enterprise this
summer, but I’ll be cheering for it from the sidelines—or sidewalk--as the case
may be.
At home, I’ve been off the bench and placed center court
lately with my trusty sewing machine, mending our 6-year-old’s overalls. Those brand-spanking-new dark blue denim
beauties from last December have hardly faded, and yet every single pair is now
sporting holes in the knees—and often in the “seat.”
This year’s size sevens are finally big enough I don’t have
to rip out the side seam in order to sew on a knee patch, but it’s still a pain
in the, well, “seat” to get the job
done. Regardless, I’m glad to have an
active little guy who works and plays so hard outside.
Our underdog theme this week even extends into the
kitchen. I was paging through Marlene
Anne Bumgarner’s The Book of Whole Grains over the weekend and was
struck by her recipe for oatmeal. Cooked
oatmeal for breakfast is a perennial porridge underdog here at the Hamilton’s,
so Bumgarner’s glowing lead-in to her recipe immediately grabbed my attention:
“My husband [Henrik] wouldn’t eat oatmeal when we first met,
and made nasty remarks about the consistency of every batch I made. Then a friend passed on her secret recipe,
and oatmeal has been a favorite breakfast at our home ever since. The secret is out now, and for all of you who
hate gummy porridge I predict many enjoyable bowls of this oatmeal.”
Predictably, I couldn’t wait to try out this “secret recipe”
on my oatmeal hating brood. After all,
the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, right?
Alas, oatmeal is still an underdog at our house, but my dear
husband (an oatmeal hater since his grandmother made him eat it plain without
sugar as a child) conceded it was “better than usual.”
It certainly was not gummy at all, but both times we made
this recipe there was liquid in the pan that was not fully absorbed. It also took about 10 minutes off heat,
tightly covered, for the old-fashioned oats to fully soften. (Next time I try it I’ll probably reduce the
water slightly.)
Are you game? Who
knows--maybe Henrik’s Oatmeal will be a “slam dunk” on your home court!
Henrik’s Oatmeal
Bring to a boil:
1-1/2 cups water
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup raisins
Add to this:
1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1. Stir once to moisten oats, cover tightly, and remove pan
from heat. Allow to sit for 3-5
minutes. Serve with milk and honey. Yield: 2 servings.
Recipe taken from The Book of Whole Grains by Marlene
Anne Bumgarner, page 58.
Shasta notes:
1/3 cup brown sugar can be added to the water before boiling in lieu of
honey. Bring water to a full rolling
boil; even so, 10 minutes were needed off heat for oats to fully absorb
water. Cinnamon could also be added to
taste.
Copyright © 2016 by Shasta Hamilton
Shasta is a fifth generation rural Kansan now residing in
Enterprise, Kansas. She and her husband
own and operate The Buggy Stop Home-Style Kitchen with their six home-schooled
children. You can reach The Buggy Stop
by calling (785) 200-6385 or visit them on the web at www.thebuggystoprestaurant.com
.
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