Memorial Day, 2017

“Your silent tents of green,
We deck with fragrant flowers;
Yours has the suffering been,
The memory shall be ours.”

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Now for Something Decadently Different - Smoke Roasted Avocado

Smoke roasted avocado with creamy eggs! Here is how I did it.

1.) Fire up the smoker/grill.
2.) Fry bacon in an iron skillet.
3.) Remove bacon and sauté chopped onion and chopped chili pepper.
4.) Remove onions/peppers and set aside.
5.) Reserve bacon fat.
6.) Slice avocado in half, remove pit, slice a thin slither off the "bottom" to make a sturdy base.
7.) Add a teaspoon of bacon fat to the pit cavity of each avocado half.
8.) Season with salt and pepper to taste.
9.) Crack an egg into each pit cavity.
10.) Put a teaspoon of bacon fat over each egg.
11.) Top with the sautéed onions and peppers and jack cheese.
12.) Cook indirect at around 350 degrees F until the egg reaches desired level of safe doneness.

That's it. Serve with the bacon and some Indian hoe cake on the side. Smokers like the Big Green Egg and Chargriller Akorn make this kind of thing easy. Just fire up with direct heat for the frying part. Then, put in the diffuser for the smoking part.

Struttin' with some Barbecue

Written by Louis Armstrong's wife in about 1927, this tune entitled "Struttin' with some Barbecue" isn't about food. The word barbecue in the jazz musician slang of that era meant pretty girl. Pay attention to the notes Armstrong hits playing that horn. It's quite amazing.

A Brother Lost and Found

This post isn't about food but, I did find it interesting. So, here you go.

On March 21, 1782 near Walker's Creek in what is now Bland County, Virginia, a band of Indians attacked settlers and their families in an attempt, apparently, to repel the foreigners that had invaded their land. Finding an entire family save one son at home in their cabin, they killed the father and took his wife and two of his children captive. Even though the band of Indians were immediately pursued by experienced woodsmen, they were never located.

A number of years later, General Rogers Clarke engaged in one of his several expeditions to quell the Indian threat in Kentucky was encamped on the banks of the Ohio river waiting for the return of a group of scouts led by a man named White. One account of the story claims that White was on an intelligence gathering mission looking to take an Indian prisoner for questioning. Another account claims that White was out looking for game. Most likely, he was out looking for game while on his mission for the General. Either way,  White discovered an Indian village after following "a faint trail." A short distance from where he and his group camped, he saw a solitary Indian sitting on a log mending his moccasins. White's first instinct was to shoot the Indian. But, after realizing that the sound of the discharging rifle might alert other Indians, he decided to stalk his prey instead.

Creeping softly up from behind, White "being remarkable for" his "size, strength, agility, courage and prudence" grasped the Indian by the throat and presented a pistol to his head. In a few hurried words in the language of the tribe, White explained that if he made any noise he would shoot him instantly through the head. This threat convinced the Indian to return to the General with White and his men. After returning to the General with their prize, upon beholding the Indian Clarke exclaimed, "This is no Indian!"

After interrogation, the "Indian" explained how he was kidnapped by Indians as a little boy near Walker's Creek. After attempts to confirm the truth of the many details of his story, White and the "Indian" realized that they were brothers. That "Indian" was his little brother that was kidnapped so many years earlier. White's brother would later serve in the Kentucky Legislature but was known to still spend months at a time in the woods.

Sources - A New and Comprehensive Gazetteer of Virginia, Joseph Martin, 1835 & History of Southwest Virginia, 1746-1786, Washington County, 1777-1870, Lewis Preston Summers, 1903