When I was, as Daddy would say, “knee high to a grasshopper,” I slept on a small cot jammed between my parent’s bed and a window because there were a total of ten of us and only three bedrooms in our home.   At the end of my bed was a small upright chiffonier which I thought contained all the secrets of the world. Whenever I would get a chance  -- like during the middle of the one of those “pre-air” days when it was like Daddy would say, “Too blessed hot to do anything else,” I would forage through the treasures stored in that old chest.  I loved to reminisce over and guess who was in all those old black and white photographs.  One of my favorite pictures was of a young, strapping Army boy with his loaded pack standing on a pair of skis in deep snow.   Becoming a ski trooper deployed in Italy in WW II had to be tough for my dad, a flatland S.C. boy, where snow is rarer than a cold day in July.  Until he got mad, Daddy was a quiet man, and he seldom talked about his war times.  However, I would listen wide-eyed when my brothers and sisters expounded about all the war memorabilia stored in that chest. The string of machine gun rounds ignited my imagination of how Daddy fought hard against Hitler’s and Mussolini’s armies.  The Italian and other foreign coins took me around the world in my dreams. The pump-up flashlight --- oh, it must have been dark during those long nights.  The fold-out camera brought Daddy’s war to me.  But I puzzled over the pen wrapped in electrical tape in the special heavy-duty pen case.  My siblings told me about when Daddy’s squad was in a real fight and the bullets were flying.  The bullet heading for my Dad’s heart hit and ricocheted off the pen in his shirt pocket.  This explained the other reinforced box in the chest which held my father’s Purple Heart.

            How ironic the pen being mightier than the bullet.  Daddy lived, and therefore so do I.    Even though I joke a lot, and hopefully it makes these articles interesting, I seriously share with you my love for plants, people, and the Pee Dee of South Carolina (my home). Both Mom and Dad are gone now, and, by the way, we have a copy of the snapshot of that Army boy proudly mounted on their tombstone.

During WWII people started planting Victory Gardens.  With today’s increased interest in vegetable gardening many have asked me if we are going back to the Victory Garden, and I hope so.  Those days were hard but experiencing some of the basics of life, like knowing what is required to produce our own food, may be what this country needs.

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This is my favorite country meal time of year.  My mouth waters just thinking about Mama scratching around those Irish potato plants to get enough red and golden jewels to boil a pot.  The skins were easy to remove with that special potato scraping do-hicky (Mama had - I think since the beginning of time) so we wouldn’t have to waste any with the peels.  Then she would cover them with water, plop in a whole stick of butter, and boil them until they started to fall apart which made what we called the pot liquor thick with the potato starch.  http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1638,131181-252199,00.html

While they were boiling she would have me slice the squash, mince the scallions, and coat them with a thin layer of cornmeal.  After heating the oil in the fry pan, she gently rolled this glorious mixture into the hot grease --   I can still remember the sizzle  By the way, today for health purposes, I leave out the cornmeal.  Then, I helped by slicing an entire fresh cabbage, nothing was wasted --  I would even eat the raw core.  Again she would heat oil but this time in a deep pot and sizzle the cabbage – what we called frying the cabbage – before adding water to boil.  

            After grabbing a piece of Mama’s pan-fried chicken (if only the Colonel knew how to cook chicken that good), a handful of Mama’s hot biscuits, and a fresh scallion, I would sit down and totally lose myself in a country-boy’s heaven.   

            Yesterday, I got, as Mama would say, “a mess” of new potatoes, squash, and scallions from a local farmer and  now I am waiting for enough time to fix and enjoy my slice of heaven – how did Mama and Daddy ever have enough time to grow and fix enough to feed all nine of us kids.   Today I am thankful for Certified SC Grown – Nothing Fresher Nothing Finer.  We have an abundance of great SC farmers ready to provide us with the freshest locally grown produce. It’s simple  -- always look for the Certified SC Grown sign and ask, “Is this locally grown?” when you are buying produce.   Also, we now have a new website called SC MarketMaker (www.scmarketmaker.com) that connects folks interested in the SC food supply chain. http://sc.marketmaker.uiuc.edu/index.php

The Clemson University Cooperative Extension Service offers its programs to people of all ages, regardless of race, color, gender, religion, national origin, disability, political belief, sexual orientation, marital or family status and is an equal opportunity employer. http://www.clemson.edu/extension/