A-maize-ing Corn

Our late sown, meager little corn patch actually produced much better than we thought it would there for a while. Instead of corn as high as an elephants eye; it had been more like knee high to a grasshopper. That was then...this is now. It made up for lost time. We ate fresh corn several times and got lots for the freezer.

Preparing corn for the freezer always brings back memories for me.

When I was in high school, we lived in a teeny tiny little old house. It had an attached laundry room, pantry, and woodshed, with a weathered wood covered porch running the length of them. My sisters and I would sit at the end of the porch, facing the orchard, singing and talking, and shucking the corn. Then I would help Mama blanch it, cool it in the icewater, and slice off the yummy slabs into the pan. When the corn is like a jig saw puzzle in which the pieces have not been all separated yet, mmmm that's it's absolute best!
That porch, the little old house, the orchard; they were the inspiration for my folk song lyrics, poetry, and black and white photography. They all fed the soulful, melancholy emotions of a teen-age girl, listening to Simon and Garfunkle, Judy Collins, and Joni Mitchell at the time.

A few years later, I was living in California. I was a young wife with a baby who was only a couple of months old. Jim was gone for 3 1/2 months to San Antonio, Texas. I was listening to Carla Emery on the radio, promoting her Encyclopedia of Country Living. I thought if we had a little family now, then we should have a little freezer too. My plan was to surprise him while he was gone, and get one. We had a very limited budget, every penny was spoken for. So I lived on what food was already in the cupboard. What I remember the most were meals and meals of my Mom's home canned green beans from our last visit to Oregon, and instant mashed potatoes. There was no one else to cook for, so I just fixed the same thing day in and day out, saving the food money for the freezer. I can't tell you how thrilled I was when it was delivered!

That next weekend,

I loaded Sarah into the car,

splurged on a taco for lunch,

then headed to the local farmer's market

and got CORN!

I shucked it, blanched it, cooled it, sliced it off, and snitched the very yummiest choice slabs, before bagging the rest and freezing it. I was so proud when Jim came home, having him cover his eyes, then SURPRISE! as I showed him the freezer, almost empty,

but for the corn.