Snackables and a Sweet for the Super Superintendents

When indulging in the unparalleled joy of a long-overdue reunion with two amazing colleagues from the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, one should offer in return some indulgences to help the visit be sweet and savored.

A staple for decades back home in Buies Creek, as part of entertaining and get-togethers and especially Christmas family gatherings—and a tribute to the prime Eastern North Carolina agricultural offering—sugar(ed) peanuts are an addictive snack. Starting with raw shelled peanuts, preferably still in their red skins, they are boiled in what is essentially a simple syrup before getting a good baking in a low-temp oven. The sugar crystallizes as an adorning shell and the actual number consumed in a sitting remains classified. This is one time I'm happy to work for peanuts.

While I wanted to avoid repetition, I did make a new batch of pimento cheese even though I'd served that to Donna and Ebbie when they were here before. Donna made the insightful discovery that a bit of toasting of slices from Monday night's maple milk bread creates a pretty remarkable landing spot for the pimento cheese, as an alternative to the usual dependence on Wheat Thins.

Our mornings were helped along by bowls of fresh fruit, along with our coffees or teas. None of us are real breakfast eaters so this all worked out splendidly.

The dessert I made to follow Monday evening's meal was aplenty and appreciated enough to carry us through the rest of their all-too-short time here: apple crisp cheesecake bars on a brown sugar shortbread crust, with a drizzle of bourbon caramel sauce I made a while back. Our squares looked too large each evening, upon first glance, but grew disappointingly smaller with each tasty bite.

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"South Carolina-Style Pimento Cheese." Recipe worked out by me, based on Sharon's Palmetto Pimento Cheese.

"Sugar Peanuts," long a staple of holiday gatherings in the Jones Family household. Recipe from my mother.

"Apple Crisp Cheesecake Bars," from Meghan McGarry of ButtercreamBlondie.com. [Published 03 October 2014]

Meal No. 3327: Braided Beef & Broccoli Strudel

With wonderful retired colleagues from Virginia so generously offering the pleasure of their company on a visit this week to the Roediger House, I wanted the meals to suit the specialness of the guests without keeping me from spending time with them. The braided beef and broccoli strudel we sat down to on Tuesday night fit that bill by being pretty scrumptious but also not so terribly hard to throw together. We enjoyed our portions with some homemade garlic creme sauce as well as well-roasted broccoli florets, boosted in their flavors with a perfect herb spice mix so thoughtfully brought by Donna.

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Adapted to puff pastry from "Savory Garlic Beef & Broccoli Turnovers," by Kirsten Renee Shabaz of Minneapolis, MN. Taste of Home, November 2011, p. 31. (Go to food.com for a copy of the original recipe.)

Strudel version inspired by "Chicken Mushroom Strudel," from Chef John Mitzewich of FoodWishes.com and AllRecipes.com. [Published 28 October 2022[

Adapted from "Make Your Own Cooking Creme," from CKolden on epicurious.com. [Published 24 September 2015]

Meal No. 3326: Vierling Saloon Chicken and Wild Rice Soup

This was an extra awesome week at the Roediger House because it began Monday with a long-overdue visit of dear friends and colleagues Donna and Ebbie from Virginia. The pandemic has kept us from getting together sooner, so it's been a long five years since their inaugural traipse down I-81 to the fair city of Winston-Salem and the cozy confines of the Roediger House. It was so good to see them, and the visit was over all too soon. We began our fellowship-over-food portion with steaming bowls of Vierling Saloon chicken and wild rice soup, delicious and full-flavored and gratifying. Along with it I tried (for the second time now) the maple milk bread recipe from Eric Kim of the New York Times. It is comfortable bed of sweet yeasty goodness to fall into, in a strictly metephorical sense. Donna reported on Tuesday that it was also pretty satisfying when toasted and topped with a bit of my homemade pimento cheese.

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"Vierling Saloon Cream of Chicken and Wild Rice Soup," formerly offered at the Vierling Saloon in Marquette, Michigan. Another online version of the recipe can be found at Miss Mary's Blog.

"Fluffy Maple Milk Bread," from Eric Kim of New York Times Cooking. [Published 16 March 2022]

Meal No. 3325: Pasta Shells with Sausage, Basil, and Mustard

From a recipe snagged long ago and occasionally brought out when I remember how simple, straightforward, and deliciously filling it is, I happily graced the dinner bowls Sunday evening with pasta shells mixed into a creamy zingy basil and mustard sauce, with Italian sausage bits in every bite to make it hearty. There is always the temptation to overindulge in it and I will make no further statements at this time.

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"Pasta with Sausage, Basil, and Mustard," by Nigel Slater and published in Food & Wine, September 2002.

Making the Most of Early Spring Weather

Both Thursday and Friday were gorgeous spring days, perfect for a mix of yard labors, including continued expansion of the irrigation dripline system and spreading more of the mulch. I squeezed in the second cutting of the yard after supper Saturday and mulched more until it was too dark to see. My tired body each day felt good, though, joyful in the face of these simple pleasures.

On Friday, when we topped out at 85°F here, I finally got around to adjusting the height of several planting bed zone irrigation access points. It seems I never captured any particularly revealing photos of them but one is visible above ground in this photo of Sumner from 2022:

I think I was caught with a limited size option for those line taps at a crucial juncture in the original installation and build, with the idea I’d come back and cut them down to ground level. In the meantime, they’ve stood at attention, capped off and unuseful, waiting for this fix so that I could attach dripline converters and filters to them, to then be ready for laying out drip lines and bubblers and emitters.

Setting up the drip line systems so they could now provide water directly to plants was a lot more tedious than I had anticipated. I’m a novice and newbie, which is one factor, and in an ironic twist for an educational consultant, my efforts suffer because I’m going in without a plan!

To my rescue comes the digitized property maps I worked up a while back. On Saturday, I took measurements, drew out how various elements of the system needed to be cut and connected, and also took advantage of access to sink-side hot water that softens the tubing and makes the joining less difficult. Cutting to measure, assembling either inside or on the tailgate of the truck, and operating with a more defined schematic were key to Saturday’s larger success on the project.

As we march into this spring, I’m so very happy with the lawn sprinklers, and now I’m going to benefit from having irrigation for many of the front planting areas. That includes the concrete planters that belonged to my mother. I followed some ingenious guidance online to configure driplines within them, that then connect to my bedding area watering zone. I don’t want to walk around with a watering can if I’ve gone to all this trouble to create an expansive irrigation set-up.

Once the sun broke through as Saturday morning’s rainy spell passed on, and we warmed up a bit, it really was just an ideal day outside. I deliberately took my breaks in the camp chair on the freshly mowed front lawn because it was an early taste of the weekend rituals of the good weather seasons, when you live across the street from a very popular Italian restaurant and many patrons park in front of the house. Sumner rushes forward to greet them, and most are obliging of his snorting demands for attention. A few folks are regulars, and we’ll chat and catch up for a few minutes either as they come or as they go. The comments people make about the house and the yard can certainly be gratifying. I’m honest with them about how fortunate I feel to have this as my home.

Meal No. 3324: Bacon, Egg, and Cheese Sandwiches

Only the morning yesterday was a disappointment, with its several hours of wet and grey. But when we rolled into afternoon the sun shone brightly and the breezes blew lightly and it was an ideal prematurely awesome spring day. Because I spent almost all of it outside, it meant the dinner must be quick and easy and simple. Bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches fit that bill perfectly.

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Guidance for "fried" eggs from "How to Bake Eggs in a Muffin Tin in the Oven," from Alexa Blay of Key to My Lime. [Published 04 September 2019]

Meal No. 3323: Barbecue Chicken and Bacon Pan Pizza

Earlier in the week, I baked a pair of split chicken breasts but seasoned them differently so as to dedicate them to diverging purposes. The second one got a hickory smoke and spice blend, setting it up to adorn Thursday evening’s barbecue chicken and bacon pan pizza. Lordy, it was a platter of delight, perhaps not quite equal to the appetite I had worked up.

The beginning project on that Thursday morning sent me out onto the kitchen roof on the back of the house because I am now of the age to have a weather station. This is a WeatherFlow Tempest, solar-powered and WiFi-enabled, and it integrates into my Rachio irrigation control so that real-time accurate indications for rain and such help monitor the watering cycles.

I’d snagged this on a special a while back, and then I dragged my feet on getting the mounting post for it. While it would have been nice to get it up high on the rear gable for the 3rd floor pool table area, up above the roofline, there just wasn’t a suitable mounting spot that I liked. But I do like the current, real-time, specific information it provides, as noted from this screenshot from the app just a few minutes ago, which helpfully reports we've received just shy of a quarter inch of rain so far this morning:

Spending time looking at seldom-seen exterior portions of the house reminded me of how neglected at present is this particular responsibility of home ownership. Gutter replacement, wood trim repair, and painting are at a point of critical need and it will only become more pressing with each passing day.

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Pizza Crust based on "Fool-Proof Pan Pizza," by J. Kenji López-Alt, culinary consultant for SeriousEats.com. [Updated 26 April 2021]

Meal No. 3322: Juicy Burgers on the Grill

The craving for a burger cannot always be resisted. That was the story on a grey dreary wet Wednesday when I had chomped at the bit to be outside tackling yardwork and was instead relegated indoors to find other ways to spend my energies.

One project of note was the installation of a second video doorbell, this time at the front door. It's a cool gizmo not only because it is savvy enough to only do alerts when a human being approaches, but it's got a second downward looking camera that keeps an eye on any packages that have been delivered. Now the Roediger House can benefit from better, more selective security camera monitoring of two main points of access to the abode; I take additional comfort in that. And I should also know when it's time to grab the mail, if nothing else:

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"Juicy Burgers," originally from Pillsbury Classic Cookbooks recipe magazine, July 2003, p. 52-53. After Pillsbury was purchased in 2001 by General Mills, home of Betty Crocker (founded in 1921, mind you!), it basically ceased to exist as a company and lives on just as a brand. I guess that's why a Pillsbury cookbook recipe from 2003 is now only found on the Betty Crocker website.

Meal No. 3321: Baked Herbed Split Chicken Breasts

The first full day of spring on Tuesday: sunny and bright, warm enough for outdoor labors, and definitely a fine time to receive the year's first delivery of mulch from my long-time suppliers at Pope Sand and Gravel.

It's an abundant heap that promises much upcoming toil for me, which I will absolutely enjoy, but thanks to plans for a movie outing, I did not get started on that day.

Plenty of other things were worth doing in the yard, including spade-turning part of the kitchen garden (above), more weeding and pulling up some nefarious invasive root structures, and checking on the progress of my tulips:

My work break to enjoy a honeycrisp apple led to a disconcerting discovery, but I persisted with all the good portions of it nonetheless:

It was no shock that I had a good appetite for dinner and made it a plate full: baked herbed split chicken breast, easy stovetop stuffing, and roasted broccoli florets:

After the movie that night, I returned to the kitchen and out came some incredible sugar cookies for the bedtime sweet treat:

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Based on "Mardi Gras Sugar Cookies," from Kelly of AmericanCupcakeAbroad.com. [Published 20 February 2012]

Oatmeal Lace Cookies

When the official moment of the vernal equinox occurred at 5:24 pm EDT on Monday, we had recovered from that morning’s low point of 27°F but only achieved a sunny high of 48°F at the house. (I left for my afternoon walk when it was still winter, and arrived home 20 minutes into spring.) The inaugural bounty of tulip bulbs I’d planted last fall were joyous reaped rewards as they continued their graduated emergence into fuller bloom, although a few bore the weight of that overnight cold wave and were bent into sad submission. I’m glad I took advantage of sunshine while still bundled against winter’s final 36 hours in order to plant spring bulbs in various areas.

The early day portions of stroganoff leftovers only sustained us so far, so when most people might’ve been making dinner, I was trying another new cookie recipe: oatmeal lace cookies. They did not require softened butter and that allowed me to tackle them as soon as I caught my breath post-walk on Monday. The National Year Of calendar told me a recent day was designated to celebrate oatmeal lace cookies, which is what put the idea in my head to try these. Too impatient to let them completely set up, I had to fork-scoop them and was rewarded with a very sweet but tasty result

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"Oatmeal Lace Cookies," from Kathy Berget of Beyond the Chicken Coop. [Published 10 December 2022]

Meal No. 3320: Skillet Beef Stroganoff

On its final day, winter chose to put its foot down in an inconsequential quiet tantrum, gifting us with a near freezing morning wake-up on Sunday and holding the highs in the 40s. A final fire of the 2022-2023 winter was called for and, once the coffee-making priority was satisfied, a match was struck to a pre-laid hardwood build, and the stack roared to flame-licking life: Fire No. 87. I feel a sense of workman’s competence if the laid fire’s first “chapter” is a full but long and solid burn, before it calls to be fed and tended. Sumner settled into one fireside chair, and I into the other, and the Miles Davis station played softly on the Sonos behind us.

My four years residing on the East Range at the University of Virginia are the key source of any skills or techniques I might claim for building a suitable fire. I took full advantage of the operable fireplace in those historic rooms, perhaps often tempting fate with how grand were their blazes on occasion. I had a great source for my wood supply and might go through three or four deliveries in a Charlottesville winter. I operate today under essentially the same rule as I did in those idyllic days on those hallowed Grounds: if it’s under 50, a fire is nifty.

Once he’d scarfed down his breakfast and we once more patrolled the grounds until he was satisfied all was well, Sumner then settled onto my lap as the kitchen area grew lighter with the brilliant sunlight climbing over the city skyline to our east. Coffee in my cup, a swirl of writing thoughts in my head, a grandly comfortable homestead of security and serenity, and the steady march of fulfilling days looming with promise…I wished winter well with no reserve of resentment to color the send-off.

Sunday's main meal was the consistently delicious skillet beef stroganoff. Piled high in bowls, topped with shredded sharp white cheddar, decorated with a few dashes of parsley...it was well-suited to the chilly day appetites.

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Based on "Beef Stroganoff Hamburger Dinner in a Skillet," by Emeril Lagasse. Found online at The Food Network and also on Emerils.com.

St. Patrick's Day Green Velvet Cake

The small but special dinner gathering that occurred on St. Patrick's Day would have felt incomplete without a dessert, and the dessert would have felt out of place without some tie-in to the holiday. That's what food coloring is for, after all. Using the most tremendously excellent white velvet cake recipe for the cake layers, which I made a wonderful vibrant green, and then adding a white chocolate buttercream with a lighter green coloring, it was cool enough to proudly serve and delicious enough to speedily consume.

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"White Velvet Cake," from Barry C. Parsons of Rock Recipes. [Published October 2012 / Updated 22 February 2023]

"White Chocolate Buttercream Frosting," from "How To Make a Rose Ombre Cake" by Megan Keno, the Country Cleaver, who blogs at HomemadeHome.com. [Published 23 June 2022]

Some additional guidance from "Purple Ombre Cake," by Jen Perez, the Beantown Baker. [Published 20 April 2012]

Meal No. 3319: Beef & Broccoli Braided Strudel

St. Patrick's Day is not particularly a big deal to me—you will not find me craving a night at the bar that slides into forgotten stumbling blurs. I might come a little closer to having some holiday-appropriate recipes to toss into the mix. This year the occasion fell on Friday night, but alas: it was a cold and drizzly and terribly dreary day. There were three of us at the dinner table, awesome and delightful for a quiet gathering, and suitable to a fancy-looking but simple enough braided beef and broccoli strudel. This one is a deceptive main dish, rather simple to throw together, but once you do a braid out of store-bought puff pastry, and give it a good egg wash before baking, it looks like you've really gone all out. We added canned peas to round out the dinner plate, and they were a poor match for the central attraction.

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Adapted to puff pastry from "Savory Garlic Beef & Broccoli Turnovers," by Kirsten Renee Shabaz of Minneapolis, MN. Taste of Home, November 2011, p. 31. (Go to food.com for a copy of the original recipe.)

Strudel version inspired by "Chicken Mushroom Strudel," from Chef John Mitzewich of FoodWishes.com and AllRecipes.com. [Published 28 October 2022[

Adapted from "Make Your Own Cooking Creme," from CKolden on epicurious.com. [Published 24 September 2015]

McNeely Pest Control: In Memoriam

It's been my goal to be a faithful supporter of local businesses, especially since I moved to downtown Winston-Salem. That's how I've chosen my insurance agents, the restaurants I'll patronize, and the provider of my pest control services. For the last 14 years, I've enjoyed exceptionally pleasing pest control from the folks at McNeely. Alas, they've been acquired by the world's largest pest control conglomerate, also the parent company of Terminix, and that just won't do. So I've made the switch to Ray's Pest Control, highly rated on Google and with their home office walking distance from the house.

Kitchen Treats of Early March

Cap'n Crunch Cookies. The backlog of posts, waiting in the queue for my daily dispatches and diatribes, leads me just past this Ides of March to consolidate some entries. This one is devoted to the sweet treats and fun foods of late, starting with a batch of Cap'n Crunch cookies that I made on Tuesday March 7th to take with me for an afternoon session with educators down in Montgomery County.

The WORST Chocolate Chip Cookies. A special request was made for the recipe known as the WORST chocolate chip cookies, so that was the dessert on Wednesday night that week. It made sense: I gave away all of the Cap'n Crunch cookies save for my one sample, so more cookies were definitely called for.

Atlantic Beach Pie. To go along with pizza and a movie on Thursday night, I made a fresh Atlantic Beach pie. I realize it was a quick repeat for this amazing concoction but I had a couple of egg yolks to use up plus a bag of lemons in the butler's pantry. I'm easily persuaded by these minor serendipities.

Lemon Cheesecake with Biscoff Crust. The Sunday evening gathering in celebration of Amy's birthday featured a weather-inspired main meal, but the dessert was simply its own sunny day: lemon cheesecake on a Biscoff crust. I'd made this once before, when I had an abundance of Meyer lemons over the Christmas holidays, and it was stupendous. Turns out it's pretty remarkable even with ordinary standard lemons, too. It came out a tad more fragile but once on our forks and headed to our mouths, did that still matter a great deal? Anyway, that was the meal-ending special treat in honor of that special lady Amy!

Chewy Brown Sugar Cookies. Finally, we come to Wednesday March 15, when I found my way to the kitchen after a good long walk and also some yardwork...and out came these amazing chewy brown sugar cookies. There really ain't much to the recipe but it sure is the right one, if it's a good cookie that you were hoping for.

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March 9: A Day in the Life

Speaking of sweet things, let me unspool a grateful recounting of a lovely late winter day, specifically Thursday a week ago, which began with this color-filled dawning of the day over our fair city. It was a day full of sunshine, largely, and with mostly stilled breezes, it could be incredibly pleasant outside even though we barely hit 60°F. Ah, but my desires were not sufficiently fueled by determination and too many of the yard chores called for during this stage of the shifting seasons got ignored. But I did give the front yard its first cutting of the year, and I also spread fertilizer in anticipation of the next day’s rains.

The cherry trees gave a more enduring performance than the Bradford pear, keeping The Grove in splendid display. The camp chair sitting time on the driveway, with coffee and writing pad and the occasional waves to neighbors, benefited from that pink-tinged cottony canopy of snowy flowered wonder.

Around mid-day, I caught quick sight of a male bluebird, first checking out the house on the fence, and then partaking of the suet nuggets from a feeder in the cherry tree.

I grabbed my digital camera with its zoom lens, and while I wish the light had cooperated a bit better, I’ll always be glad to have seen and, sometimes, to have photographed these itinerant beauties

Since I don’t use that camera much, ever since I got my iPhone, I realized I had a couple of other bluebird photos from February 10th, so here they are:

Most of you would prefer not to know about the petrified dead rat that was under the lawnmower in its storage spot, but I’m glad it was a petrified dead rat.

As is often the case with Sumner, while he’s bursting with energy when he is outside on the lookout and on the prowl and always smelling and listening, once inside, he is definitely content to sprawl and nap:

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"Cap'n Crunch Cookies," found online at The Capitol Baker, with credit going to The Sugar Plum Blog for inspiration and the source of the adapted recipe.

"The WORST EVER Chocolate Chip Cookies," from Sam Merritt of SugarSpunRun.com. [Published 28 November 2018; Updated 13 November 2019]

"One Phenomenal Pie: Atlantic Beach Pie," from Chef Bill Smith. Published in Our State Magazine, May 2014. Also featured in "Found Recipes" on All Things Considered from National Public Radio, broadcast April 13, 2013.

"Meyer Lemon Cheesecake with Biscoff Crust," by Lucy Mercer on Food52.com. [Published 17 February 2022]

"Chewy Brown Sugar Cookies," from Yvonne Ruperti of SeriousEats.com. [Published 24 September 2013 / Updated 30 April 2019]