🍽️📚📻 ERL: Chimichuri, Confirmed Bias, the Paint Rock Valley
and an enduring gift!
🥗 Eating
Chimichuri
We have a thriving crop of parsley in our garden and out of necessity we began asking around for what to do with it. Well we found it! First, let me say this: I’m a sauce guy. I love good sauces. And I love trying to make good sauces (See October’s ERL). When visiting Guatemala, one thing I appreciated about their food culture was the fact that sauces accompany every meal. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. So whenever a friend placed an oily, green sauce on the table with dinner, my interest piqued. It was chimichurri. And the main ingredient is parsley. 😍
In our house, Morgan makes a delicious pesto. Now, we have a another sauce that adds some flair and spice to proteins, vegetables, and pasta. I won’t link a specific recipe because we are still playing with ours. The main ingredient is parsley. The background players are garlic, red pepper, and salt. The binder/medium is a high quality olive oil.
📚 Reading
The Lessons of History by Will and Ariel Durant
This book has done a great job of confirming some of my bias. Which I appreciate. The authors, a husband wife duo, were both born in the late 1800’s and died within 13 days of each other in 1981. Their most notable work, an eleven-volume series covering the history of Western civilization from ancient times to the early 20th century, took the better part of 5 decades to write. The Lessons of History is a distillation of the key themes and patterns they observed while producing their life’s work. Will and Ariel are in a class of their own and their insights are certainly worthy of consideration.
Homesteading: How to find New Independence on the Land by Gene Logsdon
"The organic homestead means something deeper than either the nobility of work or the pleasantness of leisure. What it must provide -- if the homestead is to have true success -- is a shrine to tranquility, an island of calm sanity to which you can retreat each day from the hectic outside world.”
The mental capacity to read in bed at night ebbs and flows. Rarely do I ever have enough brain power to process technical books in bed at night. For me, Gene Logsdon’s writing style is the perfect blend of story, humor, experience, and teaching for the final 7-12 mintues of consciousness before the lights go off.
I was given this book by my 7th/8th grade science/history teacher, Mr. McCready. I remember the first day I walked into his classroom and the cork billboard on the wall only said “What is Truth?” Mr. McCready was a bit odd. He looked odd and the questions he asked were odd. I have more memories of him and his classes than any other teacher of mine. This includes the memory of reading outloud in science class and accidentily read “organism” as “orgasm.” We laughed about that … years later. He challenged his students to think outside the box and to question everything. He was the type of person that challenged the established narrative. The older I get, the more I realize the impression and impact he had on me. I miss him.
After I graduated from high school, I would occasionally go visit Mr. McCready’s homestead and have cookies with him and his wife. He noticed my interest in homesteading and gardening and gave me this book.
Alabama Heritage: “The Paint Rock Valley” by John B. Scott Jr.
The Paint Rock Valley is now my home. I found this article in the Spring of 1999 edition of the Alabama Heritage magazine while doing some research. After reading it I almost read it again. I didn’t want it to end.
📻 Listening
“Garden Jams” - You’re Welcome! 🙂
Don’t Forget!
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I love the play list! Listening as I walk. I sent a link to Anne McCready Ortiz. I can't wait to hear her reaction!