Toledo Talks - Working the Soil

Toledo Cats

Maybe the snow still covers the ground in some places, but down here in New Orleans, I can smell the soil. It calls me and makes me want to dig my hands into it and feel the worms squirm out from between my fingers. My family has always worked the soil.

Mama kept a garden, even after we moved to town. Each spring, I helped her plant herbs and flowers. She would tell me their purpose. Mama barely ever planted anything without a purpose. It's how she grew up. Of course, Mama could always find a purpose for just about any plant. Why would the Great Mother have put them here with no purpose?

Yes, I smell Mama in the springtime. But I also smell my Uncle Jesse. While Mama planted small gardens with her hands, Jesse planted fields of sugar cane. He would work all morning and come in for dinner around noon, glistening with sweat and grinning ear to ear. "The ground's good this year," he'd say. "We're gonna get ourselves a good crop of cane sugar." His eyes would glisten and by the time I was older, I knew cane sugar meant rum and rum meant sales...especially to Grumwald. But when I was younger, I was content to sneak into the fields and listen to him sing. Jesse's voice was so deep and wonderful. It transported me to other worlds...worlds I had not been to and neither had he....worlds he had learned of from the stories told by his father...my grandfather...who I never met.

Toledo Talks -- Celery Root: Ugly but Beautiful

I remember watching Mama cook celery root when I was five or six. I remember being scared of the ugly thing she plopped down on the counter -- all rough and misshapen. I said "I'm not gonna eat that, Mama."

Hanover was there and he said, "Me and Swampy play catch with those things."

Mama said, as I imagine most Mamas do, "You'll eat what I put on the table and you'll like it."

Celery root

I ate it, of course. Mama had a way of making sure I ate my vegetables and it usually involved some fresh-baked pie or cobbler cooking in the oven, filling the room with a fragrant promise for later, after I'd managed to choke down this awful looking monster of a vegetable.

As I grew older, celery root became just part of the meal. Something we ate from time to time, especially when Mama was stressed or if I had an important test in school the next day. I came to enjoy its sweet, spicy flavor and would even sometimes ask Mama to make it.

Sliced celery root

Hanover even likes it, especially when it is cooked up with carrots, onion, beef, and tomato. It turns out he had always liked it and he was just giving Mama trouble. Sure, he and Swampy tossed around the root. Swampy had cultivated some he'd found. Late each autumn, he'd convince Hanover to help him dig it up and toss it in the cellar. Through the winter, Swampy would use the root himself and sell it to the chefs around town. It turns out, some consider it something of a delicacy. They call it celeriac.

Celery root with carrots and onions

I didn't fully appreciate celery root until much later, after Mama had passed on to a life without me. Of course she'd told me of its health benefits -- she knew even before the scientists did -- that it was good for the digestive system and helped calm stressed out teenagers. She knew it helped people to be mentally alert and she'd often take a raw chunk of it along on deliveries if she suspected the labor would be a long and difficult one. But like most kids, I never paid much mind.

Hanover's Favorite

Then one day, I remembered. Hanover was distraught about a case he was working on. He was particularly bothered about how the victims were murdered. I wanted to cook him up something special to help him relax. So I sautéed up some celery root, carrots, and onions. I put a nice small roast on top, along with sliced tomato and let them cook until they were rare -- just the way Hanover likes them. Then I melted a little Parmesan cheese on top. I served it to Hanover along with some red wine.
I'm not saying it worked magic. I've sworn never to work magic on Hanover. But it did help him relax. The next morning, Hanover woke early and reexamined the evidence. He saw something he'd never noticed before -- a pattern he'd never seen. I like to think the celery root had something to do with it.

Do you want to know more about celery root? Here are some links:
Health Benefits of Celery Root
What to Cook Now: Celery Root
What is Celeriac?

I'd like to give a special thanks to Paul's Farm Fresh Produce Market for the organic vegetables and grass-fed beef used in the photo shoot. It was all delicious.

Remembering Mama's Garden

Toledo Cats

My favorite part of springtime is getting down and dirty. I mean kneeling in the dirt, working compost into the soil, planting seeds, and nurturing my plants. It wouldn't be May if I didn't have dirt under my nails and mud on my knees. Mama was the same way.

I miss those days of working shoulder to shoulder with my mama, pulling weeds and listening to the fairies chatter away. Mama could hear them too, although she never let on. She just sang softly to herself, every now and then pausing to tell me the name of an herb and what it's used for.

We had every kind of herb in our garden, growing stem to stem with flowers, fruits and vegetables. Not each item in a row, but all mixed up together. A symphony of colors and fragrance. That's one of the reasons kneeling down was so much fun. As we crawled along, pulling weeds and smashing unwanted insects, the scent of basil, garlic, petunia, rosemary, chives, roses, onion, fennel, lavender wafted up around us, changing as we made our way around the courtyard.

Of course we left some weeds alone. Some weeds like the dandelion can be useful. Even stinging nettle has its place. But there's a reason people say "She's growing like a weed." Weeds grow faster than any other plant, so we had to thin them out to leave room for the other plants to grow.

Just like I thin them out now -- working side-by-side with Mama. Sure, we never put our hand down on the same weed like we used to long ago. But she's with me, still telling me which weeds to pull and which to leave alone, still whispering little known facts about this herb or that one, still singing softly to herself, accompanied by the fairies. This is a Blog Hop! Make sure to visit our fellow bloggers

Passage of Rites

Mama Cats

I never thought I'd see my old face on a trailer. Truth be told, there was no such thing in the days I walked this earth. But my daughter Toledo's been telling stories about her life to some writers and one of them was the story about my passage from a fairly typical life to where I am now. I won't spoil the story.

The book's called The Reunion, and it does involve one, but it is also a book about passage...the passages in someone's life, the passage of rites, the passages between realms. Anyway, The Reunion is what its called and they went and made a book trailer for it that depicts a very special walk I took with my daughter.
The artwork is by Rodger C. Francis, II. The harmonica score was composed and played by Frank Miller. John E. Miller put it all together and colorized the black and white drawing. So here it is:



What do you think? Does it make you want to read the book? I hope so, because it's a very special story about the love between a mother and daughter. Of course, there's plenty of action and some unforgettable appearances by gods, goddesses, goblins, and fairies. My dear brother Jesse even sings...Jesse Cats...I miss that man's music.