Kermit never looked so cute…and green!

(To see a pretty version of this post go to Chloe's Blog)

Photo by Guy Livesay

Wildlife in North Carolina magazine's 2009 photo competition had over 7,000 entries. This photograph taken by Guy Livesay, who lives right here in eastern North Carolina, was a winner! Other winning photos can be seen in the January, 2010 issue.

Many a late afternoon here at Big Mill you might see Guy and other photographers wandering around looking for that perfect photograph. Some of the folks are snapping shots of brides, graduates, babies — often with Old Red Truck taking center stage.

Photo by Guy Livesay

But Guy can be seen patiently waiting by a zinnia, sunflower, cleome or azalea for just the right shot of a hummingbird or butterfly or bee – any of Mother Nature's creatures are beautiful in the photos of a gifted artist like Guy. 

Photo by Guy Livesay

With these wonderful photos each perfect creature momentarily stands still for us to see. When you come to visit Big Mill B&B, be sure to bring your camera. These birds and butterflies will pose for you.

Note: You can see more of Guy's work at Livesay Photography. Other really fine photographers can be seen here at Big Mill are Peggy Rogerson and Andrea Wood. If you see a bridge, a pack house or an old red truck in their photos, chances are that the photo was taken here at Big Mill.

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Merry Christmas from Chloe Ann and all of us here at Big Mill

This post is much prettier on Chloe's Blog

              I still have this outfit.

Life on the farm is always magic at Christmas time. Today I walked to the woods (too wet for Old Red Truck) and found holly with berries. When I was growing up my dad and I would go into the woods to gather holly, pine and cedar. We had such fun. We hope all our friends, family and wonderful guests have a very merry holiday. You have made 2009 a special year, one we will remember for a long time. Thank you.

Love from all of us at Big Mill: Chloe Ann, Delores, John and, of course, Miss Moses.

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Cracklins:  Pork fat and skins that are deep fried
in rendered lard until they are crunchy.
(From the Eastern North Carolina lingo dictionary)

Cooking Up Cracklins

Cracklins used to be common fare on southern tables. Sometimes you have to go back to your roots and eat the food of your heritage. My folks and the neighboring farm families had hog killings in the winter and they made cracklins/cracklings. So in cold weather we ate cracklin bread. Rest assured we don't eat like this all the time.

Cracklin Corn Pone Bread Recipe (eggless corn bread popular in the South)

• 1 cup pork cracklins
• 2 cups fine ground corn meal (I use House-Autry)
• 2 Tablespoons self rising flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• pinch of sugar (optional)
• 1 cups warm water (add more if needed)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease the pone pan with some really sturdy grease like Crisco or lard.

Chop cracklins. If you don't like brown flecks in the bread, then grind the cracklins.

In a large mixing bowl stir together the cracklins, corn meal, flour, salt and sugar. Add the water slowly, stirring until the mixture is the consistency of pancake batter.

Pour into pone pan, filling to the top. Bake until edges are brown and bread is crusty, 35-45 minutes. As soon as the bread is cool enough to handle, pop the pones out of the pan. Serve immediately while bread is hot.

Yield: 16 pones.

This bread is made in a cast iron corn pone pan

The corn meal is also important. When I was growing up I rode my bicycle down our dirt road to the Big Mill to get a paper bag full of fresh ground corn meal; usually from our own corn. Miss Sadie James made the best meal; I can't find any meal of that quality now. My dad Ops taught me how to take the raw meal in your hand, squeeze it and it should clump together like clay. If not, then it was ground too fast and the stone heated the meal too much.

Cracklin bread ready to eat

If you really want to try eating cracklins and you aren't planning to attend any hog killings, you can buy them in some grocery stores like Piggly Wiggly. Buy the cracklins without skins, your teeth will thank you.

I did find a Cracklin' Bread Recipe in the White Trash Cookbook, but don't think cracklins are just for us down home folks anymore. Emeril Lagasse has a recipe on how to make Cracklins and a Cracklin Bread recipe!

To see Cracklins being made, join us at the Martin County Farm Heritage Fair in Williamston, N.C. at the Senator Bob Martin Agriculture Center on December 5th, 2009, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. If you attend, look for me – I will be spinning wool, taking photos and eating cracklins. And I will be hoping my jams win another first prize!

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We won!  BedandBreakfast.com, the foremost online Bed and Breakfast directory has released their 2009-2010 winners for the “Best Bed and Breakfast of” series.

And we won – Again!

This is better than winning the lottery. Winning the lottery is totally by chance.  But winning a BedandBreakfast.com award is an honor given by our guests. The winners are chosen from guest reviews… all 85,000 reviews. 

In 2007-2008 Big Mill was selected as one of five “Best of the South” Inns. For 2008-2009 Big Mill’s innkeeper was selected as one of 10 Best Innkeepers of the Year. 

It seems only fitting that during this holiday weekend full of celebration and time with family, I share this fun news with all our wonderful guests.  Above all, we are most thankful for YOU!

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 Oh, there is absolutely nothing quite so tasty
as that first homegrown tomato…

… and a tomato sandwich is even better!

There are many versions of this classic sandwich, but the down-home plain and simple sandwich made with white bread and Duke’s mayonnaise is the award winner.  

Chloe’s Farmhouse Tomato Sandwich Recipe

• 1 medium size ripe, preferably homegrown, tomato
• 2 slices bread (even the bread of my youth like Wonder Bread works great.) I really do like Pepperidge Farm Oat Bread now.
• 2 Tablespoons Duke’s Mayonnaise
• Salt and pepper

Wash and cut the tomato into thick slices. Spread the mayonnaise onto both slices of the bread, one side only. Make sure to spread the mayonnaise to the edge of each slice of bread.

Place the tomato slices on one piece of bread. Add salt and pepper. Cover with the second slice of bread, mayonnaise side down, of course.

Cut the sandwich into two pieces and enjoy the best tomato sandwich ever. How to cut the sandwich is debatable-corner to corner or straight across the middle? We all have an opinion. Serves 1.

This recipe was featured on the Bountiful Kitchen, a part of Inn Cuisine.

When I was a child I delivered baskets of tomatoes with my Schwinn bicycle to the restaurants in Williamston. Some were 3 miles away and I had to ride part way on a dirt road and partly on U.S. Highway 17. Surely couldn’t do it today.

Here in the Inner Banks of North Carolina, Hellman’s Mayonnaise is sold to transplants. And don’t even consider Kraft Mayonnaise.

Just remember, if it ain’t homemade, it has to be Duke’s.

If you don’t believe me, ask Eddy Browning, food columnist for the New Bern Sun Journal. He heard tell of various barroom brawls in this great mayonnaise debate. Eddy does advocate for homemade mayonnaise, so stay tuned. We will have that recipe on Chloe’s blog soon.

So it is just normal here in eastern North Carolina to see a display of Duke’s with six shelves, lest we run out ….. forsooth.

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A good friend and frequent guest at Big Mill Bed & Breakfast emailed me the other day to let me know how much she missed my blog articles. I was chagrined when I realized how long it had been since I posted something!

Rest assured, these hands have not been idle! In fact, I don’t remember a spring and summer season at the B&B that have been this non-stop. Lots of returning guests and even more new ones just discovering the joys of a farmstead respite. It’s kept me hopping, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

The flower and vegetable gardens are in rare form this year. The tomatoes are particularly noteworthy and even took center stage in this Farmhouse Tomato Sandwich recipe I posted over at InnCuisine.com.

Sandie, the webmistress for InnCuisine.com, asked me to be a contributing author to the Local Sustainable Foods column called Share the Bounty. I admit that writing for Inn Cuisine has stolen away a chunk of my time for updating my own blog, but what a wonderful site Sandie has developed for lovers of good food, gorgeous photographs and "secret" recipes from innkeepers all over the country.

I hope you’ll visit and subscribe to Inn Cuisine and receive updates via email. Eventually the recipes I post on that site will make it onto Chloe’s Blog, but you can get them hot off the press when you subscribe to Inn Cuisine’s updates. Click here to subscribe. It takes all of 20 seconds and is well worth it! Sandie has just returned from the BlogHer convention in Chicago where she met and talked to Paula Deen! She is the best!

And, definitely check out the Farmhouse Tomato Sandwich recipe. It’s getting rave reviews and even got a special mention on FoodGawker.com. Big Mill B&B hits the big time!

There are many things to do on a farm in summer. Moses makes her rounds…she has retired from hunting but her presence deters the rabbits. That is good.

Meanwhile, I have four Chloe’s blog articles in the works. There’s one about Big Mill’s resident hummingbirds. They are spectacular!

Another is on the disappearance of the country store and there’s one about the Great American Sunflower project that we are doing.

Also, I took a video of the opening of an evening primrose that’s amazing. I just can’t quite figure out how to get it onto the blog!

The photographs to go with each article are so gorgeous, I’m struggling to make my words measure up. Instead of fretting, I think it would be smarter to take a piece of good Eastern NC countryfolk advice to heart — "progress, not perfection."

So, stay tuned. And, I’m curious. How have you been spending your summer? How does your garden grow? Share in the comments section, below.

PS:

My recipe and step-by-step instructions for Fresh Strawberry Jam is on the InnCuisine.com site too.

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It’s berry picking time in Eastern North Carolina

…and all the Big Mill Bed & Breakfast guests can be certain they will feast on "just picked" strawberries in the months of April, May and June. We have two U-Pick Strawberry fields here in Martin County and our local produce is the best. Folks say berries from different fields have different flavors, and I believe them.

At the Berry Patch in Robersonville you can buy local grown cabbages, onions, cucumbers, melons, tomatoes, peas, potatoes and corn.  And you can get just-made strawberry jam.

Shirley is going on her eleventh year at the Berry Patch…I only see her in the strawberry season, but that can be at least several times a week. The berries are so luscious, I can’t resist picking more than I need. Vivian, Shirley and Carleen are also familiar faces at the Berry Patch.

At the fields you pick (and eat) berries, weigh them and off you go with quarts of ripe red fruit. Then you must decide what to do with all these pounds of berries that you picked. 

I make strawberry jam for our Big Mill B&B guests. Don’t think I’m bragging (much!), but this is an award-winning strawberry jam recipe!  It won best-of-show at our Farm Heritage Fair.  It is wonderful.

When I was growing up, we would pick the berries, make jam and – on the very same night — we ate homemade biscuits with jam and homemade butter.

Growing your own and buying local is a growing trend — and a good one. All around us there are many farmer’s markets, vegetable stands and local folks selling their produce. We even have vendors who sell collards out of a pick up truck. We need to support them all. You can find a list of farmers in your area at Local Harvest and at North Carolina Farm Fresh. 

I will be posting some guest articles on The Bountiful Kitchen – Inn Cuisine.  The article with my recipe for Chloe’s Strawberry Jam is just the first in a series of eating local, sustainable foods.  

Plan to Visit: The Berry Patch in Robersonville, NC 252-795-4903 and Berry Tyme Farm in Jamesville, NC 252-792-6916. This year, there is a new J & J Farm Produce in Martin County near Jamesville 252-799-8110. They are not a You-Pick farm, but they do sell strawberries, cabbage, potatoes, May peas, corn and asparagus.              

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In honor of Earth Day, 2009, we are celebrating our first
Big Mill "BIRD and BREAKFAST." 
Find details about our earth-friendly special below.

Guy Livesay took this photo of one of our feathered Goldfinch guests
admiring our gorgeous azaleas in full bloom.

We offer food & lodging for finches, bluebirds, purple martins, barn swallows, Carolina wrens, hummingbirds, cardinals and throngs of other birds. There is no charge, but they are encouraged to pose for photos and to sing.

(Bluebird photo by Guy Livesay)

Many feathered couples stay at Big Mill Inn and they especially enjoy our homegrown sunflower seeds and suet.  In fact, our Big Mill Birds are quite discerning and refuse to eat the store-bought suet.

So while I am making breakfast for our people guests, I whip up a batch of homemade suet for our Big Mill bird guests.  They love it! I am excited to have discovered a great use for left over bacon fat — it makes great suet! 

The woodpeckers at Big Mill really like fruit so any excess fruit goes into the suet. I have great hopes of making soap with the bacon renderings some day, but that hasn’t happened yet.  Until then, it is suet.   

Big Mill SUET RECIPE for the Birds

• 3 cups corn meal
• 1/2 cup shelled seeds like sunflower or thistle
• 1 cup crunchy peanut butter (store brand is fine)
• 3/4 to 1 cup rendered fat.    (lard, bacon drippings, etc.
• Several large pine cones
• Optional: 1 cup chopped fruit and/or a cup of quick cooking oats

In a large bowl, mix the corn meal and seeds together. Using two forks cut in the peanut butter, as you would for a pie crust.

Melt the fat and pour into the corn meal and peanut butter mixture. Mix well and allow to cool. If it is too runny, add more corn meal or some oats.

Stuff the suet into a pine cone. Hang several of these stuffed cones from a limb (as in photo above.) In a few days your birds will love you. I hang mine near a feeder to speed this process.

This recipe is very flexible-and a good way to use grease and fruit. Store excess suet in the refrigerator.

(Photo of Big Mill Bed and Breakfast Goldfinch by Guy Livesay)

Big Mill "Bird and Breakfast" Earth Day Special

Here’s how it works:  Just call us anytime during the months of April and May, 2009, book a two-night stay for any time in 2009 and mention this special promotion when you make your reservation.

You’ll receive:  
A one year’s subscription to Rodale’s Organic Gardening magazine, a thistle bird feeder or sock and some honest-to-goodness Big Mill homemade suet with a recipe card, so you can keep up the good work when you get home.

We are Bird Friendly and our birds know it. Moses has retired and poses no threat.
     

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