Late summer evenings in Big Mill B&B’s garden are filled with sweet scents

Photo by Chloe Tuttle

The show begins in the afternoon at 5 o’clock, when the Four O’clocks start blooming. They are an old flower that my mother and grandmother raised and shared with their friends. It is a wonderful plant and each flower can have several colors. They are not edible, but they have been used in food coloring.

Just before dark the moon flowers open and smell as sweet as honeysuckle.

Photo by Chloe Tuttle

And as it is turning dark, the Devil’s Trumpet slowly opens with its fragrant perfume. Georgia O’Keefe painted this beauty – it is also called Jimson Weed. Now I want an Angel’s trumpet. I hear it is sweet smelling.

Photo by Chloe Tuttle

 Lingering from night into day, the ginger lilies perfume the air.

Photo by Chloe Tuttle

So at five, six and seven in the evening, there is a sweet-smelling show every night in late summer and early fall in the Big Mill garden. Do you have any “blooming perfumes” in your garden this year?  Share in the comments below.

Click to read comments »

I first tasted Gazpacho in the sixties when I was a young student in Spain.

Photo by Chloe Tuttle

It was in a little cafe in Toledo and I still remember the cafe, the handsome young man and the Gazpacho.

It seems there are as many Gazpacho recipes as there are barbecue recipes. I finally found one that reminds me of that night in Toledo.  I have adapted my recipe from one in Craig Claiborne’s New York Times International Cookbook – my favorite cookbook. Did you know that Craig Claiborne – food editor for the New York Times  – was born in Sunflower, Mississippi?

Gazpacho – Chilled Tomato Soup

• 4 cups tomatoes with cores removed (2 1/2 to 3 pounds) *
• 1 1/2 cups peeled cucumber, cut into large chunks
• 1/2 cup cucumber, diced into small pieces for garnish (reserved)
• 1 green pepper, seeded and cut into chunks
• 1 small clove garlic, peeled and minced
• 5 Tablespoons olive oil
• 1/4 cup white wine vinegar or white vinegar (wine vinegar is more distinctive)
• 1 1/2 slices of bread or 2 slices French bread

(You will need a kitchen sieve for this recipe).

Place tomatoes, 1 1/2 cups cucumber, green pepper, garlic, olive oil, vinegar and bread into a blender. Blend until pureed.

Pour through a kitchen sieve and press with the pestle to extract the liquid. Discard the seed and skins – they make great compost.

Chill and serve in flat bowls with the reserved, diced cucumber as garnish.

*You can also make this gazpacho with one 28-ounce can of whole tomatoes

Yield: 6-7 one-cup servings

Photo by Chloe Tuttle

The basket in the photo (above) is very special – it was a gift from Miss Sadie, owner of the original Big Mill grist mill.  Years ago she used it to take three dozen eggs up town every week to trade for coffee and sugar and things she couldn’t grow. It still has the cotton seeds in it,  They were used to keep the eggs from breaking.

I grew these tomatoes in my Big Mill Cook’s garden. The garden is in my orchard where our livestock used to graze under the apple trees.

Click to read comments »

Sweet cucumber pickles are as southern as iced tea

(photo credit: Chloe Tuttle)

Not just any pickles either – they must be homemade and preferably homegrown. It is alright if someone gives you the cucumbers, or you pick them up fresh from your local Farmers Market.

We all have a family recipe that has been passed down and it usually involves days of work for our pickles to have just the right crunch. My mother, Chloe, had several pickle recipes, but this one is my favorite.

(photo credit: Chloe Tuttle)

Sweet Cucumber Pickle Recipe

• 7 lbs cucumbers
• 2 cups pickling lime
• Numerous buckets of water
• 1/2 gallon 5% white distilled vinegar (most vinegar is 5%)
• 5 pounds sugar
• 3 Tablespoons pickling spice & cheesecloth

Use small or long pickling cucumbers. Burpless work too. Just don’t use large cucumbers with many seeds. Wash the cucumbers. Slice crosswise into 1/8″-1/4″ slices.

Mix 2 cups of lime with several cups of water in a large ceramic, enamel or stainless steel vessel. Stir to blend.

Add the cut cucumbers and enough water to cover them. Gently stir the mixture.  Be very careful — they will break so easily. 

Soak for 24 hours.

I remember my mother making these pickles. Sometimes she had a plate on top to hold down the cucumbers. As you pass by, gently stir under the cukes, just to loosen the settled lime. Note: you can soak them for 48 hours and they are still wonderful.

After soaking for 24 hours, rinse the cucumbers in clear water. Then change the water every hour on the hour, 4 times.

Tie pickling spices in a double thickness of cheesecloth. Put 1/2 gallon distilled vinegar, 5 pounds sugar and the pickling spices into a large stainless steel or enamel cooking pot.  Stir to melt the sugar. Add the cucumbers and bring to a boil. Let stand overnight.

Next day bring the cucumbers and vinegar to a boil and simmer for 1 hour. Pack pickles and vinegar mixture into sterilized jars according to canning instructions.

Yield: 9-10 pints

FYI – I also have a pickle fork in several different sterling patterns. It’s a southern thing.

Click to read comments »

Big Mill B&B’s Watermelon Punch 
Refreshing libation for sultry summer days

(Photo credit: Chloe Tuttle)

Southerners love watermelon. If you want a real treat, make watermelon punch. And don’t wait for the party – serve it up for just the two of you – for romance or just for good friends.

(Photo credit: Chloe Tuttle)

Watermelon Punch Recipe for Two Folks

• 1/4 seedless watermelon  (6 cups cubed watermelon) chilled
• 1/2 to 1 can chilled lemon-lime soda (to taste)
• 2 Tablespoons frozen orange juice concentrate
• 1 Tablespoon sugar
• 2 slices lemon or lime for garnish
• 2 sprigs fresh mint for garnish

Place chilled watermelon in blender and blend for several seconds on medium speed.

Pour watermelon puree into a pitcher. Add frozen orange juice concentrate and sugar. Stir until dissolved. Chill until ready to serve.

When ready to serve, add chilled lemon-lime soda to the watermelon liquid. Pour into champagne glasses and garnish with lemon or lime rings and mint.

Yield: 4 servings.

Click to read comments »

Our Evening Primrose, wildflower and beautiful
King’s cure-all, is often considered a weed

Evening Primrose photo by Chloe Tuttle

But here at Big Mill Bed & Breakfast, Evening Primrose is glorified, photographed, written about and touted as entertainer – watching it bloom is a great way to spend an evening in the garden. Take a look and you’ll see why folks who gather around to watch can’t help but “oooh” and “ahhhhh.”

The night pollinators are fascinating too – we have that funky-looking Sphinx Moth that joins us if the evening primroses are opening. Oil from the evening primrose has been used for centuries as a remedy for many ailments, including laziness. And the roots and shoots are edible – another edible odd ball plant here at Big Mill B&B!

It takes about a minute for each flower to open. Early in June, there will be 3 or 4 flowers that open right there in front of you. By mid-June, a hundred will open each night. It is magic.

We have other night blooming flowers here on the farm – in mid-summer our Moon Flowers perfume the whole area around the patios and garden.

Moon Flower photo by Chloe Tuttle

And just before dark, our Devil’s Trumpet (Datura) will bloom. They smell heavenly but, watch out!  There is a dark side. They are hallucinogenic and poisonous. DON’T eat it!

My father called it Jimson weed and some folks call it Loco weed. It is one of my favorites because of its jasmine-like fragrance, but I don’t plan to eat it. Devil’s Trumpet also has some medicinal properties, but Beware!

Devil’s Trumpet photo by Chloe Tuttle

All of our evening blooming flowers are show stoppers.  You must come and see this show.

Click to read comments »

Spiderwort – Big Mill’s “Canary in the coal mine”

This wonderful blue flower that grows in my eastern North Carolina garden is Spiderwort (Tradescantia). Each day in spring and early summer I am greeted with the vibrant blue of these odd beauties. Then about noon, they close. My mother loved these flowers – hence, so do I.

Years ago I read that spiderwort was used at nuclear power plants like the canary in the mine. If there is a leak, the blue flowers turn pink!  Well, my flowers turned pink. I immediately called my scientist friend John Umstead and proclaimed that I had a pink spiderwort.

John calmly asked me how many nuclear power plants were in Williamston. To which I had to respond, “None.” He then asked, “How many diesel tractors?” Hmmm, lots. So I think puffing tractors can also affect my blue flowers. I am still laughing. It is called “ionizing radiation” and who could imagine this was happening in my little garden?

Some  consider it a wildflower and some folks consider it a weed.

I consider Spiderwort a joy and folks visiting Big Mill B&B will probably be served at least one spiderwort flower if they are here in the spring!

An added bonus: Spiderwort is edible – the flower, the stalks and the leaves. Check the video on “Eat the Weeds” about cooking with Tradescantia.

Don’t forget – there are no nuclear power leaks at Big Mill.

(Edible flower photos by Chloe Tuttle. Email for permission to use photos)

Click to read comment »

“Miss Sadie” James ran the Big Mill gristmill
for as long as I can remember.

(Sadie James & Chloe Ann sitting out front of Miss Sadie’s country store. Photo by Joy Greyer)

In the 1940′s prior to when she and her husband, Columbus, bought it, it had been a water-powered sawmill. It was converted to a grist mill, the stones to grind the corn were shipped over from England.

Sometime later in the night, the dam was blown up. After that there was a long pulley attached to a tractor that powered the mill. It was a fascinating place where you could get the best ground corn meal ever.

I rode my bicycle there every day. Sometimes I played in the creek behind the mill, but more often I just talked to Miss Sadie. Often nephews Barney or Monk went with me – at times we rode a mule or drove an old pickup truck before we were legal.

Miss Sadie also had a small country store and sold things like penny candy and small Coca Cola in a bottle – she kept her drinks in one of those box-type coolers.

She lived in the store too. And she had a big gun…folks tried to rob her several times; but they were foiled.

Kristie, Chloe Ann and Miss Sadie in Miss Sadie’s store

Other folks thought she was odd, but not to me. She had one light bulb and no running water. She cooked on top of a pot belly stove, she wore her dead husband’s shoes. Fine with me.

Ben Roberson bought the mill and moved it to his farm. He and his wife Mary resurected a great mill. It has all the parts, but it is different – still wonderful.

The mill had such fascinating parts.

(New photo, guess you can tell by the WD-40)

Ben’s Mill on Holly Springs Church Road in Williamston -
made from gears and parts of Miss Sadie’s Big Mill

(photos by Chloe Tuttle)

P.S. thanks to all the Chloe’s Blog readers who told me that I can’t spell “Dam.” Too funny.

Click to read comments »

It’s late summer and figs are ripe… so gorgeous and
luscious, they hardly look real. Each one is a work of art.

After I take many photos of these just-picked figs, I make Chloe’s Fig Preserves.  North Carolina mystery writer Margaret Maron shares her Fig Preserve Recipe on Serious Eats.

One of my favorite ways to eat these preserves is with warm, creamy brie. This dish makes a great presentation, it is fast and easy – guaranteed to be a hit at the party.

Creamy Brie with Fig Preserves

    * 1 wedge of Brie cheese (about 16 ounces)
    * 2 tablespoons slivered almonds (optional)
    * 1/2 pint warm fig preserves (1 cup)
    * 1 box (4 & 1/2 ounces) Carr’s Table Water Crackers or similar plain crackers

Unwrap Brie and let stand at room temperature for several hours before serving; place in a warm spot so that cheese will be soft.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spread slivered almonds on a small rimmed baking sheet and toast for 5 to 6 minutes, stirring often. Remove from oven, cool and reserve.

To serve, place Brie on a serving plate and pour preserves over the cheese. Preserves will run over the sides and onto the serving dish. Sprinkle toasted almonds on top and serve with plain water crackers like Carr’s.

Yield: about 1 dozen or more servings

When it is cold outside, pull out a jar of fig preserves and remember summer.

(I first published this recipe on Inn Cuisine)

Click to read comment »