not minty fresh...

short post.

If Tom Waits and the spider god Anansi had a love child, that child, before being tucked in every nite, would brush its teeth with this.

It is also quite good to cook with if you happen not to be the love child of Tom Waits and the spider god Anansi.

(end of post.)

Sometimes it's all about the name...

Before you read further, well after a bit further, you should know what a chupacabra is, if not go ask your good friend google (and the NSA by proxy), we'll wait.

waiting...


So, many good stories begin with a simple message from the ether. This story also begins with a simple message, the two facts are not necessarily related.

I got a text from a friend (Destroyo, or Cuddles when he is in his mild mannered reporter persona).

"Phrodaux! There needs to be a dessert called Chupa Cobbler. Make it happen. The world is relying on you."

No sh!t, that was the message. Batman has his batsignal, Superman gave Jimmy his signal watch (in some places that means they are married now), and Catwoman has pissing on stuff. I have "There needs to be a dessert called Chupa Cobbler." The gears began turning, the Fairy Queen was alerted, we sprang into action.

{Sidebar 1 from Fairy Queen: NEVER idly dare Phrodaux to do something. He never ever ever walks away from a dare.}

Well, sprang like a week and a half later.

"it needs local fruit and biscuit topping!"

"it needs a Mexican spice/flavor palate!"

"it needs googly eyes!"

"it definitely needs TEETH!"

"you need to capitalize at the beginning of sentences!"

(That last one might have been added after the fact after the FQ saw me starting to write.)

So, Destroyo (Cuddles), M and "those from the north who know things of food and drink and have yet to let us know their code names" (who will be known as TFtNWKToFaDahYTLUKTCNs) were coming to the farm.

Food and drink.

and Chupa Cobbler...

...and more drink! 

In case any of you are brave enough to face your own personal Chupa Cobbler demons (come on, we dare you), here's the "recipe" (as it was kinda just "toss that in...what could possibly go wrong?").

Fruit:

• Peaches, blanched and skinned, then sliced, I think there were about six.

• A quart sized thing of cherries that I (Phrodaux) pitted by hand with a little knife, it was hard, I put love in them, but not in a icky way.

{Sidebar 2 from Fairy Queen: Is it too much to ask for any retail establishment in the vicinity of the farm to carry a cherry pitter??? Yes, apparently it is too much to ask.}

• Into the bowl of cherries (which life is, ooh, that was a bit icky) I put in a chopped up, seeded habanero pepper. They have a real nice spice, but even better a flowery/fruity flavor. They get a bad rap, but trust me I am "much better than Cats" (oh, go look it up already, it is a reference to TV it can't be that hard).

{Sidebar 3 from Fairy Queen: Unless you have hands of teflon/steel/scar tissue like Phrodaux, wear gloves when messing around with those habaneros. Please.}

• A pint or so of blackberries, picked while standing in our creek while dog beasts scarfed up the low-hanging ones.

And wait for it, wait... wait... almost... ("lady of spain" should be playing in the background as you wait, really)

• Raw corn taken in a brutish manner from the cob, or just cut off, your call, Mary. Sweet, and a bit of tooth, it is quite nice.

Mix those together, likely with nutmeg and cinnamon, some lemon zest, some lemon juice, some brown sugar.

That would be the fruit. You're halfway there.


Next comes the cobbler topping (use the voice used for monster truck rallies on Sunday when you say "COBBLER TOPPING!" with maybe a bit of echo "...ING...INg...Ing...ing":

Pretty much basic biscuit dough for any fruit cobbler, we used the one in Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone.

{Sidebar 4 from Fairy Queen: You should own this book, no matter what your eating designation (vegetarian, pescatarian, carnivore, weird phobic, etc.). It's the only cookbook we own two copies of, one for home, one for farm.}

BUT we added a little cornmeal (1/3 of the flour called for) AND a disk of Mexican chocolate, the kind you make really good Mexican hot chocolate out of, it is pretty much chocolate, sugar and cinnamon, oh and love, don't forget the love. The disk is ground up and added to the cobbler top before it is mixed together (too much mixing makes the love go away).

 (this is yummy, great for hot chocolate, but not for monkeys, NOT FOR MONKEYS!)

Mix gently and sparingly, but don't be creepy. Too much fondling and the topping will be tough. (trust me, blah, blah, blah, cats)

Dump the fruit mix in a lightly buttered dish (we use a corningware type thingy, roughly 10in, picture) then topping on top (where else would the topping go, jeeze). Put dish on a baking sheet to catch any fruit overflow.

(chupa cobbler goes here, the thing on the left, under the other thing)

Into the oven ~375f (despite the fact that all other good things in our life get cooked at 423f) until the top is done (a toothpick comes out clean and the filling is bubbly).

Then the most important part:

• Almond slivers for teethies
• Googly eyes.

The eyes came from "flying spaghetti monster cookies", which I saw on evilmadscientist

Empty gell caps used for making your own pills (really? making your own pills, who would do that? and even more important who would take one? oh, you have a headache? take one of these, I make them in my shed down by the old mill. They taste like burning, and love.")

 The consensus was "yummy". After a day or two, it still was yummy, but started to look rather disturbingly not dessert like. So eat quickly or don't worry about pretty.

(here is a picture of a cute dog for no apparent reason)

Sometimes it's about the name...Cuddles.

Farm

Do you have the list? The fantasy, it will never happen wish list for a little place in the country? A place to get away from regular life, relax, recharge, watch the weather, just be? Here was our list:

• No more than two hours from home (so we'll go)
• At least one hour from home (so we'll stay)
• Trees (hammock-worthy)
• Water (pond, lake, creek, river, whatever)
• House or not (we had plots and schemes to build a cabin, retrofit an Airstream, construct something from shipping containers).

Through a long and random chain of events, we now own the farm. Take a look.

Sometimes I think the huge oak trees that hold the hammocks would have been enough; we could have lived without everything else. But now we don't have to.

Has this ever happened to you? (Sledgehammer and waffles)

Imagine a tranquil Sunday morning. You sleep in, rise refreshed, and decide to make your lovely mate waffles for breakfast. You've just cooked the last waffle and are settling down in your cozy breakfast nook: waffle, berries, maple syrup, strong coffee.

Then suddenly, your lovely mate, the same one you made this breakfast for, leaves the table, goes to the garage, and returns with a sledgehammer. Without a word, he fires off 3 quick blows to the end of the counter top, sending shards of tile flying in all directions, including into your remaining waffle.

Has this ever happened to you? Well. If not, welcome to our world.

What, you might reasonably ask, could prompt this shocking act of kitchen violence? One word, my pretties, one word: tile.

Now, forget anything you might assume about the Fairy Queen in terms of physical grace. Name notwithstanding, she does NOT glide through the world on size 6 feet. Nope. She and her colossal clown feet and freakishly long arms stumble around, bumping into stuff, tripping over air, and dropping things. Dropping a lot of things. And tile, you see, tile is the enemy of the clumsy, the nemesis of the dexterity-challenged. When the Fairy Queen dropped things on the tile countertop (a lot), these things broke, every time.

And while I said the provocation to kitchen violence could be summed up in one word (tile), we might add a footnote in order to describe the tile: blue, colonial blue, or as our friend Ms. M put it, country with a K. Yuck.

But the thing is, if you live with something long enough, even if it's horrible, even if you hate it, you eventually stop seeing it and you never do anything about it. But if the corner of your counter top has been transformed, via sledgehammer, into an eyesore and a life-threatening menace (oh, what the Fairy Queen could do with that sharp, jagged corner...there are not enough Band-Aids in the cupboard), well then, you have to deal with it. You have to quit sneering at the available options (linoleum too boring, granite too fancy, etc.) and MAKE something. And when you decide to do that, all manner of interesting things happen.

For example:

• The first collaboration between Phrodaux and the Fairy Queen's dad, the Wood Master;
• The chance to save gorgeous wood from the landfill (the source wanted only certain length; scraps went into the dumpster);
• The subsequent inspiration to pair this luscious counter top of purple wood with scrap aluminum as a backsplash;
• A final product which is exactly what we wanted but couldn't find because duh, we had to make it.

So there it is, sweet peas. If your best beloved introduces a sledgehammer into your idyllic breakfast, it's not always a bad thing.