“Summertime and the livin’ is easy . . . “ — Gershwin, “Porgy & Bess”
Ah, the delights of an Indiana summer! I know what Hoosiers will be eating for dinner: roasting ears slathered with butter, sliced tomatoes and green beans simmered with onion and a little bacon — what my sister, Christine, called “garden dinners.” Every summer I yearn for Mom’s thin, crispy, golden cakes made with fresh corn and served with butter and syrup. I’ve never succeeded in replicating them. Get those precious recipes while you can, folks!
And strawberries! Not those huge, tasteless supermarket things, but fragrant, flavorful berries like those we’ve had in France or the ones Sarah gave us that came Keeslings’ farm. We chatted about what constitutes the best shortcake. I usually make Bill’s mother’s shortcake with Bisquick sweetened with sugar — either one big one or six small ones. Sarah said, “My mother used pie crust, and that’s what I use.” That’s what my mother did, also. Mother used lard to make the absolute best short pie crust in the world that she cut into rounds before baking or broke into pieces and layered with berries. Oh yum of yums! She also baked a double-crust strawberry pie that I never thought I’d have again. However, Kari, the wife of one of Bill’s great-nephews, brought luscious strawberry/rhubarb pies to a Clarke family reunion. After Sarah left, I ended up baking Bisquick cakes for Bill and pie crust for me. How’s that for marital compromise?
Summertime means picnics. There’s something appealing about al fresco meals. Perhaps it’s a feeling of being liberated from the confines of a house. One of the most famous picnics is Manet’s “Luncheon on the Grass” that features artists and their nude models.
Mother’s picnic menu always included Hershey bars and bananas, and sometimes she used a cast iron skillet to fry hamburgers. Occasionally Uncle Nolan and Aunt June Kelly joined us at the Springs, at a little roadside park that was east of Raysville on the south side of Road 40. There was a stone structure into which an artesian spring flowed constantly. Travelers picnicked there, and some Knightstown people got their drinking water there. Sadly, the park fell on hard times and was done away with.
When Vicki was six months old we took Bill’s mother to California. We parked by the road near Colorado’s Monarch Pass and sat on boulders next to a rivulet that came tumbling down the mountainside. No baloney sandwich, potato chips or cookies could ever taste as good as those that we ate in that ambiance of fresh, pine-scented air and mountain splendor, and the Cokes were as effervescent as champagne!
One day the hostess at a country house in the south of France where Jean and we stayed packed a basket with wine, cheese, a crusty loaf and addictive, delicious lemon tarts that she bought every morning at a nearby crossroads bakery. We drove to Syllans la Cascade to see a waterfall. Where to eat? We spotted a picnic table covered with ceramic tiles which are a major industry in the Var. We spread out our lunch, poured a glass of wine and finally looked around. Uh-oh. We were in someone’s backyard!
The symphony of life is composed not only of grand crescendos, but also of quiet passages that are as comfortable as an old shoe. A few years ago on our wedding anniversary, we hastily scraped together a picnic lunch, and went to the Shades. We toasted each other with cheap wine bought at a drugstore on our way and walked through one of the last stands of virgin timber in Indiana. We were the only ones there on that balmy, peaceful golden afternoon. High above us the sun gilded the autumn-hued leaves. I sat on a log and rested while Bill went on ahead. He waited for me as he always does. As the sun moved into the west, we headed home. wclarke@comcast.net