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It’s the Berries:
After a Berry Picking Outing, Spend the Afternoon Jamming
by Sandra Martin

In this first heat of early summer, berries are swelling with sugar, ready to fall from laden canes into the stained hands and watering mouths of gatherers.

We who penetrate the bramble and brave the thorns to gather berries are united by our shared love of berries and the summer sweetness they bring us. Some risks, too.

I’m an itinerant picker, a grasshopper favoring roadsides where poison ivy licks at my ankles. At the heart of each bush may be the snake about which my grandmother warned me. Each time I pick, I earn with my berries the reward of danger surpassed.

Of course, I also frequent berry farms and the patches of amiable friends.

The ants, in whose friendship I rejoice, are planners whose faith in constancy is an investment in harvests years ahead. June’s nature is generous and good to grasshoppers as well as to ants. Shortsighted and swayed by change though I am, I share the season’s reward.

What’s more, with each berry I harvest a lifetime of memories, for I am the daughter of a hawk-eyed mother who would not allow a roadside thicket to pass unreaped.

Already this season I have:

• Plucked black raspberries from serendipitous bushes sowed along my country road by heedless birds.
  
• Gathered blueberries at Johnson’s Upper Marlboro Berry Farm.
  
• Shared my neighbor’s crop of red raspberries.|
• Harvested my new friend’s abundance of prickly gooseberries. I think they are my favorite—though perhaps in this taste my heart informs my tongue.

“Gooseberries!” the family snickered when I returned with my treasure. For them, any berry worth the name must be a mouthful of immediate sweetness. For me, gooseberries have another kind of sweetness. My basket brimmed with the sweetness of time.

On the way to my elderly Illinois cousins’ outhouse, gooseberries grew among tiger lilies, to be harvested in sunbaked, peach-smelling afternoons. In the cool of early evening, the woodstove would be lit and from its Vulcanic heat, shining glass jars of red-golden fruit—berries for jam and pie—would emerge.

How will I best use my treasure? The answer is easy. Pies are for now, but jam lasts. Glistening in neat rows on filled shelves, the jars keep a household in summer all winter long. I would make jam with my gooseberries. But after intention, jam is still a ways to go.

Gooseberries are demanding, as befits an acquired taste. They prickle the picker to tears and splinters. Next, berries must be “picked” again, because holding fast to the blossom and stem ends are tiny, tender thorns. Sharpened as your fingernails may be for this delicate work, fruit tears away with thorn. The green, translucent flesh with its droplet seeds bursts from the ruptured berries, and juice runs down the arms. In this sticky work, picker as well as fruit is prepared. To put summer up in jars, one must be stewed in its essence.

Washing the berries is a welcome respite between the warmth of picking and the heat of jamming. In their cold bath, they slip like smooth river stones through refreshed fingers. Water as well as heat, rain as well as sun, has swollen the fruit. And now the berries return to their elements.

In my youth, the handiwork would be admired for a day. Then the cousins would see to the future, carrying the brilliant jars off to join cherries, cling peaches, and creamed corn in the cool dark of the fruit cellar.

The alchemy begins as the berries are crushed, a layer at a time, in the second largest kettle the kitchen has to offer. The largest kettle, filled with jam jars in a shallow bath of water (save energy: the water will rise into the vacuum to sterilize the whole jar), is put on to boil.

When steam begins to rise from the jar kettle, the fruit mash is combined with pectin and set on the fire. Wraiths of steam cover exploding bubbles as if a pair of domestic volcanoes were about to erupt. Masses of sugar sacrificed to jam kettle only feed its fury. Soon the fruit lava will rise to a boil so furious it cannot be stirred down. One minute more and the gooseberries will be jam.

As I grew up, gooseberries grew scarce. Like Cousin Cora’s filled jars, old times were put up to gather dust. But now and again in some out-of-the-way place, that cellar door might creak open. Once, in an industrial town in downstate Illinois, musty with the smell of processing soybeans, I devoured gooseberry pie in a restaurant as famous for pies as Howard Johnson used to be for ice cream. Each syrupy, sweet-sour mouthful smacked of summer.

Years later, a best friend turned homesteader. Because she could not kill her geese, gooseberry jam became her Christmas ritual.

Later still, a quart of dusty gooseberries—green as cats’ eyes, hard as marbles—rewarded me for a stop at an Eastern Shore roadside market. And now a new friend has invited me to pluck her gooseberries.

Red cheeked and wreathed with tendrils of damp hair, the jam- maker steps fast to keep time in this midsummer ritual. Jars must be tonged from their boiling bath, the jam funnel dropped in each hot jar’s mouth, and the nearly boiling nectar ladled in, scoop after thick, sugary scoop.

Each jar is well and rosily filled, but has the alchemy worked? Will the jars seal? The jam-maker continues to stew until, finally, the pop. pop. pop of lids on jars lined up in a row signals partial success.

But will the jam set? A spoonful is dropped on a cold saucer to be tipped, dipped, and prodded. Anxiety rises. Have I put up syrup (“but you can still eat it,” friends console) or sticky fruit gum? Must a whole winter be spent with the clear proof of failure? At last the spell takes. The reward is blushing, puckery gooseberry jam, a perfect concoction of fruit suspended lightly in jelly.

Will my jam taste as good as my memories? There is only one way to know.

Always a little jam is saved over, in a lidless jelly jar because it will not last long, for the final test: the jam and bread test. Tomorrow morning the jam will adorn hot, fresh-baked biscuits. Now I spoon it over buttered slices of white bread.

I do not have to call the family. Smell will summon them at the very moment I lift my jam bread to my mouth. Ready for them, I have prepared a plateful. The taste is breaking on my tongue when my son joins me. “Wow! It’s better than you get in the store,” he says.

I grin. Though no supermarket has ever shelved such jam, this is a compliment as sweet as a county fair blue ribbon. “Have another,” I offer, “and I’ll tell you how gooseberries came to be jam.”

The alchemy has worked. The jam is good. The spell is binding another generation.

Sandra Olivetti Martin has won many ribbons at County Fairs for her jams. For gooseberry jam, follow a berry recipe in your box of Sure-Jel, adding 6 cups of sugar to two quarts (four cups crushed) ripe berries. If your berries are green, you can skip the pectin (Sure-Jel) and cut the sugar to 3 cups.

Turn to “Laughing Gourmet” for the gooseberry grower’s family’s favorite pie.

To discover where to pick berries, watch the roadsides for berries and signs or pick up your copy of the 1993 “Maryland Direct Farm Market and Pick Your Own Directory” from any county library.

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Running Wild
Daylilies, now delighting us along the roads and beaches of the Bay, belong to the genus Hemerocallis, Greek for “beautiful for a day.” Each blossom stays open for just one day before fading. Luckily for us, each plant produces a succession of flowers to make a long growing season. Watch a daylily open and you’ll see that while the stamens start out black with an edge of yellow, as the petals begin to open the stamens turn inside out to reveal golden yellow pollen to the enjoyment of bees and butterflies.

Hollyhocks are said to be biennials, but those that grace our neighborhood either haven’t been told the schedule or they drop seeds each year to cast up new plants. The old fashioned variety, which is a native of China and came to America with early colonists, stands erect up to nine feet, often needing a fence or wall for support in stormy weather. It has a leafy spire of stem with red, pink or white single flowers in terminal clusters. It’s called marsh mallow when growing wild in the salt marshes.

Mimosa trees, true Southerners who won’t thrive in climates much colder than ours, are bright with flowers as showy as Japanese fans.

In sum, it’s high summer.

In the Garden
Berries are burgeoning to satisfy every taste. Take your pick, literally: blueberries, black raspberries, gooseberries, red raspberries. You can afford to be choosy, like the friend who turned down an offered black raspberry windfall. “They’re not my favorite,” she could afford to say, when red raspberries (they are her favorite) were hers for the picking next door. Even a few mulberries are still to be found. All that’s missing is blackberries, and they’re ripening. (For more on ‘em, read this issue’s Diversion and Excursion, “It’s the Berries.”)

In the Water—Dino What?
What’s that glowing stuff in the Bay water with you during that evening swim? Dinoflagellates.

So, what is that stuff? Dinoflagellates are tiny, tiny organisms—probably plants rather than animals—living among plankton. You can see them only because there are so darn many of them. If you looked at one under a microscope, you’d find something with two movable, hairlike appendages, one winding around the body in a spiral groove, the other usually trailing behind.

A few kinds are poisonous, like those causing “red tides,” but most are harmless. Many are luminescent—they glow in the dark—when stimulated by contact with other things in the water or simply by the movement of the water itself. The glow is often bright enough to be seen in the wake of a ship or even on the crests of waves. Since dinoflagellates are more numerous in summer and fall, that’s when you’re more likely to see their glow.

Fish sometimes stir up trails of light for night fishermen to spot by just swimming through herds? schools? tides? of dinoflagellates. Sardine and anchovy fishermen once worked only in the dark of the moon when luminescence outlines the schools of fish, each of which leaves a slightly different trail.

In another bay, an ocean inlet in a small island offshore of Puerto Rico, the glowing organisms are so concentrated that nighttime underwater swimmers are bathed in light, A rise to the surface for breath brings cascades of green washing down the swimmers’ bodies.

Aren’t you glad you asked?

In the Air
Lightning bugs! Fireflies! Look for yourself, and read Joe Browder’s “Bay Reflection.”

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Creature Feature

The Turtle Who Stopped Traffic
by Sandra Martin

Turtles keep crossing my path

Why does the turtle cross the road?

“Because the road is in its way,” explains reptile biologist Suzanne Demas, of Fairhaven.

When spring wakes them up, turtles head out, looking for a “nice damp, leafy, woodsy spot—and for females.” This year, when turtle appearances have been sporadic, they’re still looking.

With male turtle determination as high as road caution is low, the highways of warm weather tell a sad tale.

So begins for two species another seasonal ritual.

No matter how pressing the deadline or how many miles separate us from our desks, our family stops to assist turtle corssings. Reptilian head cranes and red eyes gleam in slow curiosity as its rescuer’s fingers spread round the high dome of its mottled shell.

Usually we take them across the road in the direction they were going (and will return to after you leave them alone, Demas advises) and deposit them well into the safety of the underbrush. That is just what I did in the last few days, assisting two perfect yellow and olive specimens of turtlehood on their pigeon-toed way toward their woodsy retreat.

One year when we knew less, we couldn’t resist taking them home. Turtles regularly summered on my sunken patio.

A middle-sized turtle gaily painted in summac red stayed all season. Others quickly escaped and I was glad, for several were intended as gifts for the children of city folk who have no turtles of their own.

Over the years, I’ve come to agree that turtles make poor pets. They’re smart enough, and they can unpuzzle mazes even more quickly than rats. But to thrive, a turtle needs careful attention. All my mother’s attempts to make useful pets of turtles failed; once put in the basement to eat bugs, they were never seen again. No wonder: box turtles are vegetarian—indeed, vegetarian gourmets. The turtles Demas studied preferred raspberries; mine scorned bananas. Yet a turtle friend of ours in Washington, who goes by the name of Highway Haven, one day discovered a sudden and voracious yen for bananas.
You never know.

I’ll gladly rescue turtles, but I’ve no desire to run a turtle shelter.

The morning after a great rain last summer, the dog’s barking alerted me to a stranger. His hackles had risen. At the door, I saw why: two feet of prehistoric menace occupied the front stoop.

I stared. A turtle lurked, a turtle like I had never seen. His head (anything so ferocious was bound to be male, I figured), beaked and large as a tomcat’s, peered beadily out of the folds of turtleneck.

Sturdy, armadillo-like legs tapered into ominous hooked claws. A Baywater-brown shell was surprisingly flat to contain such a monster—about the size and shape of an English riding saddle. From the back of that shell protruded about a foot of spiky, rhinocerous-hided tail.

What, I wondered, was this beast doing on my stoop, a good quarter of a mile uphill from the nearest swamp?

For the moment, it was looking at me. I retreated.

When I checked back moments later, he was gone. So much for one truism. There was nothing slow about this turtle.

Max the dog and I went seeking together. He found the turtle first, 20 feet away and about to cross the road.

A turtle of this size, squashed, would be a spectacle I didn’t want to see. The dog charged.

That’s when I concluded this turtle was a snapper. It dug in its billhook claws, opened its beak on a rosy mouth, and hissed. The 105-pound Lab retreated behind my skirts.

I imagined myself setting up a chair in the road, diverting traffic until the turtle crossed in his own good time.

I might have done just that had neighbor Billy not happened by to congratulated me on my turtle. “Nice alligator turtle you’ve got there,” said Billy. “Going to eat it?”

Billy earns his living as a crabber. He is younger than some of the other crabbers in the neighborhood, who admire his strength and endurance.

I admire turtle soup—as long as someone else does the dressing. “You cut off the head first, so it doesn’t bite,” my resourceful mother had told me. “But getting it out of the shell is the tough part.”

Tough indeed, I imagined, sizing up this turtle.

I didn’t want to eat him, I admitted. “Do you?” I asked.

“Too much trouble for me,” Billy said. “But I’ll take it down to the marsh for you.”

And fearless Billy hauled up the turtle by its stegosaurian tail.

“He’s probably a she,” corrected Billy. “They live down there. Swim up under baby ducks and snap ‘em under. But they come up here to lay eggs.”

Suspended upside down, the snarling she-turtle arched and twisted to reach the crabber’s hands. “Hey, she’s heavy,” said Billy, and dumped the turtle in the bed of his pick-up.

But before he drove the turtle home, Billy had errands in town. His errands stretched out, and Billy had forgotten the turtle behind him, until he glanced in his rearview mirror and saw its malignant face leering at him through the back window of the cab. He hit the brakes, and the turtle went flying.

There’s only one stoplight in town, but plenty of police enforce the 25 mph speed limit and keep the citizens under control. Knowing this, Billy watches his step and his speedometer when he’s in town. So he was surprised when the blue light bore down on him.

“What’d I do?” Billy complained when the cop swaggered up.

Billy’s blue-eyed gaze, following the officer’s finger, found the alligator turtle clinging to his tailgate, hissing balefully.

“Mister, that turtle’s so ugly it’s stopping traffic,” the officer said.

A month or so later, I found a second turtle on our patio. It had the color, disposition of our alarming visitor and was about twice the size of a ripe, unhulled black walnut. The only time I tried to pick it up, it hissed, showing a rosy mouth.

I guess Billy was right about the sex of the Turtle that Stopped Traffic.

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Landfill Reprieve
The saga of the Sudley landfill continues, but things are clearer for now.

Anne Arundel County’s Utilities Department has extended until Sept. 30 the date for closing the South County landfill to small businesses. The county has said that it won’t be classifying small businesses with commercial haulers constantly needing dump space.

To people accustomed to government’s frequent dictates, the county’s attitude is welcome.

“We've had nothing but open ears,” said Claire Mallicote, owner of Mali Discount office supplies in Deale and an active member of the Southern Anne Arundel Chamber of Commerce.

Ultimately, the county will be forcing people to make burdensome drives north to the Millersville. This is being done, the county says, because of problems that boil down to money. The county claims it can’t afford to make the alternations needed to expand Sudley.

The decision raises questions that involve fairness to fairness to South County taxpayers.

“It’s difficult to protect the environment, provide service to customers and be equitable to everybody,” observed Jody Vollmar, spokesperson for the public works department.

Meanwhile, the Southern Anne Arundel Chamber of Commerce is suggesting that haulers needing space contact private, for-pay landfills: Al-Ray Rubble or PST Reclamation, both on Sands Road in Lothian.

Pesticide Perils
In the summer of 1962, Rachel Carson warned of dangers from farm chemicals. Her book, Silent Spring, led to banning of DDT and new awareness that massive use of chemicals that kill things may not be wise over time.

This week, the prestigious National Academy of Sciences finally issued its own warning, saying that pesticides may harm children.

The Academy’s report was written by pediatricians and physicians, not by environmental advocates. It warned that because of children’s metabolism and the amount of fruit they eat, we’d better cut back on the pesticide residues we permit on produce.

The report will affect all our lives and government’s role as protector. Federal agencies immediately said they would write new regulations and develop new tests.

What should we do in the meantime?

• Wash fruits and vegetables like our kids’ lives depend on it.
  
• Find out where produce comes from and encourage inspections, especially when it is grown in countries with lax standards.
  
• Learn about organic growing, mulching, crop rotation and methods to manage pests and weeds without dumping chemicals on the earth.

Bluefish Confusion?
Maybe what the government types are telling us about the lack of bluefish is overblown.

Captain John MacEwen, who operates Janet M II out of Deale, says he’s running into blues in the 2-4 pound range. And there are the bigger blues, often to be found feeding with the rockfish.

But, he says, there are so many rockfish—which are out of season, of course—that they’re a nuisance when trying to hook a blue.

Wishing for a Clean Bay
Who would have thought that visitors at Luray Caverns in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley would be helping the Chesapeake by peering into a wishing well?

That's the way it’s turned out, with announcement that Luray has donated $50,000 to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s education fund.

People come from all over the world to the Blue Ridge Mountain landmark. Invariably, they gaze into the six feet-deep well and reach in their pockets for coins. At year’s end, the well is drained and roughly 700,000 coins are shoveled into wheelbarrows on their way to be cleaned in cement-mixers.

Next, they are dried by a flame-thrower, bagged and deposited in a special account for charities. Since 1954, these gifts have totaled nearly $350,000. This year’s $50,000 grant to the foundation and a grant of the same size two years ago to fight Alzheimer’s disease were the biggest.

The new grant will pay for field trips to increase awareness of the Bay’s fragile condition.

Foundation president William C. Baker referred to Luray Caverns as one of most Virginia’s most treasured wonders and added that as a result of the gift, “another marvel of nature, the great Chesapeake Bay, is a step closer to its restoration.”

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Who’s Got the Best Barbecue on the Bay
We’re still looking, so shape up your act and send in your nominations

Summer’s hit the Bay, like a hot, wet washcloth across your face. Heat shimmers in the air, reflecting off suspended beads of moisture waiting to cling to exposed flesh. Kids splash in swimming pools, the Bay and hoses, trying to keep cool. Parents and those of us more wise in the ways of beating the heat lounge, conserving energy so as not to sweat. Some, done in by the heat, revel indoors in front of fans or air conditioners.

During these high days of summer, rays of heat can clench your stomach like the hands of Charles Atlas and constrict your appetite into that of a 99-pound weakling.

Sunset relaxes that grip a little. Not much, but enough for the rumblings of hunger to make themselves heard. But what to eat? Outside heat still rises from the earth like a casserole just out of the oven, and the last place anyone in a Chesapeake summer wants to find themselves is in front of a baking-hot oven or eating a steamy casserole.

So what to do?

Barbecue. And there are two ways to go about it.

First, you can fire up the grill, whip up a sauce and do it yourself. But a good home-grilled barbecue takes some preparation and more than a few hours to cook, so let’s come back to it a little later.

The second option is easier and closer at hand. You can let someone else take care of the hot stuff at any number of ’cue joints around the Bay.

A lot of restaurants brag that they have the best ribs around. But unless a place specializes in barbecue—serving little, if anything, else—chances are their ribs and sandwiches will bear an aftertaste of neglect.

Good barbecue takes time and attention that few restaurants with a deep menu can muster. Great barbecue—the kind that gets you salivating from the smell and tightens your belly in anticipation of that first bite of meat—demands absolute devotion and sometimes generations to perfect.

What makes great barbecue? Different people like different things. But there are only two real differences: wet or dry, and what goes on top. Wet barbecue, also known as Memphis- and Kansas City-style, soaks in a tangy sauce AFTER it’s been slowly smoked over a hard-wood grill or fire. Dry, Texas-style barbecue, comes just like it sounds—dry. No sauce. No nothin’, except for some unadulterated, fine-tasting, slow-smoked meat dripping with juice.

Baysiders have it both ways. Ribs almost always come smothered in sauce, as do minced pork sandwiches. But stacked beef and pork sandwiches usually come dry.

Around the Bay a scoop of slaw on barbecue sandwiches is standard, as it is in Memphis and throughout the South. Midwestern Kansas City style opts for potato salad on top. In Texas people’ll throw dirty looks your way if you put anything aside from jalapeno peppers and some hot sauce on your ‘cue.

In the end, though, what you do to your ‘cue is up to you, ‘cause you’re eating it.

Here’s a rundown of some of the Bay’s many barbecue joints.

PIG PEN, Mayo *** 1/2
Tucked away in a strip mall on the side of Route 214, Pig Pen grills barbecue over a mix of charcoal and hickory. Although they don’t specialize solely in barbecue, theirs is not too shabby. The meat carries a smokey flavor, perhaps at the price of tenderness. The sliced beef and pork sandwiches comes with a ton of meat stacked high. But there’s only a dollop of what might be a delicious sauce—if you could find it. This isn’t such a problem with the babyback ribs, the chicken, or the minced pork sandwich, but you may want to ask for a side of sauce just to be safe.

RED HOT & BLUE, Annapolis ***
Founded by, among others, late 1988 Republican presidential campaign strategist Lee Atwater, Red Hot & Blue makes a pretty good barbecue for a franchise. Their meat comes out with a pink tint that makes you wonder if it’s cooked enough. The deceptive color comes from the long and slow cooking over a bed of hickory, which ensures that the meat remains moist and tender.

Red Hot & Blue serves wet, Memphis style ribs as well as dry ribs dusted with Cajun blackening spice. The sandwiches don’t hold their juice as well as the ribs and chicken and need extra sauce as a result. Which leads to one of Red Hot & Blue’s problems: they serve their sauce in little individually sealed plastic containers made and packaged God only knows where. If there’s a secret ingredient to the sauce, you’d never taste it.

For a sit-down joint the service runs slow and sometimes unfriendly. One unsmiling waitress—who must have had somewhere better to be—was never around when my beer mug was empty. After walking to the bar, I had to yell over the bartender’s attitude to get a beer to carry back to the table. Both these problems are common to chain restaurants and don’t taint the food’s flavor. But they do taint the overall experience.

J.R.’S OPEN PIT, Bowie ** 1/2
Like many ‘cue joints, J.R.’s, located in a shopping center off route 301, is a shack offering carry-out and outdoor dining at their three picnic tables. The sandwiches are good, although again a little on the dry side, and their ribs are good but the portions small. The weakest point at J.R.’s is the sauce, which tastes vinegary like it’s fermented.

PAT’S DIXIE PIG, Upper Marlboro * 1/2
Only in operation near the intersection of Route 202 and the Marlboro Pike for a month, Pat’s carry-out has a lot to learn about good barbecue. To begin with, the ribs are grey and look boiled, although they’re supposedly roasted; either is taboo in the world of barbecue. Then there’s the sauce, which may be barbecue sauce but is definitely not home-made. If nothing else, they should switch brands.

Bayside Bull, Edgewater ****
This little barbecue hut, on Route 214 just off of Route 2, serves only sandwiches, although not only barbecue. It’s all cooked over hard-wood charcoal, which would upset a purist. Still, it’s darned good. The meat’s all smokey-flavored and moist. The stacked sandwiches come dry, whereas the minced pork comes with the sauce mixed in. Either way, if you’re a real sauce lover you’ll want to heap a big glob on top because it’s so tasty.

ADAM’S, THE PLACE FOR RIBS, Chesapeake Beach, Edgewater, Severna Park, Solomons ***
Another full service restaurant geared to ribs, Adam’s does a decent job with their ‘cue. Ribs and chicken are cooked to perfection so that the meat comes off the bone without a fuss while remaining moist. The beef and pork sandwiches are also moist. Everything comes with the sauce already on, but you may want it left off. It’s not homemade, and you can tell. It doesn’t do justice to what might otherwise be a fine barbecue.

J.P.’S BAR-B-QUE & CATERERS, Landover *** 1/2
Unless you already know where J.P.’s roadside stand is, you're gonna have to hunt for this barbecue. And it’s worth it, especially if you’re hungry and headed north on route 202 and nearing Interstate 95. There, on the right-hand side at Lottsford Rd. in a hand-made, metal sided trailer with smoke pouring out, is where from noon to ten you’ll find J.P.’s every day of the week except Sundays and Mondays.

The aroma of barbecue overpowers the smells of traffic. The sandwiches are meaty and the ribs and chicken tender without being underdone. The prices are a little steep, which could be due to the proximity to Washington. If the sauce is bottled or canned, the folks inside the trailer won’t let you know and neither will the pieces of beef and pork floating in it.

JOHN’S OPEN PIT, Huntingtown **** 1/2
If you stop in at John’s, situated just off of Route 2/4, be sure to bring along an appetite. Everything here is cooked over a hickory fire and the home-made sauce is served on the side or not at all. The beef and pork sandwiches are stacked so high that you may want to eat the top and bottom separate and open-faced to fit them into your mouth. The ribs and chicken are marinated in 12 spices and then slow-cooked. Add some sauce if you want, it’s real good, but the meat is so tender and rare that none is needed.

PIG OUTS, Deale *** 1/2
Located in a strip mall to the side of Route 256, Pig Outs offers dining room service, a full menu and barbecue that doesn’t suffer too much for it. Ribs are definitely the way to go here. They’re slow-cooked over a charcoal grill and tender so that they pull from the bone without a struggle. If you choose a sandwich instead, expect a big pile of beef or pork on the side separate from the bun. Chances are you’ll wind up with more meat than bun. All the barbecue comes served with the sauce, which isn’t home-made but is jazzed up with extra spices and the like.

SID’S FLAMING PIT, Deale **** 1/2
Of all the little walk up ‘cue stands, Sid’s is the smallest—but there’s a lot of flavor packed into that little place. Don’t expect anything resembling rare because the meat at Sid’s is definitely well done. But the special Pennsylvania charcoal and hardwood mix leaves a dense smokey flavor and the thick, sticky, home-made sauce will make you smack your lips in appreciation. The sandwiches aren’t the biggest, but they are filling and satisfying. For all their doneness, the ribs and chicken at Sid’s are tender and tear easy.

You’ll notice that none of the barbecue joints listed has five stars. For that you’d better get to work on your own secret recipe.

Here are a few tips to get you off in the right direction, but don’t expect rave reviews overnight. If you’re lucky, your grandchildren may be near to perfecting your recipe years from now.

To start with, great barbecue is usually pork. Now I know fans of Texas-style brisket barbecue will say you don’t get nothing unless you’re working with beef. But that’s the way Texans are.

Go to the store, or better yet to a butcher shop, and look for ribs with lots of deep pinkish-red meat with snow white fat running through it. The redder the meat and the whiter the fat the better the ribs. Remember, the fat holds the flavor, so don’t trim away too much of it.

Once home, start a charcoal fire in a Weber-type grill. Once it heats up, spread the coals around. Then add some fruit or hard-wood branches, wood chips or charcoal. The wood puts out more smoke if it’s green or soaked in water.

Next, boil some water, add some spices and herbs (this is the first experimental stage) and throw in the ribs for NO MORE than five minutes. The idea here isn’t to cook them, but to parboil away excess fat and to seal in the flavors.

Once the coals have cooled a little and there’s no trace of flame, put on the meat and cover. The wood should smoulder, not burn. If flames appear, spray them with water. Turn the meat regularly. The cooler the fire, the longer the meat takes to cook and the better it tastes. If your flame is just right, a rack of ribs should take no less than four hours to cook.

While you’re waiting, you can head back to the kitchen and work on sauce. There are several good sauces on the market and a few additions can make it better. But a real barbecue fan should “play” around. Open the spice cabinet and see what catches your fancy.

Most barbecue sauces start with a ketchup base, and there’s no reason you shouldn’t. But don’t be afraid to try tomato sauce, salsa or whatever else grabs your attention. If you screw up too bad there’s time to start over before the meat’s done. Do you like it spicy? Add chili pepper or hot sauce. Sweet? Throw in some honey or molasses. Sour? Try a little vinegar or lemon. Leave your inhibitions behind when you’re looking for that special barbecue sauce recipe.

Once you’ve got a sauce you’re happy with, wait until the ribs are almost done. Then spread a dab of sauce on each side and let them cook a bit longer. Be careful not to let the sauce burn, because the sugar will carmelize and get crunchy like charcoal.

When you think it’s time, pull the meat. If you like your sauce on the side, it’s time to eat. But if you like your ribs laden with sauce, soak them in a pan with the sauce and put the whole mess in the oven for about 15 minutes at 300°.

Last, put on a T-shirt and grab plenty of napkins, because really great barbecue should be messy. Now, it’s chow time.

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Recipes
What’s more American than apple pie? Maybe gooseberry pie? We can’t decide, so here are recipes for both.

Pat Bramhall of Lothian assures us that her fillings for both are Maryland’s best. The secret, she says, is mixing all the ingredients together to swell the flavors.

Naturally, you’ll need a best crust to put those fillings in. I think you’ll find that Illinoisian Barbara Manning’s fills the bill.

Finally, here’s a lovely cooler for your holiday, concocted by Lee Summerall of Owings Cliffs.

Apple Pie Filling
In a large bowl stir together:
2/3 C sugar
2 T flour
1/2 t cinnamon
1/4 t nutmeg
1/8 t ginger
1/4 t salt
1/2 t grated lemon rind Add and toss to coat:
5 C peeled apples, thinly sliced

Spread apples in 9” pastry-lined pan. Dot with 1 T butter, cut into bits. Cover with top crust. Slit decoratively, brush with 1 T heavy cream. Sprinkle with 1/2 t sugar. Bake 1 hour at 350.

Gooseberry Pie Filling
2 1/2 C gooseberries (both stem ends removed)
1 1/4 C sugar, divided (3/4 and 1/2)
1/2 C water
1 T cornstarch
1/2 t cinnamon
1/4 t nutmeg
1/8 t salt

Cook gooseberries in water and 3/4 C sugar until soft. Combine remaining 1/2 C sugar with cornstarch, salt, and spices. Add to gooseberries and cool.

Brush bottom pie shell with unbeaten egg white. Fill with fruit, dot with butter, top with pastry. Gash top and seal edges. Bake for 10 minutes at 450; reduce heat to 350 and make 25 minutes longer.

Barbara’s Best Pie Crust
Keeping cool is the secret. Use ice water, and never touch the dough with your fingers: your body heat will melt the shortening. Barbara even uses and old-fashioned glass rolling pin filled with icewater.

For 2 crusts:
2 C flour
1 t salt
3/4 C shortening
4-5 T ice water

Spoon…flour into measuring cap and pour into bowl. No need to sift.
Add…salt to flour and blend
Cut in…half of shortening (for fork, knives, or pastry cutter) until mixture resembles coarse meal. Then remaining shortening until particles are the size of small peas
Add…ice water a little at a time, mixing lightly w. fork
Shape…dough into firm ball. Divide in half.
Roll out…half of dough to 12” circle in lightly floured cloth covered board
Place…loosely in 9” pie pan; trim at edge of pan
Fill…unbaked crust w. pie
Roll out…remaining dough for top crust. Cut decorative slits for steam to escape.
Place…over filling. Cut 1” larger than pan
Fold…edge of top crust under edge of bottom crust. Moisten rim of pan. Flute edge.
Bake…as directed for filling.

Fourth of July Cooler
Eight generous glasses to sip while you watch the fireworks.

2 16 oz. bottles white grape juice
1 liter seltzer water, unflavored
1 C strawberries, washed, hulled, and halves
1 C blueberries, washed
1/4 C white sugar, dissolved in 1/4 C hot water

Do not make ahead. Pour juice and seltzer into pitcher. Sweeten to taste w. sugar syrup. Add fruit. Pour over ice cubes in tall glasses. For more color, freeze whole blueberries into the ice cubes.

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Moon Facts
It takes the Moon about 28 days to traverse all the constellations of the zodiac. We see the full moon when the sun is in a constellation opposite the moon. At the start of July, the sun is midway across Gemini and by the end will be midway through Cancer. That means that the full moon of July third will be in Sagittarius, the constellation farthest away from Gemini. By the time of the new moon—the dark of the moon—on July 19, the moon will be in Cancer with the sun whose brightness will hide it.

Symbolically, the moon is associated with mother, females, the mind, common sense, memory, emotional fluctuations, sensitivity, pearls, silver and Monday.

Early Romans praised Diana—from a root meaning “to shine”— as goddess of the moon and showed her with a crescent moon caught in her hair. Christian artists borrowed the symbol for Mary, the mother of Jesus, who is often represented standing on a crescent moon.

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Kids Play Ball
On the mound, he feels “scared and nervous because you never know what’s going to happen. Once with two strikes and no balls, a kid whacked the ball and got a homerun on a triple.”

Marc Limburg, 10, of Chesapeake Beach, shakes his head in amazement but he’s not dismayed. He likes pitching and he’s good at it. He loves baseball and has always wanted to play. The fact that Dad, also named Marc Limburg, is a baseball fan and his coach may have some influence.

Marc says that of the other kids he plays with only his friend Kevin shares his passion for the game.

Marc’s heroes are Brady Anderson, Cal Ripken, and Mike Devereaux. He can’t quote their stats but he’s seen them play. He’s been to two Orioles games this season. He went to the last game at Memorial Park. He said, “I was crying about that because I didn’t want it to go down. I thought they would tear it down. But now Bowie Bay Sox—a AAA Orioles team—plays there.” Marc also went to the first exhibition game at the new Oriole Park at Camden Yards.

What’s his best game? Marc talks about the last game of this season for his Babe Ruth League team, the Royals. “We were down 9 to 13 but we caught up and went to 14. Then the Blue Jays got one and then another. We played our hardest through the whole game. We all felt good even though we didn’t win.”

His advice for others who want to play ball? Marc says, “Find the best coach. See if my Dad will coach you.”

Information about fall ball: 410/741-5522. Leave a message. Someone will call back in a week or so.

Kids Book Reviews

Homecoming
by Cynthia Voigt
Try to imagine this. Your Mom wakes you up in the middle of the night, makes you pack your clothes, and drives off with you and the rest of the family. She doesn’t say where she’s headed. The next day she stops at a shopping mall, walks in, and never comes back. Not the best feeling, is it?

This is the premise of Cynthia Voigt’s prize-winning book. Dicey, the oldest of the abandoned children, must find for herself and her brothers and sisters a safe haven in the unfamiliar Chesapeake Bay area. There are many troubles, including avoiding the police, finding food, and keeping the family together. When the children finally discover their eccentric grandmother on the southern end of the Eastern Shore, they must fight to stay with a woman who does not want them. It is a battle of wills that the children eventually win.

A resident of Annapolis, the author describes areas of her town and the Eastern Shore in great detail. The four children pass through places that we see every day making their problems seem all the more close at hand. To tell the truth, I first read this book ten years ago and I haven’t found another story as strong as Homecoming.

—Reviewed by Mason Schoenfeldt

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