kinda corny....

I decided the corn was about as cheap as it is gonna get. So I bought a case, which I am assuming is close to the equivalent of a bushel. And had the produce guy at Publix load it in the car to drive to TN. It's on sale at ten ears for $3, which if you have any math skills at all, you can see is comes out to thirty cents each. And the produce guys say that a box should have 48 ears, so when you (not me) multiply 48 by 30, I paid $14.40 for the box.

I got up this morning and shucked it, only to find that there were only forty ears. But we've cut kernels off, and made a monumental mess in the kitchen.. Scraping the ears resulted in that sticky, milky stuff that resides in each kernel splattering all over the kitchen counter, walls, sink, floor and me. It's sitting on the stove in two pots on low, to heat up, so we can put in zipper bags and put in the freezer.

It's such a messy proposition, I sort of dreaded the process. But now that it is done, the countertop and floor cleaned again, it is very gratifying to think of how nice it will be to stockpile in the freezer. And even more pleasant to think of what a treat it will be in the long cold months of no fresh vegetables: pulling a bag out to enjoy the taste of summer and sunshine.

As I was sitting on the back steps shucking those forty ears, I was thinking of doing that when I was a kid. Sitting on the back steps of my parents home, pulling the shucks off freshly-picked ears of yellow field corn. I am sure it was probably much cheaper (if not free), but that truism of you get what you pay for still holds: I seem to remember that every ear, as I would pull the shucks off, had a big ugly cornworm hiding in there, merrily chewing away. Getting fatter and nastier by the minute. I guess it was grown back then to feed livestock, so why would a farmer waste money on trying to keep the crop pest free? But I have the clearest memory, picture of those icky green worms, about as big around as your little finger, and nearly as long, happily munching their way down into each ear of corn we were planning to have for lunch.