Ode to corn on the cob

The last of the 4th of July festivities and the events thereafter are now in the distance and corn on the cob is on my mind.  Pam gave me a de-stringer for corn which works very well.  It's a simple brush that is well constructed and with no fuss does the job with a little elbow grease.  There are several corn recipes in Cook's Corner today and some I have made variations of and some seem interesting enough to try.  We have gone through about four dozen ears of corn since the season started and we are finding it delicious this summer.  However, I have rarely found an ear of corn that I didn't like.  Some used to say if you are walking from the field with a load of corn and an ear falls to the ground, leave it, just rush to husk the bounty and leave the droppers because by the time you go to pick it up it won't be fresh enough. As haughty as we are about food and recipes nowadays, that seems even more extreme to me.

We had a summer place on the river in my hometown.  It was a wreck when my parents first bought it many years ago.  So bad that there was a handled pump in the front yard which was not discovered for several weeks as the area was cleared.  My mother, Elizabeth, was a master at fixing up and decorating a place.  I remember going with her to Zanesville to the wallpaper store, yes, a store just for wallpaper, go figure.  We got into the odds and ends bin and bought nearly the entire bin to decorate the Spook House...called the Spook House because Pearl and her sister Edna were known to still keep house there even though they had long departed the planet. Paint was a must and so all the trim in the house was white and all the rooms were wallpapered.  I was teaching at the time and Andy and I and our boys would go down on weekends to get the place ready and to sit in the sun to tan.  One day I asked Mother if I could bring my class down for the weekend and of course, she agreed that would be fun for the kids.  I had talked about the Spook House so the kids were prepared for something dark and spooky but were surprised to find a cozy ,pretty, old house on the river to enjoy a weekend of fun and fun we had!

Another adventure at the Spook House took place every summer for four or five years.  Andy worked with a man who grew corn in a big way.  Once a summer he allowed Andy to take our station wagon to the field and fill it with corn on the cob.  We loaded the family and off we would go to the Spook House where Mother would have a fire going outside with pots of boiling water and tables covered in paper, and knives for getting the corn from the cob, and bags and coolers--it was a big production with everyone getting their fill of corn on the cob before the work took over.  We froze the bounty and lived the experience all winter long as we consumed the corn. (We did the same in cherry season and the Cincinnati Lechlers were a part of that adventure.)