Thursday, April 29, 2021

I Got The Beet(s)


What in god's name is that? a reasonable person might ask. 
Here's a hint- you would not study those in anatomy class. 
One thing that The Asshole, aka the stepfather, used to make was pickled eggs with pickled beets. And I always loved them. I loved them so much that their memory is not tainted by the person who made them. He was raised dirt poor. And I mean DIRT poor. He grew up in a citrus grove and if my mother's family was barely affected by the depression, his was hit hard. Growing fruit in Florida didn't make anyone rich except for a few huge grove owners. His family did anything they could to stretch food and one of the things they did was to buy the cheapest past-the-dates white bread they could find and to eat it with everything. To this day, I can just see that man sitting at the head of the table, putting whatever my mother had made between slices of white bread. It was nauseating. Soda crackers were another cheap stretcher. He forced us to crumble up handfuls of the things to put in our canned chili or soup. FORCED US. 
And this was the worst- in our pantry there was always at least one can of pig brains. What? You didn't know they sell canned pig brains? Well, they may not anymore. I don't know. But I will tell you that coming home at night stoned as hell and looking for something for the munchies and finding cans of pig brains in the cabinet is something else I will never forget. 
He'd scramble them into eggs and eat them with gusto. Thank heavens he did not force us to eat them. There was no fucking way. He did make me finish my cooked cabbage once and at that time in my life, I hated the stuff. I was massively pleased to vomit it up at the table. 
BUT. 
I did love those pickled beet eggs. 
We've got so many eggs right now and I have a few jars of beets that I pickled, uh, years ago. Not THAT many. They're still safe to eat although the texture of the beets is not great but I decided to do an experiment today and see if I could recreate this delicacy. 
The hard part was peeling that many eggs. Y'all, I am sixty-six years old and I think I have finally figured out how to best get the shell and membrane off a boiled egg. I put my eggs in water, bring it to a boil, turn it off and let them sit for at least ten minutes. And then I tap a gentle crack into each egg and THEN I put two at a time, although you could just do one or even three if you wanted, into a jar like a mason jar, cover with water, put a lid on the jar, and shake it all up for about 10-20 seconds. Or something like that. 
And then the peel comes off so easily. 

So I did all that and put my peeled eggs in quart jars, heated up my jar of pickled beets and added some more vinegar and sugar and when it boiled and the sugar was dissolved, I poured it over the eggs in the jar. They are now in the refrigerator, hopefully becoming pickled and a beautiful shade of purply pink. 

I will now interrupt our regular programming to tell you that just a few moments ago I got a call from Lily who had heard from her best friend Kelly, that there was a murderer on the loose in Lloyd and that she needed to tell us. 
We are hearing a lot of sirens and had figured there was a big wreck on the interstate which is only a mile away. This happens far too frequently. "Murderer on the loose" is not something we encounter around here too often. Here's a news blip I found:

Posted at 4:46 PM, Apr 29, 2021
 
and last updated 5:32 PM, Apr 29, 2021

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) — The Florida Highway Patrol is pursuing a possible homicide suspect on I-10 eastbound off of mile marker 221 south.

Troopers say the suspect jumped out of their car and into the woods, with troopers then pursuing them.

FHP confirmed to ABC 27 that it is unknown where the pursuit began, but that it crossed from Leon County into Jefferson County.

K9 units are now on scene to assist troopers in searching for the suspect.

This is a developing story. Stay with ABC 27 for updates.

Dang. 

Well, if someone comes to the door and asks to be hidden, I will tell them no, and send them away. 

I did my weekly Publix/Costco run today and now have everything we could possibly want or need for the next month. 
Except of course, that won't be true and I will no doubt have to start another list as soon as this evening. 

I am exhausted. I knew I would be and bought a street tacos kit at the Costco which will be delightful and I will not be cooking although I think I will make a mango salsa to go with. 

And now a neighbor just called to tell me about the escaped homicide suspect. 

I'll let you know tomorrow if they catch him. I keep referring to the person as "him" although the article uses the pronoun "they" so I could be assuming that it's a man when it's not. 
I'll let you know about that too. 

Phew! 

Love...Ms. Moon

P.S. Kelly has reported to Lily who reported to me that the suspect has been apprehended. I trust Kelly who obviously has some kind of insider information of which I know nothing about. We can sleep peacefully tonight. 

19 comments:

  1. "there's a killer on the road....his brain is jumping like a toad" Great i can replace the ear worm that has been driving me crazy for over a week, and the Doors are a good worm.
    Purple eggs sound like fun, does the yolk stay yellow? Clever way to remove the egg armor.
    I wish that you lived right across the street- I could learn how to be a better person.
    My mom like pig brains in scrambled eggs...no way!!! She also liked liver, GROSS!

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  2. I sincerely hope that the cops haven't apprehended Mr Moon by mistake. Mind you, if you visited him in the State Penitentiary you could take along a fruit cake with a file inside. The jailers would not suspect a thing.

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  3. No pickled beets with or without eggs for me, thanks anyway! And no pigs brains either! My Mom was the only one in my family to love liver and onions. The rest of us couldn't even stand the smell!
    Glad you are safe from the possible homicide suspect! I wouldn't want the possible perpetrator coming to my door.

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  4. My mother often made pickled eggs because my father liked them. Then, my b-i-l made them all the time, one of his beloved "condiments". His mother addicted him to the things, so I concluded they were a depression phenomena.

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  5. I think pickled eggs are a kind of bar food, no? when you could get actual food along with your drink. I think I've read about them in Nero Wolfe, so they may be fiction. Yours are real, I'm thinking.
    A bit unnerving to be wondering if a murder suspect is going to show up at the door asking for a jar of beets or something. I'm glad that possibility isn't one any more.

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    1. I have eaten many pickled eggs at dive bars. They're nasty but I love them.

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  6. Some old-time diners around here used to keep jars of pig brains to scramble with eggs for old men that liked them. Who knows if that's still a thing. Along with giant jars of pickled pig feet and pickled eggs. I guess it was a holdover from the Depression when absolutely nothing was wasted.

    I don't think I've ever tasted a pickled egg in my life.

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  7. I don't like anything pickled but my mum loved pickled beets and I remember helping her in the summertime. She even convinced my dad to make her a shelf downstairs in the basement.

    I'm exhausted tonight. Four days in a row is too much for me now. We have Jack tonight which is lovely and although he is two, he's not the terrible twos, more like the unpleasant twos. He's decided he wants to kick the dogs and the cat and when you tell him no, he throws himself on the floor.

    Have a wonderful day tomorrow.

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  8. Well, now. It's not everyday you come wandering onto a blog to read about murder suspects in the neighborhood. Glad that he was caught. I hate not getting a goodnight's sleep.

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  9. Food is interwoven into our memories isn't it. I'm glad you have a good one. My grandmother, and my Dad occasionally too nowadays, served a side dish of beetroot in jelly. I was always told it was a Liverpool thing which is where she lived but I have no idea if that is true. I also think, but am not sure, that your jelly is different to ours. Jell o ??

    That dish has never passed my lips but the sight of it, such a jolly colour in a glass dish, has happy feelings attached.

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    1. Reading back and I feel I need to say I think you have many good food memories. I'd just woken up and rather clumsily wrote.

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  10. Always something going on in Lloyd... :)

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  11. As a kid, I actually liked pickled pigs feet ... we seemed to always have a jar in the fridge! I love pickled beets but have never dropped a hardboiled egg into the juice -- I've thought about doing it, just never have!
    Have never eaten brains & eggs ... my youngest son has and liked them! Ugh! If you know what Rocky Mountain Oysters are ... well, I have eaten many of those and I do love them! LOL Of course, I love chicken gizzards, too!
    Odd that the killer could easily leap out of a police car ... what? No seat belts in those things? No locks on the doors? Anyway ... glad he was caught!!

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  12. Gosh, that's not reassuring at all to think of a murderer being on the loose. Glad they caught him though!

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  13. You are living in a Flannery O'Connor short story-- escaped murderers, weird Southern food, and all.

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  14. your egg peeling trick works on fresh eggs? without peeling away half the white? I have never eaten a pickled egg with beets or otherwise. and I have never eaten pig brains scrambled with eggs or not. I also don't eat liver. gross. we humans are a weird lot. mostly only eat the muscle meat. the big cats, when they kill their prey they eat the brains and organs first, the most nutritious part, saving the muscle meat for last.

    glad to hear they caught the perp.

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  15. Glad the murderer has been caught. You brought back sweet memories, my father (totally NOT an asshole) used to make jars of pickled beets and eggs. Sometimes there would be slices of kielbasa too. I love them! Actually I love most anything pickled. Munching on some Wickles okra right now.
    I had no clue pig brains came in cans. Yuck!!! What a traumatic sight when stoned! Would have given me nightmares. Hope it’s a sweet weekend for you dear Mary. Much love.
    Xoxo
    Barbara

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  16. Wow. That takes some dedication to jump out of a moving FHP car on the interstate! Although now that I read the story again, they don't say the car was moving. So who knows.

    Canned pig brains. Now THAT is something I've never heard of. But I guess it's good that they were using the whole pig! I never ate pickled eggs, but I remember seeing them for sale in big jars in convenience stores.

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  17. Where I live they still sell picked eggs in the pub - from huge jars. When I was a boy, the old guys used to bring boxes of cooked tripe and onions and pickled eggs to eat with their beer.

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