Helping with Brunswick Stew

Jimmy and Regina's church usually makes Brunswick Stew in conjunction with their Fall Festival each year. The Fall Festival was cancelled last year and this year, as was the making of the stew in 2020, but, the men's group decided to go ahead with making Brunswick Stew this year, so we got to be part of it.

The process starts ahead of time with acquiring the ingredients for the stew... they make 500+ quarts of stew, so it takes a LOT of each ingredient! (no pictures from this component)

One of the to-do's is to get the cooking pots -- a hunt club has the cooking pots, so Jimmy took Carl and another fellow from church to load up the pots and stoves -- picture is of the stoves on the trailer...

Cooking pots on the trailer -- each pot is REALLY heavy -- 2 50 gallon steel and one 35 gallon cast iron pot.

On Thursday, the day before the "prep" day at church, we started "prepping" by cleaning the outside table and the cooking pots...

Even though the previous users of the pots had put oil on the inside when they were stored, the pots had rusted some, so we cleaned them enough to get at least some of the rust off and to clean the old oil out...

Carl cleaning the iron pot (we did not scour it as the pot is seasoned and we didn't want to remove that).

At the point when I took this picture, one of the steel pots was done and covered with plastic, the second steel pot was almost complete and ready to be covered, and Carl was cleaning the iron pot.

Friday was the prep day at church...

Jimmy was manning the cooking of the chicken outside -- 400 pounds of chicken legs and thighs!

Jimmy would check the temperature of the meat before pulling it out of the pot to make sure it was fully cooked.

Meanwhile inside, quite a number of the church folks got started on peeling the potatoes ...

lots and lots of potatoes...

Did I mention that there were a lot of potatoes to peel? The peelers also sliced the potatoes into quarters...

so the folks in the kitchen could use an electric slicer to slice them into the size appropriate for cooking in the stew.

At the same time, others were chopping onions!

Carl was outside helping with cooking chicken (it was chilly!).

Inside, we continued with chopping green peppers and celery...

Washing pans...

Many hands helped with picking the chicken off the bones after it was cooked and cooled.

Once the chicken cooking was completed, Carl and Jimmy moved on to setting up the cooking stoves for the kettles so they would be ready in the morning.

Making sure the stove pipe would stay up during the cooking.

Saturday morning started before sunrise with getting the wood cook fires for the stoves going.

Nephew Ricky preparing wood for the fire.

Cooking pots are on the stoves -- water is being added to start the process -- as the pots heated, the potatoes could be added.

Once ingredients started being added to the pots, each needed continual stirring.

All of the ingredients are prepped and ready to go in -- the recipe (which Jimmy is reading) tells precisely when each ingredient should be added.

There were a number of men helping during the cooking on Saturday.

Carl got his turn stirring.

What the pot looked like when he was stirring.

Nephew Ricky adding some ingredients -- the pot is getting more full!

Once all the ingredients are in, the pots are plumb full!

The stirring becomes more challenging as the stew becomes thicker.

Keep that stew moving!

The guys who are not currently stirring stay around to help out as needed!

The last 45 minutes or so, the stew had gotten so thick that the paddles could stand up in it on their own!

Jimmy shared with the guys who were cooking that the paddles had been made by Dwayne 3 years ago (http://trekincartwrights.blogspot.com/2018/10/brunswick-stew.html)...

Once the stew was "done", it was time to serve it out into quart containers...

Then the quart containers were carried into the fellowship hall...

Filling and cleaning the outside of the quart containers (Pastor Bill on the left)...

Fill the containers, put the tops on...

Once they are carried inside, the quarts are put onto long tables, ready to be sold and picked up.

Cooking all done, the stoves are dismantled...

... and the cooking pots are cleaned!

Ricky and a couple of other men from the church took the pots and stoves back to the hunt club on Saturday afternoon.

The results of all of the labor, 500+ quarts of Brunswick Stew!

Many quarts were pre-ordered, others were sold on Saturday, only about 50 remained on Sunday morning, and they were probably all sold by time church was done.

In case you don't know about Brunswick Stew, here are a couple of articles that might help:

https://www.southernthing.com/brunswick-stew-origin-2618902475.html?rebelltitem=6#rebelltitem6

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brunswick_stew 

A pretty sunset

One evening this past week, as we were heading over to the house for supper, the sunset was just beautiful:

Not as many colors as some evenings, but still pretty!

Does Miss Kitty have a twin?

After the car show on Saturday, Jimmy and Carl went to the NAPA store in Providence Forge, where Carl found Miss Kitty's twin on duty!

"On duty" might be a bit generous...

... though she does seem to have much of the information on the counter "covered"!

Note that I can be pretty confident that this cat is a female -- calicos and tortoiseshells (the latter is the color name for Miss Kitty and this cat) are almost always female - to get a "tri-colored" cat, they must have two X chromosomes (XX), which means "female" (males are XY). There are, however, some cats that have three chromosomes XXY, which means that it will present as a male cat but could be calico or tortoiseshell. According to the articles I read, about 1 in 3000 calico or tortoiseshell cats are male.

Carl visits a car show

Last Saturday, Jimmy and Carl visited a car show being held at the Colonial Downs (horse) Race Track here in New Kent. Car took pictures... I don't have much text to go with them... but if you like looking at cars, you might enjoy these pictures!

The license plate indicates 1956

The inside of the '56 Chevy

1967 Chevrolet

1930 Ford Truck

1970 Mustang

Pontiac Firebird TransAm - the car Carl wanted as a young adult

2020 Corvette Stingray Coupe

The window sticker for the 2020 Corvette Stingray Coupe -- just under $86K

1966 Mustang

Pontiac Catalina

Interior of the Catalina convertible

Carl and I are contemplating replacing our tow vehicle (don't tell the Jee-rage!). He sent me this picture and asked if I thought it would be a good tow vehicle -- if it tows 4-down, sure! Isn't it pretty?!?!?

1955 Chevrolet Bel Air - Carl's family owned a two-tone '55 Bel Air

1981 DeLorean (the "Back to the Future" car)

Just under $30K according to the window sticker

Flux capacitor sitting on the central console

Close-up of the flux capacitor (note: the nuclear components were not included on the window sticker itemized list!)

1953 Ford "Ranch Wagon"

Ford Roadster (maybe 1952?)

They seemed to have a good time!

To the processor

Carl went with Jimmy to the meat processor on Thursday -- they had to leave early in the morning, it is a 2.5 hour drive and the 2 animals were supposed to be there for intake at 7am. 

Jimmy got the two cattle loaded... these are two of the 4 that were brought back from across the road after weighing.

There they are in the stock trailer.

Stock trailer and farm truck at the processor

unloading at the processor

Look at the size difference between the two that Jimmy and Carl took (around 1000# each) and the one in the enclosure next to them!

Animals out...

Now it is time to load processed meat in, one of the helpers from the processor. This beef is from two cattle that Jimmy brought a few weeks ago.

The meat is cut and packaged at the processor. This is a USDA processor, so the meat can be commercially sold (not required if you're using it for your own use).

The other lady who was helping loading the meet onto the trailer.

Jimmy had prepared a covering for the boxes of meat and put it in the front of the trailer (the cattle he brought down were in the back part). It was all wrapped up on its way back the 2.5 hours to the farm.

One of the two animals that were taken a couple of weeks ago was being processed for a neighbor for their freezer -- Jimmy and Regina sell beef by the 1/4, 1/2, or whole cow, as well as individual pieces -- this neighbor purchased the whole cow. The neighbor has a large family, and came to pick up the boxes of beef as soon as Jimmy and Carl arrived back. Regina inventoried the beef that the farm got back and Jimmy got it into the freezer.

 

Chickahominy Academy Reunion

On the first Saturday afternoon after we arrived at the farm, one of the schools I attended as a kid (2nd-7th grades) had a reunion for all grades that ever attended the school. Even though I did not graduate from the school, I was welcomed to participate, and it was such a small school that I ended up knowing a few people, even though I was only there for a few of the school's early years.

We started at the location where the school had been -- this wasn't where I started in second grade (that was a plantation house on the James River), but it was the building where I went for 4th-7th grades.

There was also a "new building" which was not there when I was in school - it was built for the high school grades a couple of years after I left.

The multi-purpose room (now used by a church as their sanctuary) -- this is where we ate lunch (not a cafeteria, there were no meals available for purchase), had assemblies, school dances, PTO meetings, etc. We all agreed that it looked a LOT smaller than the room we remembered!

My 5th grade homeroom and the Math classroom that Mrs Ward presided over!

My 4th grade classroom - note that there is an outside door -- the rooms on the first floor had doors to the outside.

Inside the upper school building -- just this year, a school started using the building.

After visiting the school building, one of the former students had everyone gather at her home (Cavedo's - her father had been one of the board of directors of the school) and there was memorabilia from a number of folks provided for us to view.

Faculty members who attended -- the only one I knew was Mrs Starr (second from the left) -- she had been the kindergarten teacher when I was in maybe 6th or 7th grade. What I particularly remember is that when she came back to school in the fall, she was on crutches with a broken leg -- her husband and she had vacationed in the summer in California. You know those signs that say "Watch for falling (or fallen) rocks"? Well... one fell on their car, totaled the car, and broke her leg (as I understood and remember it!). I always think of that when I see one of those signs! I'm not certain that there are many options on what you would do if you happened to see the rock falling -- maybe you would be able to stop or go faster to avoid being hit?

4 of us from class of 1977 -- Lisa, Gayla, Regina and me

The organizers for the event created cups and pens, and provided a great meal for us!