The Corn Parties are over!

Last week I helped Bruce's parents with their corn parties. They had 7 parties in 6 days.  There were between 50 to 100 people at each of these parties.  On the menu was corn from the garden, of course, barbecue beef, pot luck salads and deserts.  Mark (Bruce's dad) also makes homemade root beer in the old fashioned way, the way his mother made it with yeast giving it carbonation.  It's always funny to see a bunch of Mormons drink the stuff for the first time because the yeast gives it a slight alcoholic taste, at least to a bunch of tea totalers. Former beer drinkers love the stuff because it has the bitterness that they remember from their days of drinking regular beer.  I've never drunk regular beer on a regular basis so I don't know for sure.  Each day the root beer tastes slightly different and I always try it out to see how it tastes that day.  I usually like it on the sweet side with a touch of bitterness.  Regardless, I find the process of making it fascinating.  I vow to get Mark to teach me how to make it SOON!  He's 82 years old.

Here's a picture I took of Mark last year out in the corn patch.  You can see the trash can in which he cooks the corn.  Cooking corn is the only thing that he uses the can for so don't worry.

Along with corn, anything else that may be ripe is presented at the table.  Tomatoes, peaches and raspberries were all on the table this year.  Some of the best tomatoes are small, orange, cherry tomatoes.

This year my contribution to the Corn Parties was "Cucumber Salad", sometimes I call it "Fresh Cucumber Pickles", New York Jews might call it "New Pickle", made with cucumbers from the garden.  I think my mother started making Cucumber Salad back in the late '70's.    The recipe is in a book published in 1977 by the Frugal Gourmet, Jeff Smith.   I used to watch Jeff Smith all the time on PBS and I think that I started my love of cooking by watching his shows.  Unfortunately, he was involved in a scandal that ended his television career.

Mom made this all the time and now I make it when the cucumbers are plentiful in the market or in the garden.  It is usually quite popular and very easy to make.  In the recipe book that it comes from there is a comment that it will become a family favorite and beside that comment at some point I wrote "You're right". I made this 6 times last week and started out with a 5 gallon bucket of cucumbers on Monday.  There was less than a quart of "pickles" left over Saturday night.

I like to eat these with sour cream or Greek yogurt but you probably won't miss either if you don't have them on hand.  Here is the recipe:

Cucumber Salad (From Israel)

Peel and thinly slice 4 cucumbers
Mix with 1 thinly sliced yellow onion (I cut them "pole to pole")
Bring to boil
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1    cup white vinegar (apple cider vinegar will do)
1/2 T.   dry dill
Pour over the cucumbers and onions and chill.  The hot vinegar cooks them slightly but they still are crisp.  They are best served the same day you make them but can be kept for several days in the fridge.

That's it!