Emergency Backup Food Thread – 08/24/2025

With apologies to all of you expecting an epicurean experience this afternoon, our regular Sunday chef, Mr. CBD, is unable to present the Food Thread today. We’ll have to give it a go without him.

Do Your Eggs Runneth Over

Fried eggs are a weekend treat for me. I make mine over-easy such that they are just barely runny, which provides just the perfect amount of yolk to sop up with toast.

But too runny is gross to me. At restaurants I no longer order eggs “sunny side up” because the yolks aren’t so much runny as they are watery, and the whites often aren’t even fully cooked. (My sister called them “runny side up” when she was a kid, a term I still use.)

How runny do you like your eggs?

2nd Tier Fruits, and Squirrel Meat as a Form of Currency

First off, whatever happened to apricots and plums?

When I was a child, those were prominent fruits. If my recollections are correct, apricots and plums were the primary tree-borne fruits that were consumed at my grandparents’ house in summer, at least before the apples (Jonathan) ripened in fall. My grandmother would make plum-butter kolaches, which were sort of the Czech equivalent of danish rolls (except much, much better.)

Plums were always my father’s favorite fruit, and my wife recently bought some plums (“cherry plums” specifically), at which time I realized it had been decades since I had eaten one. I like plums, so I don’t know why I quit eating them.

I also need to try apricots again.

Speaking of apricots, my grandparents didn’t have an apricot tree, but there were a couple of elderly ladies (whom we knew as the “spinster sisters”) who lived in a house down the road, and they had some apricot trees. My grandfather bartered with them, trading squirrels we shot out of his walnut trees for apricots.

My grandfather also bartered squirrel meat for blade sharpening with the guy at the lawn mower repair shop.

Recalling all this, I’m suddenly struck by the fact that:

- Squirrel meat was apparently a lot more popular back in the day. (However, I do recall a relatively recent episode of Duck Dynasty when the family was dining on squirrel and dumplings.)
- Dead squirrels are an interesting form of currency.
- Maybe the “spinster sisters” weren’t really sisters.

Backyard Produce

Speaking of homegrown fruit, my dwarf apple trees will provide me a couple weeks’ worth of fruit this year. I’m guessing I’ll be able to start picking them by the end of August.

I’ll still need to head out to the Georgia mountains in September to bring back a few bushels of orchard fresh apples.

Roadside Vegetable Popcorn Stands

There is a vacant lot beside the road I drive home from work, at which there are various pop-up stands throughout the year. In Fall a temporary pumpkin-selling operation appears, and similarly in December it becomes a Christmas tree lot. So, I was pleased one day in late July to see a canopy tent appear there. I figured this would be a temporary roadside vegetable stand. I slowed down with the intention of pulling over and getting some garden-fresh tomatoes, but as I pulled near, I realized it was…kettle corn.

I didn’t expect that! As much as I may like popcorn, when you’re getting excited about a sliced, fresh tomato, popcorn is a poor substitute.

Office Coffee Doesn’t Have to be Awful

Now let’s venture to the office…

Office coffee is notoriously bad. It is generally pre-ground robusta coffee, so it is obviously never going to be very good, but neither does it have to be gross. The main problem is coffee that sits on a burner for very long will develop a rancid tase and smell. When a carafe gets low, someone will come along and start a new pot without emptying the residual coffee already in the carafe. If that residual coffee is starting to go bad, the entire new pot is then tainted. And the cycle keeps perpetuating.

With these three simple steps, it is possible to make office coffee that is not bad!

1) Rinse out that the carafe before a new pot is made.
2) Rinse out the filter basket before a new pot is made.
3) Use only sealed coffee pouches, not coffee from a re-sealable tin.

Irrespective of office coffee, how and where do you get your first cup of morning coffee?

Office Food

For those of you who work in an office, how do you get your lunch? Do you brown bag it? Have it delivered? Go out with co-workers?

I’ve come full circle. In my early days right out of college when money was tight, I brown-bagged it four days per week to save money. Going out to lunch was a luxury I saved for Fridays.

Over time, it became rare for me to bring my lunch. Instead, I became a lunch-time loner, preferring to go to nearby counter-service restaurants, and then spend my lunchtime reading the newspaper.

And now I’ve come full circle, preferring to bring my lunch to work again. And instead of reading the paper, I sit at my desk, reading online. Being that I’m a lunchtime loner, bringing my lunch also gives me a handy excuse to decline lunch invitations! (“Hey Buck, wanna grab some lunch?” “Sorry, but I brought my lunch today.”) My lunch is never anything fancy, just a ham or turkey sandwich, apple or carrots, and some chips.

If you bring your lunch to work, what’s in your lunchbox?

While we’re talking about the office breakroom, does yours have a “Leave some food / Take some food” table? There is one table at my employer’s breakroom that serves that purpose. After Halloween, it fills up with leftover candy. Similarly, during the holiday season there will be all sorts of Christmas confections and treats. Leftover muffins and cupcakes also show up frequently. Summer is my favorite time of year at the table, as co-workers dump the excess produce from their backyard gardens. For whatever reason, cucumbers will not grow on my property, so I’m always glad when they start showing up on the “Take some” food table.

When my wife and I lived in Louisiana, satsuma tangerines and figs were abundant at that office’s “Take some” table. Those were always a treat.

Mr. CBD should be back next Sunday to restore some dignity to this thread. For now, however, please let me know if you have ever eaten squirrel, and if so, how was it prepared?

I have plenty of squirrels in my backyard if you’re willing to trade for whatever produce is growing in your backyard. Here is a “Squirrel and Dumplings” recipe from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.

[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]

posted by Buck Throckmorton at 04:00 PM

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