Sweet Potatoes

After-glow. Rain to set in later, and warm through the holiday. But D had made it in and out, the pile of wood was very real (I'd gone out and kicked it a few times) and I felt secure enough to set back with an early drink and toast my modest accomplishments: food and fuel. When I went out later, to survey the playing field, I felt solid in my position. D said they had a massive sweet potato harvest but he had forgotten to bring me any. Thank god, because they were on pre-holiday sale at Kroger and I'd bought some. Rain and mist in the hollows, I put on the Cello Suites (Edgar Meyer), and think about what I might cook. A sweet potato, for sure, and some cured and smoked ham scraps (Joel turned me on to these) as they're shrink-wrapped and keep forever. I soak the ham bits in milk, then scrub a sweet potato, I never skin them, and boil then simmer it for thirty minutes, cut it into rounds, and slowly caramelize the slices. Make a pan of biscuits, with Crisco, like Mom taught me. Red-eye gravy. Not a dry eye in the house. I started a pot of beans, Anasazi reds, for rice and beans tomorrow, with cracklings and fresh minced sweet onion. I'll make crackling corn bread. I'm trying to track down this folk tale of panther breath being sweet, which I've read in several different texts, but it's proving allusive. It seems to have a religious aspect. The devil? Rain all day. It didn't get fully light until noon, but it's warmer and I feel good in my skin. Days of reading non-fiction, so I grabbed a Michael Connelly out of the library sale pile, and read fiction for a couple of hours, snacking on cheese and crackers, olives, nuts and dried fruit. Not a bad way to spend the evening. Before I stoke the stove for the last time, Christmas Eve, I put the pot of beans together:, cracklings, onions, chilies, minced red pepper, a couple of cheese rinds. After I stoke the fire I bring the beans to a boil, then move them to the coolest place on the stovetop, on a trivet, so they can cook all night. My plan for tomorrow is to bring inside a few armloads of wood, eat beans and rice and cornbread, and read all of the entries in Thoreau's journals for the period around Christmas. If the weather is nice, I'll go down and collect my mail. I have to pay land taxes and vehicle insurance before the end of the month, and I can do that, even if it means standing in line. Christmas dawns gray but not as thick. It's not raining exactly. Morning coffee on the back stoop, thick dew and a slight mist through the trees. Lovely and serene. Quiet, until a late flock of ducks fly over, heading south. The beans are as close to perfect as I would ever attempt. I have a small bowl for breakfast, with a piece of toast, then make a pot of rice for later. That's the extent of my labor for the day, and I settle in with the Dante biography. I had the radio on for a while, mostly pre-recorded pieces about the year's best. I recognize some titles, but I haven't seen or heard a single thing. I don't know who most of these people are.