Six Hundred and Eleven

‘bout a bushel a day…

Six hundred and eleven.  

We’re still shucking up here in Galway.  Last we spoke (or more accurately, last I wrote) the topic of shucking was all about clams and the epic “Shuck-Off” between our mollusca mad men, Marek and Gavin.  We now shift the subject of shucking to corn.  Just about every morning since the second week of July, I’ve stopped at the Smith farm on Jockey Street on my trek toward the barn of Bull. And just about every day I bring a bushel or two of sweet corn into the kitchen.  For twelve weeks we’ve averaged twelve bushels containing about fifty ears of sweet, crisp, fresh corn.  That’s about 144 bushels. 7200 ears.  We shuck it all.  We throw about half of it on the grill.  Then we strip all of it off the cob.  Most weeks I put three bushels worth of grilled corn aside to make our Grilled Sweet Corn Dip.  All the other corn goes in Ziplock bags and lands in the walk-in freezer. OK, guilty as charged. We eat a piece or two. The waste husks and cobs get saved with all of our swine appropriate table/kitchen scraps and go back to the Smith farm nightly as contribution to the morning hog chow.   Our freezer is absolutely stuffed with corn! I believe we have enough grilled corn frozen to keep the Corn Dip on the menu deep into snow season and enough raw corn frozen to sustain soup and pot pie production until possibly Spring.

Six hundred and eleven.  

That’s the number of orders of Corn Dip we’ve served this season thus far. The most rewarding piece of it for me personally is twofold.  I take immeasurable satisfaction knowing that Head Chef Emeritus Mike Staber places his personal stamp of approval on a serving every Friday night and that the most recent serving was enjoyed here in the barn last night by no other than the Smith family themselves.  I’ll score that as two wins. 

Ya know what? It just occurred to me that Andrea has yet to make her A- Maze-ing corn fritters this year. Watch for that!!

What I’d like to encourage after this long winded and winding story is this…because of the heavy spring rains and late planting followed by some extended drought, corn season started slowly.  The Smith farm, and many of other great local farms are flooded with late crop.  It’s definitely not too late. Fill your freezer!  There’s nothing better than a little taste of summer after blizzard cleanup. 

There’s corn in them hills.  Go get it!