We lit our first fire of the season in the fireplace this week. We put off turning on the heat for as long as we can and enjoy sitting in front of the fireplace in the evenings, enjoying the warmth and the mesmerizing fire. There are so many memories associated with fireplaces. The andirons come from my mom's great aunt and uncle's fireplace. The bellows hanging was my maternal grandmother's (Bumby) and the fireplace tools were from my paternal grandparents' home.
We've watched a TV show set in Canada called 'Heartland.' The grandfather (Jack) in that program has a fireplace in his home and has special stones set in the fireplace that are named after people. They are special and have a place in the hearts and minds of those who gather around the hearth to enjoy the fire. I wish we would've done that. In the home I grew up in, Mom & Dad have bricks in their fireplace that were from other buildings that were special to my parents. They can point them out and there are stories to go along with them. I think that's neat.
As 'fireplace season' progresses, this is a place at night where I spend a lot of time, sitting around, shelling pecans. We have SO many pecans this year. We'll take the small ones from our trees to the feed store we patronize. They have a pecan shelling machine. You can hear it pop as the pecans are fed into it. The pecans are cracked (for a fee, of course, and you're charged by the pound). I'll sit here and separate the shells from the nut. It's mind-numbing, but pleasant work on a cold winter's evening.
Our neighbors let us know that they are so busy working on their house that they won't be picking up any pecans from their trees this year. They didn't want to see them go to waste, so they told us to pick up all we wanted. Wow! How generous. Their pecans are almost as big as golf balls. On a beautiful afternoon last week, I set up my pecan cracking operation on the back patio while listening to an audiobook. How relaxing!
My pecan cracking operation doesn't involve mechanized equipment. I use elbow grease. I use a Reed's Rocket, circa 1950 manufactured by the Arthur W. Reed Manufacturing Company out of Little Rock, Arkansas. I'll show you how the process works. It is wonderfully simple. There is no rush to the process. It doesn't require any deep thinking or ciphering. You just settle in to a rhythmic, efficient repetitive motion. The nuts go in a bowl and the shells go in a bucket to be either burned in the fireplace (they make cherry-red coals) or composted in the garden.
The Reed's Rocket is adjustable and thus allows you to crack any size pecan, walnut, etc. in it. You can adjust the threads to accommodate a larger or smaller nut. Once you get is set just right, you slip the pecan in and use leverage to pull the 'piston' down.
You hear a loud crack and little pieces of pecan shell fly across the patio, revealing the treasured pecan inside.
While the pecans from our trees are only about half this size, they are full of oil, rich and fat. These pecans from the neighbor's trees are larger and just about perfect, from my vantage point.
About 1 in 10 are bad, and I just throw them away. Let me correct that. Nothing goes to waste. As it turns out, Belle eats them, even those that have bad spots. A pecan-eating dog, can you imagine? In just a short time, I filled a blue plastic 'pea-shellin' bowl with shelled pecans. The contents filled two 1 gallon sized zip loc bags. We'll put them in the deep freeze for later use.
This just scratches the surface of the pecans we'll have on hand. We'll be shelling pecans all winter long, both on the patio and in front of the fireplace. It's a good thing that we love pecan pies! If you drop by to visit, we'll send you home with some shelled pecans. Maybe Tricia will share her oven roasted pecan recipe with you. It's got Worcestershire Sauce in it. They are so addictive that you might have to attend a 12 step program once you've indulged.
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