A Season Winds Down...

As former Midwesterners, both Melinda and I enjoy sweet corn - I think it is in our DNA.  I grew up on a farm where we typically had quite a patch of it, so we appreciate the good stuff!   Part of the enjoyment is that the fresh, best corn has a season that lasts a couple weeks.  Growing up, you would eat it every day for those 2 weeks, and you would be sick of it until it came back into season the next July.  We'd freeze huge batches of corn cut off the cob to get through the year, which tasted almost as good, but you just can't beat fresh corn-on-the-cob!  The stuff you see in Safeway wrapped in plastic most of the year - don't get me started!  Nowhere near what I would consider edible!

With the drought in the Midwest this summer, we didn't get a lot on our trip back home.  We had a tasty dozen ears from sister Kathy's farm after RAGBRAI before being exiled back to Arizona.  Imagine my surprise when we found a local store (Sprouts - a few blocks from us on 1st Avenue) that stocked local corn, which I'm thinking must be from the Willcox area.  It is fresh, spectacularly good, and started out cheap at 5 ears for a buck.  But here we are in September, and the pickings are slim - instead of a huge pile they have a couple dozen ears on display, and the price has climbed to 2-for-a-buck.  Expecting it might be our last of the Summer, tonight we grilled a couple steaks and got a pot boiling for the ears.  The combo was spectacular (washed down with a Shiner Bock), suitable for a season-ending celebration of sweet crunchiness.

We didn't have just the 2 mouths to feed - Scruffy, our FIV+ cat, blind and now one-eyed comes by for a taste of whatever we're having most nights.  He is an effective beggar - who can deny a blind cat?!  So we oblige him a few tastes.  Lucy comes by too (left in the picture), but more often than not, she isn't really sure if she wants what we're offering, which is just as well...  We didn't try sharing any of the corn - we're not sharing anything so valuable!