My reading choices run the gamut and while they usually lean into Western history, but I also really like memoir and stories filled with practical advice and wisdom, no matter the setting.
Two Coots in a Canoe is a little out of my “territory” since it is set in Connecticut, but I get closer to home with Prairie Meals and Memories: Living the Golden Rural, a book about a Kansas family with fabulous play on the “Golden Rule” in the title.
David E. Morine and Ramsay Peard were just two coots in a canoe, when they reconnected some 20 years after they first met in college to take a trip down the Connecticut River.
Morine was the head of land acquisition for The Nature Conservancy for nearly 20 years, and Peard had retired from a business career when the two decided to make the trip they’d first discussed while in college. Then in their 60s, they had the desire for an adventure, but they had no interest in camping out, cooking over a fire, or, as Peard put it “crapping in the woods.”
Instead, they would canoe down the 400 miles of river from the Canadian border to Old Saybrook, Connecticut, by relying on the kindness of strangers.
They intended to stay each night in a home near the river with couples or families who invited them in; they would rely on these strangers to provide them with meals…and beer. As Peard would tell them, they didn’t care what kind of beer, so long as it was cold.
Now admittedly these two travelers did not leave all to chance. Using their connections, they set up arrangements in advance so each day they knew with whom they were going to find their bed and board. They stayed with folks who were conservation minded, family farmers, and some who had lost children to accidents, or in one case a murder.
Even with a history of friendship, and advance planning, Morine later wrote, “The idea of traveling 400 miles in a canoe with someone you have not been around for 20 years can be challenging…the length of the canoe can ‘shrink’ as tensions rise.”
You don’t have to know anything about the Connecticut River—or even give a whit about conservation in that area—to enjoy the book Two Coots in a Canoe because it is poignant and there are stories in it that are laugh-out-loud funny.
Prairie Meals and Memories
Carolyn Hall grew up near Olmitz, Kansas, and dishes a collection of down-home Kansas recipes and equally down-home stories in her book Prairie Meals and Memories: Living the Golden Rural.
I am among the readers who can identify with young girls slathering oil on in order to get a tan as they drive tractors in Kansas fields or wearing shorts and an old shirt to swim in a muddy creek, saving the swimsuit for the chlorinated pool in town.
Like the two coots, Hall dishes some recipes, practical advice, witticisms, and prairie folklore.
For example, in Kansas, the author says “a ‘house divided’ means you’ve got one kid at KU and another at K-State.”
“Prairie wisdom: God loved the prairie so much he didn’t see fit to hide it under trees.”
“Prairie tip: Who needs gum? Just put a small handful of wheat in your mouth and chew.’
“Prairie superstition: For a good night’s sleep, make sure the head of your bed always points to the north.”
As the youngest girl in a large family, Hall often found herself helping her German immigrant grandmother with cooking and other chores. Grandma Veronica was a stern taskmaster who knew just how to grate the cabbage for kraut making without nicking fingers, how to push a hen’s head out of the way to avoid being pecked while gathering eggs, and how to make feed sack fashions.
The most endearing story of Grandma Veronica, however, is a tale of how she protected her complexion from harsh Kansas prairie wind and sun by wearing a handmade slat bonnet whenever she went out of doors. The slats, carefully sewn one inch wide and stiffened through the insertion of strips or cardboard cut from a cereal box, formed a tunnel “that led to her blue eyes.”
Liberally sprinkled through the pages are family recipes for everything from wilted leaf lettuce and radish sandwiches to Olmitz Kuchen, Christmas Stollen, and Jager Schnitzel. There are also recipes for cakes, breads, fish, beef, chicken, and even buffalo.
And here’s one for a cold winter night:
Hot Toddy
¼ cup bourbon (some conditions may require more)
¼ cup boiling-hot water
2 heaping teaspoons sugar (may substitute honey)
Add bourbon to hot water. Stir in sugar until dissolved.
Go to bed early if you can.
Or, my advice: if it is really cold, have two toddies.
Candy Moulton can be reached at Candy.L.Moulton@gmail.com
