Shuck and silk the corn. Standing the cob upright in a pan, and using a sharp knife, slice down the cob through about 3/4 of the kernel. Do this all the way around the cob. Then, using the edge of your knife, scrape down the cob all the way around. The milky stuff that is released is the starch in the corn, so you don't have to add cornstarch or flour. When you have cut and scraped all the corn, put it in a pan with the water, salt, and butter (melted). Bring to a boil, then lower the heat to simmer and cook for 8 minutes, stirring as necessary. Eat.
Now , a couple of things: 1) you will never get all the silks off the corn, so you may be forced to pick them out as you cut. You will still never get them all, so just think of them as fiber and eat them. 2) If you do not use a non-stick pot you will have to stir constantly as the corn cooks. If you use a non-stick pot (I use teflon), then you can cover it while it simmers for the required amount of time. The recipe is easy to adjust for varying amounts of corn. This recipe serves about 4-6 people, depending on how much you like creamed corn. It is, however, labor intensive. You can not start this 5 minutes before supper! We creamed and froze our bushel of corn. I'll be thinking about you while I eat fresh corn this winter!
I've told you before about our garden. Everything did very well, except for the cabbage. It got something that ate it, resulting in ugly leaves that looked pretty lacy. I finally decided to pull them up, tear off the affected leaves, and see what I could salvage. The picture above is the result...really ugly cabbage, but it is really good. We've eaten it nearly every day for a week!
And now for the really, really scary episode! Last Thursday morning I got up, showered, and began dressing as I was going to town to the post office and the grocery store. JR was preparing to go to Charlotte. Suddenly, I had this terrible pain in my chest, along with a cold sweat, nausea, and dizziness. I had never experienced anything like this, so I waited for it to go away. It didn't, so JR put me in the car and took me down to the little hospital between Cashiers and Highlands. (The rescue squad is volunteer, and is not close to our house, so this seemed a better option than waiting for them.) Luckily, I had on clean underwear and had just shaved my legs!! To make a long story short, they treated me as if I was having a cardiac event. I spent 24 hours and no telling how many thousands of dollars having every test known to man, only to find that I had acid reflux. If only I had called my sister-in-law, she could have diagnosed me and I could have turned left instead of right and gone to Ingles where I could have bought Prilosec for less than a dollar a pill! Still, it was scary and we are not sorry that we behaved in a cautious manner.
All clouds have a silver lining, though. I had been worrying about finding a doctor up here, but just didn't quite know how to begin. Now I've found him! Doctor Matthews is wonderful and I have found that he has a wonderful reputation. Our children worry about us being up here in the "sticks", but we were happy to tell them that this little Highland-Cashiers hospital is state of the art! They have two helicopters available 24/7 that fly patients that they can't treat to Asheville, Greenville, or Atlanta, but the adjacent office building has every specialty known to man, as well as a surgical center, an imaging center, and I don't know what else. And everybody was SO NICE! There was none of the surliness that one finds in Charlotte. Anyway, I speak to you safe and sound, being treated for acid reflux!
Hope you had a good Labor Day! Love to all! We are looking forward to a visit with our friends, Jim and Eileen Palmer this weekend!
