Sweet Corn!

This past Saturday morning was our first big picking of sweet corn. Pop did most the picking, and I was the "runner" -- exchanging his full bucket for an empty one and taking the corn back to fill up trash bags. I'm still not sure who got the better end of that deal. :) In a matter of two or so hours, we had seven trash bags full. I piled them all in the back of my Matrix & headed home. We picked about 1/3 of the corn that day, so there is still lots more to come.

I had commitments Saturday afternoon & evening, and I knew I wouldn't get a chance to freeze the corn until Sunday, so it all went to the cool basement. Perfect spot. Made me a little thankful the basement flooded last year -- now we have one of those air conditioned spaces you can trash and then clean up.

Sunday morning the process began. First step was to clean up all the corn. Some call this shucking, some call this husking. I'm more of a shucker of the husk I suppose. My two life-savers Nicole & Jess came over, and we made a good time of it. Thank heaven for rubber gloves!!!! Without them, I am usually timid and inhibited when it comes to pulling the husk away -- you just never know if you're going to impale a worm or get your finger in his poop trail. But with the gloves there are no worries and it goes much faster. That whole process took us from about noon to 4 or 5pm. Good times.

So by 5 pm, half the counters in my kitchen were piled high with sweet corn and the bulk of the work was still to come. Next call was to Pat, my mother-in-law, who is a seasoned corn-freezer. In fact, when she was 9 months pregnant with my brother-in-law Cody (3 days before she gave birth), she was taking her trays of corn down to the freezer, and fell and broke her leg! Talk about bum luck!

Pat came over & led the remaining troops of Nicole & myself. Nicole stood at the sink & washed the corn with a brush, making sure to get rid of all the silks she could. Those nasty, nasty silks... Then they got passed to Pat & I, who cut the kernels off the cob and into a skillet. Pat likes to hold her cob in one hand at an angle & cut them off that way. Which is how I used to do it -- but I was always slow and inhibited by the thought of slicing right through my thumb muscle. But she taught me a new trick that she got out of a catalog.

The trick is to use a bundt pan. You stick the tip of the cob in the middle hole, and then scrape the kernels into the pan. This is genius!!!!! It goes so much faster (and safer) this way. Pat was reluctant to use this method after spending her whole life doing it one way, but as a newbie, I'm embracing it fully.

After getting the kernels off, they get boiled with a little sugar & water for just a few minutes. Then cooled, then bagged, tagged & frozen. The result is a freezer shelf full of yellow loveliness and the reassuring feeling that for the next year or so, as long as you can afford your electric bill, you will not grow hungry. Whew! Thank you Pop, Pat, Nicole, and Jess!