Stone Hill Ozark Hellbender Red: A Great Wine for a Greater Cause

Hey, I want to remind you to pick up a few bottles of Ozark Hellbender next time you’re out buying wine.

Now if you’re going, “whatever is she talking about?” then you need to read on, because this is really cool.

In 2018, Hermann, Missouri’s own Stone Hill Winery—the historic 1847 winery that, with its restoration in the 1960s, almost single-handedly started the renaissance of Missouri’s wine industry—started producing a dry red blend they call Ozark Hellbender.

Why the weird name? A portion of the profits go to help fund the research and restoration efforts of several conservation organizations to restore the Ozark hellbender, an endangered native Missouri aquatic salamander.

Actually, in the past year, both of Missouri’s subspecies of hellbenders have been declared federally endangered, so restoration efforts are more critical ever.

Here are some links to learn more about hellbenders, their conservation status, and the Saint Louis Zoo’s captive breeding and restocking efforts.

In a nutshell—as if you could fit one into such a small place—hellbenders are huge, slimy, brown salamanders with small eyes and loose skin. They spend most of their time hiding under big flat rocks in cool, fast-flowing Ozark streams. Adults can be 11 to 20 inches long, making them the largest salamander in North America (three relatives in the giant salamander group are larger and live in East Asia; all of them range from threatened to possibly extinct in the wild). Missouri is the only state to hold both subspecies of North American hellbenders.

The reasons for their decline are numerous and are compounded by the fact that females usually don’t breed until they’re about seven or eight years of age. And even then, they may only breed every two or three years. They typically live for three decades in nature, but that’s assuming their streams remain habitable for them, and even then, their small, vulnerable offspring need to have a decent shot at surviving to breeding age. One hellbender was documented as living to age fifty-five—no wonder they don’t breed until they’re seven or eight; they’re kinda like us.

And so there’s a captive breeding and restocking program, which, combined with efforts to improve and protect their natives streams, might bring them back to the point where their populations are stable.

A personal reverie: MU’s legendary zoology professor Dean Metter used to keep the university’s herpetology collection (enclosures with live snakes, lizards, and such) in a hallway on the second floor of Stewart Hall. My dad, with the rest of the geography department, had their offices in the basement of that building. Often, when we were there to pick up Dad after work and there was a delay of some kind, I’d go upstairs and visit Doc Metter’s herps.

As a pigtailed Campfire Girl, and before, as a tagalong little sister with my brother’s Cub Scout den, we had a guided tour of the collection by Doc Metter himself. I’ll never forget him gently removing a speckled kingsnake from its cage and letting me hold it.

Along one, rather dark wall was a big, long, galvanized tub about waist-high. It must have had a chiller on it, in addition to the circulation/filtration. It was always humming and moving the water around. And there, in the tub, was a fourteen- or sixteen-inch-long hellbender. It never seemed to move, except to kind of waver a little with the current; it just rested in there like a shadow. It was there forever, it seemed. Knowing what I know now, it’s sad to think of that creature living in a galvanized tub in a lonely university hallway, educating those of us too young or citified to discover hellbenders on our own.

Nature had designed it for a life creeping around on Ozark stream bottoms, exploring amid boulders and bunches of watercress, crawling under large flat rocks, hunting crayfishes. Of living as one with the quick freshness, in the higher oxygen content of springfed sections of the river, and the richness and quietude of the pools.

. . . Anyway, there’s something primordial and shadowy about hellbenders; something uncanny and otherworldly. Very fascinating. It’s heartbreaking that something so . . . so . . . seemingly eternal could become extinct, wiped from existence forever.

So, this wine helps raise funds to help the hellbenders.

But it does a few other things, too.

It shows the maturation of Missouri’s wine industry, when one of its leaders is able to step well beyond the tried-and-true, by now rather formulaic marketing angles of “quaint local winery,” “historic ethnic German winery,” and “have your wedding receptions here, folks!”

I really like how Stone Hill, with this project, is connecting with Missouri's natural history and showing a dedication to its future. The “German heritage” angle is an obvious focus and starting point for most Missouri wineries, but this is showing Stone Hill's maturity as an institution.

Also, German immigrants brought a tremendous love of nature with them to the New World. While the English-derived Americans liked trees, grass, and gardens when they were trimmed, mowed, or planted in rows, the Germans held romantic feelings about wild places, where plants and animals grow free and take the forms and patterns innate to them. Yes, many German immigrants were (or became) master horticulturalists, but alongside their love of cultivation, they held a deep love of untamed nature. So this project, which celebrates an aspect of wild Missouri that many Missourians would feel squeamish about, continues that Germanic love of wilderness.

When I communicated this idea recently on Stone Hill’s Facebook page, I got this nice reply from someone at the company: “Thanks for the kind words! We are really glad we can play a small part in continuing that tradition and supporting this special Missouri species! As farmers, it is so important to keep our natural world healthy for the future.” . . . To which I say, Right On!

I don’t think they’ll mind me flat-out copying their descriptive text for the 2018 Ozark Hellbender wine:

BLEND INFORMATION: Since the Ozark Hellbender spends most of its life secretively hiding under rocks in the bottom of Ozark streams we are keeping our blend a secret as well. But we’ll give you some hints! All variety of grapes used are grown in the Ozark Mountain AVA. Some grapes aged for one year in neutral oak barrels to bring out complexity, softness and drinkability. Then just before bottling, like any good family recipe, we add the final variety which is held secret only for our winemakers to know.

TECHNICAL INFORMATION: Alcohol - 13%; Residual Sugar - 1.5%

TASTING INFORMATION: A smooth red blend with aromas of sweet cherry, blueberry and a touch of toasted oak. Creating a soft, complex and very drinkable wine, made from grapes all grown in the Ozark Mountain AVA. *A portion of the proceeds from every bottle of Ozark Hellbender wine sold is donated to the Saint Louis Zoo and hellbender conservation. (750ml)

AWARDS:

Bronze - 2019 Missouri Wine Competition

Yes, it's an award-winning wine! In fact, just recently, the 2019 Ozark Hellbender won "Best of Class Semi-Dry Red," and the 2018 Ozark Hellbender received a gold medal, at the 2021 Missouri Wine Competition. Way to go, Stone Hill!

Seriously, what are the grapes, you wonder: Here’s what they told me (in response to my Facebook question, subtly hinting if Merlot was one of the ingredients): “No Merlot in it! It is a blend of three grapes: Norton, Chambourcin, and #3 is a secret. [Finger-to-lips "shh!" emoji.] All three are grown on our own vineyards though.”

Norton is the strongest part of the blend. Have you ever tasted Norton wine? It’s distinctive. It’s North America’s native, sophisticated dry red grape variety. It’s Missouri’s premier wine grape. It has a fascinating history; if you want to read more, I heartily suggest Todd Kliman, The Wild Vine: A Forgotten Grape and the Untold Story of American Wine.

Norton isn’t for everybody. It has a distinctive flavor. It’s like this: If you’re hankering for oranges, a grapefruit will taste just wrong; it’s so close, it seems almost an insult to oranges; so close, well—just give me an apple. But the fun of wines is their variety. Thank goodness wines aren’t all the same! There are many really good wines—you simply won’t like all of the types. In his insightful essay “Knowing Nothing about Wine,” John Thorne described it like this: “Needless to say, wines with the same rating don’t taste equally good (Malbec, for instance, is a varietal that tastes rather like ink; a highly rated one tastes like delicious ink).”

But Thorne goes on to talk about how really good wines, highly rated ones—even if you don’t end up liking the variety—will still be worth trying, because you can usually see why some people really like them. They offer food for thought. They’re interesting. I suggest trying Norton with this in mind.

I heard somewhere that Ozark Hellbender red became the top-selling red at Stone Hill Winery in Hermann when it was released (apparently, it still is). That’s pretty remarkable, because the average Missourian typically prefers sweet wine. That Hellbender Red is selling so well could mean that Missourians have suddenly become conscientious consumers, choosing products that give back to good causes . . . or it could mean that Missourians have suddenly developed more cultivated palates . . . or it could mean that Ozark Hellbender red is a deviously clever blend that offers enough berry flavor to satisfy the average palate but enough complexity to make it good for people who prefer dry reds. And serving it chilled makes it smoother for red-wine newbies. Indeed, this blend can be kind of a “gateway drug” for Norton, and even “dry red” appreciation. Or it could be a combination of all three.

I think lot of people would like to drink dry red wines because of their purported health benefits and because, as you sit among your friends, a glass of deep red wine simply looks groovier than white—but many can’t make the leap in terms of flavor. I can see someone trying a Norton varietal and thinking, “I can’t enjoy this.” But after a few weeks enjoying Ozark Hellbender red here and there, you could easily acquire an appreciation for Norton: “Oh, this is that unique flavor I’ve come to enjoy in my Ozark Hellbender red, only more of it.” . . . And if this is what Hellbender red achieves for Stone Hill, then bully for them! Smart-smart-smart-smart-smart.

I hope you will go out and try a bottle of Ozark Hellbender red—for the tasting experience . . . and to help the hellbenders.

Marideth Sisco: She Seems Like an Old Friend

Sometimes you find someone—a writer, or a musician, say—whose voice resonates in your spirit like a perfectly tuned guitar. I’ve gradually been realizing that 2018 needs to go down in my personal history as the year I made the acquaintance of such a person. Y’all, I’d like to introduce you to Marideth Sisco (in case you haven’t heard of her yet).



She’s built an admirable career for herself, one that I’m frankly jealous of. She’s a celebrated folk musician (who, good grief, has gained international fame for her contribution to the soundtrack to the critically acclaimed, award-winning film Winter’s Bone). She’s an accomplished journalist, writing the kind of pieces we all wish we could write—they’re like letters from a home you didn’t realize you’d wandered away from. She used to write a regular column in the West Plains Daily Quill on Ozark gardening (now collected into a book). Now, she’s been doing monthly radio essays in a series called “These Ozarks Hills” on Springfield, Missouri’s NPR station KSMU.

There are five books she’s written, and I counted six music CDs and two spoken-word CDs available on her website’s shopping page. (Look, I’m betting she’s been involved in a lot more recordings than what’s available through her website.) Her band is called Blackberry Winter, named for that occasional rude April or May cold snap that nips away the blossoms of blackberry canes (it’s springtime’s analogue to the better-known Indian summer of autumn).

Yep, and she’s also a blogger.

Where has she been all my life? And how did I finally learn about her? Funny you should ask, because now I have to make a plug for something else: the Big Muddy Folk Festival, which occurs each April in Boonville. We’ve been attending for several years, now, and enjoying the hell out of it each time. Every year, perched in my lovely balcony seat, soaking up beautiful live music, I think of all the friends and family I wish could be with me to enjoy it, too. You simply must check it out. Or, think about it this way: I’m personally not an avid folk music fan, but this is great, live entertainment, by accomplished musicians from all over the world.

Then, at the end of July, I got to drive an hour to Sedalia and hear her and Linda Stoffel perform at the Daum Museum of Contemporary Art. I had to go alone, because Sue had broken her ankle the week before and didn’t feel like doing any excursions at that point. (But after twenty-five years together, Sue really does “get” me, and she encouraged me to go.) This was my second exposure to what is, for me, basically an addictive substance.

But I first saw Marideth Sisco and her “Accomplices” playing at the Big Muddy in April 2018, and I was immediately intrigued. Here was this rather unassuming, slightly older woman, nothing flashy about her at all, calmly reading her prose, poems, and song lyrics off a digital tablet, surrounded by the members of her equally laid-back, extremely talented band, singing songs that were deceptively simple (you know the kind: when you breathe deeply and really listen, you discover the depth of emotion hiding in places like the held notes, and in the negative spaces between words and phrases).



I bought some of her CDs the next day, and I’ve been listening to them ever since. One of them, in particular, is like nectar to my soul. It’s almost uncanny, how much I love it. I’ve had a hard time figuring out why I’m drawn to it, but I think, after about a bazillion listens, I’ve finally figured it out.

The CD I’m talking about is her four-disc set of “These Ozarks Hills” readings. They’re little essays on her reflections of life in the Ozarks, and each CD focuses on a different season. Recurring themes include gardening, weather, nature, folklore, personal history, personal insights, her family and childhood memories, enduring values, and—only sometimes—politics, the economy, and current events, and those usually on the way to making a point about enduring Ozark values of tolerance, compassion, charity, thrift, and self-reliance.



These essays, like her musical delivery, are deceptively homespun. She speaks in her authentic Ozark dialect (some people have called this accent a “drawl”), after a little acoustic-guitar intro based on “Ozark Mountains,” a song on the Blackberry Winter CD Still Standing.

But boy, oh boy, her prose is tight. She’s a master writer, and she knows exactly what she’s doing. She has impeccable taste when it comes to her flights of fancy—she never gets full of herself; she “murders her darlings”—and she maintains a good sense of humor. She takes herself lightly. She stays on topic (I can never do that), and she crafts arresting beginnings and satisfying conclusions. (I’m an editor, and I really, I mean really, appreciate and admire such things.)

She’d probably read this and think, “Well, of course! I practice my art, and I’ve had plenty of time to get good at it. No big deal.”

Maybe this is part of why I’ve been enjoying her work: her voice is so natural, it almost seems like an extension of my own brain. And that’s the job of a writer, isn’t it: to speak inside your head in a voice authentic and natural enough that it almost sounds like your own self talking. And it expands who you are.



And here’s another confession: I’ve been listening to her spoken essays at night, when I have trouble falling asleep. This is not to say that I find them boring—far from it. My attention remains rapt, like a little kid listening to a favorite bedtime story. Sleep overtakes me because I’m simply exhausted and finally relaxed.

I find her voice soothing, familiar. It’s something about her accent, I think, that activates memories buried deep inside me, of the way a lot of people used to talk in central Missouri when I was a kid. Indeed, the region where you’re likely to hear an authentic Ozark accent seems to be contracting . . . and I hadn’t even realized it—until now.

As I write this, it occurs to me that my readers might not care about the different forms of southern or midwestern dialects, or where the two intersect, and all that. But to me, it’s of vital interest, and I realize I cherish this link to a part of my history, my heritage. I cling to it like a security blanket.



For the past few months, I’ve had the “Autumn” CD in my bedside player, and one of my favorites of her essays is on it. And there’s an aspect that makes it especially personal for me.

For a decade, now, I’ve been the behind-the-scenes compiler, editor, and poster of MDC’s annual Fall Color Reports. It’s a fun gig, a celebration of my favorite season. It also has given me an intimate knowledge of the patterns and nuances of autumn’s progress across Missouri, plus I’ve gotten to know several top-notch foresters from around the state. But . . . I’m actually losing that part of my job after this year, so this year’s surprising flash of amazingly bright fall color has been excruciatingly bittersweet. It’s gorgeous, but it fills me with grief.



But Marideth Sisco’s description of our glorious Ozark woods thrills me with its artistry. I share a bit of it with you here, but I encourage you to check out the whole thing, on her blog, or better yet, on the CD four-pack.

Sometimes I think autumn in the Missouri Ozarks is one of the most well-kept secrets left, and certainly the most little known anywhere. Granted, the scenery will not glow so incandescently as the blazing fire from acres of sugar maples, the major draw of New England autumns. Here, the colors of the Ozarks hills blend into more of a wonderfully colored tweed, with highlights that include the burnt orange of the Sassafras, the vermillion of the gum tree, the bright gold of the hickory, the butter yellow of Catalpa and the blood red of the sumac, all on a field of the caramel and cafe au lait of the oak forest. And underneath, the feathery goldenrod, the bittersweet berries and little clumps of fringed lavender where the fall asters grow.

I think the version on the CD is even better honed, but you get the idea. You can pretty much taste the fall color here.



And that’s the final “ping” that makes me enthusiastic about finding Marideth Sisco: It turns out that, although I never set out to become one, I’m a writer, too. (Hey, everyone, look at me! I have a blog!) Marideth Sisco’s kind of like the Opulent Opossum . . . only she’s waaaaaay better. Simply put, she’s what I aspire to be.

She’s doing it folks; she’s the real thing, and this here dilettante is simply awestruck. It’s worth doing: Celebrate Missouri’s glories; savor our Ozarks.

Check out Marideth Sisco.



Photos in this post were taken by me at various times and places in central Missouri this fall.

"Dam if I Aint Gitten Tired of This Hell Raisin on My Place"

NOTIS! I been to an antique mall resuntly and gotten this here postcard that jus tickled me to death. I figgered youd understand, cuz if yur like me you aint feelin too sochible after that there elekshun neether.






Maybe in a few more weeks I'll feel less grumpy. Nuff said.

Black Walnut Wheat by Piney River Brewing Company

Piney River Brewing Company, based in Bucyrus, Missouri, has invented a beer that I especially admire: their Black Walnut Wheat. It’s delicious!



Since there’s nothing not to like about it, let’s go directly to why we love it!

Because we love black walnuts! It’s Missouri’s official state tree nut. Our state is the top producer of black walnuts in the world, and we like them, and we’re proud of them.

I’ve blogged about black walnuts before—shown their progress as they mature; told you about the delicious pickled black walnuts produced by Barnacle Farms in Mary’s Home, Missouri; even shown you pictures of a variety of critters drinking the late-January sap of the walnut tree in our backyard.

I think everyone should have a big black walnut tree in their backyard!

And we can’t have our lebkuchen or our billy goat Christmas cookies without black walnuts!

Since I’m so proud of Missouri’s black walnuts, when I first saw this beer on tap at my favorite neighborhood restaurant, I had to give it a try: Black walnut beer, really?



And there’s something to that local pride, isn’t there. It’s September, and it’s that time of year when the Hammons company, based in Stockton, Missouri, establishes black walnut hulling stations around the state. This is a distinctly Missouri thing, which the Piney River beer celebrates on its label.

The deal is, black walnuts are harvested by hand, by anyone. Whether you’re collecting them for yourself or selling them to Hammons, the company makes it easy for you. It’s a messy, involved process to hull them (that is, remove the sloppy, black-staining green or black outer part), which is the first step in getting to the nutmeats.

So people bring buckets, bags, and pickup trucks full of black walnuts to these processing stations, where Hammons hulls them using really cool-looking machines. (It’s great fun to watch!) At the time of processing, you can either sell your bounty to Hammons, or if you want to take your walnuts home and try to bust them open and pick out the nutmeats yourself, you just pay them for the processing.



If you’re interested in harvesting and cracking your own nuts, read Hammons’s webpage about how to do it. Once you’ve tried it yourself, you’ll understand why black walnuts cost so much at the store.



Anyway—the limited seasonality, the gathering of people it causes, the promise of all those good Christmas cookies, and the idea of genuine riches growing on the trees without any help from you, besides picking it up after it’s fallen, plus the crispness and blue skies of early fall, all makes black walnut harvest seem like a celebration.

And that’s what I get from the fact that this beer exists: Someone else feels this same way. Right on, Piney River Brewing Company!

Piney River Brewery: An Excursion!

We had a serious amount of fun this summer! We did not do a great deal of traveling, but in late August, we did spend a weekend in the Ozarks—as in, more deeply in the Ozarks. (Jefferson City and Columbia are technically “Ozark Border”—we have a taste of it, but it’s not as pure as when you go down, say, to the piney woods of Shannon County!)

We started that weekend on a celebratory note by visiting Piney River Brewing Company in Bucyrus, Missouri, Saturday afternoon, August 23. (It was interesting that not a month before, we had visited Bucyrus, Ohio, which the Bucyrus in Missouri is named for!)

Bucyrus, Missouri, is not at all a big town. It’s not even a “four corners”; it’s more of a “wide spot in the road” just east of Houston, Missouri (the seat of Texas County and the hometown of Emmett Kelly, the famous “Weary Willy” clown). And the Piney River “BARn” taproom isn’t exactly easy to find! If you’re interested in visiting Piney River Brewing like us, make sure you know the hours they’re open (only weekends at this point), and where you’re going before you get to Bucyrus. Why? Because you may have trouble getting an Internet signal in that area. Don’t depend on your “device”!



So I’m warning you: Check your Google map way before you get close, or you’ll be stopping at the tiny Bucyrus, Missouri, post office, asking for directions. (By the way, I’d like to thank the lady there that Saturday, who was kind enough to offer us what directions she knew. You big city people, you don’t know how nice people can be until you ask for, well, any kind of help, in a small town.)

More on the drive in a little bit. Let’s get to the fun part, the brewery! Check out Piney River Brewing’s website, okay? Then, you’ll want to friend them on Facebook, so you poor cusses who don’t live in their distribution area can find out when their products are finally available near you. I’m sure it’ll soon be available in St. Louis and Kansas City, but for now, hmmph. It’s pretty much exclusive to the Ozarks the beers celebrate.



Since you can perfectly well visit their website on your own, you can see for yourself how they won gold in the 2014 World Beer Cup for their Float Trip Ale, and gold in 2013 for their Old Tom Porter at the Great American Beer Festival. Pretty good for a brewery that started in 2010!



I won’t go into their beers too much, except to say “fresh and delicious!” and Hooray! Their beers, the names of their beers, and their lovely designs celebrate the Ozarks, including its natural and human heritage. (I hope they’re paying their designer well, because her designs contribute greatly to the joy of their beers.) I love it that their beers celebrate raccoons and river eddies, Missouri mules, float trips, and hot dates down on the river.

(Someday, maybe they’ll see fit to make a brew after North America's one and only native marsupial! Dear Piney River people: May I humbly submit--the “Opulent Opossum Stout”??)



The “BARn” is a renovated seventy-year-old barn that’s been made into a “nanobrewery” on the ground floor, with a spacious taproom in the second-story loft, along with a deck with a beautiful view of . . . well . . .



This is really out in the boonies, folks!

Here’s a little slideshow of our visit there.

Not knowing when they opened, we were early and waited outside while the band (it was bluegrass, y’all, and they were good!) moved their instruments and equipment into the BARn.



Though we were the first ones there, many other folks showed up, everyone driving on gravel roads to get there. It must be gratifying to have established something that people will go far out of their way to get to!



It was a regular little crowd in there! For those of you who are interested in all the particulars, here’s the details about what was on tap that day:



They really made that barn into something remarkable. You know it’s impressive when even the lavatories stay with the down-home theme.



But seriously, folks, be prepared for the drive. That photo at the top of this post was of Highway ZZ, the last stretch of paved road before you reach gravel Walnut Grove Drive, which the brewery is at the end of:



Fortunately, we arrived just as one of the Piney River guys was setting up their sign. It was encouraging we were on the right path!



We got the sampler tray, which had seven beers and (thankfully) a printed list of the beers we were tasting. I hadn’t tried their Sweet Potato Ale before (I’m usually skeptical of “flavored” beers, as they are usually too overdone and cloying), and I admired its subtlety. The Bronzeback Pale Ale (named for Missouri’s celebrated smallmouth bass) seemed especially delicious, though—maybe because its refreshing brightness complemented the heat of that weekend. And the hot, dusty road we took to get there!

(A digression: Beer and wine tastings forever remind me of the “France” episode of Absolutely Fabulous: “This is the one! . . . This is the one!”) Ahem. Oh, well. It wasn’t like that at all, but I think of it, and it cracks me up.



Finally, I should mention that the Piney River Brewery is indeed located near the Little Piney River. As you drive on Highway 17 from Houston to Bucyrus, you drive over the Big Piney River at Dog’s Bluff Public Fishing Access. All of it is very near the brewery. Isn’t it pretty?



Dog’s Bluff is a beautiful spot to have a picnic, or go swimming or wading. This scenery is inspiring, to anyone in need of rejuvenation. No wonder they make such inspired beers in this area!



Now, don’t you want to take a little drive, through hills and hollers, to the bustling metropolis of Bucyrus, Missouri? Now that we’ve been to the Piney River “BARn,” we can recommend it!

Note: Thanks to Sue, for letting me use so many of her excellent photos. All the ones in this post that look good are from her!

Journeys Around the Sun: Leonard Hall

In my previous posts, I talked about natural history books that have an almanac structure: Edwin Way Teale’s A Walk Through the Year, Hal Borland’s Twelve Moons of the Year, and Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac. Today, I’m continuing in the same vein, with a book of special interest to Missourians. You probably haven’t heard of this author.



Leonard Hall’s A Journal of the Seasons on an Ozark Farm (1956; reprint, Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1980), like the other books, is arranged chronologically, with a handful of short essays for each month. Hall wrote a regular column about life on his “Possum Trot Farm” (south of Potosi, Missouri) for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Globe Democrat from 1946 to 1980.



Hall embraces the conservation ethic that Aldo Leopold so eloquently laid out, and his stories of life on a working Ozark cattle farm show a sustainable land ethic in practice. The changing seasons frame the story of a year’s worth of activities and observations, including migrating geese, cattle auctions, hunting and fishing, gardening, hiking, gathering elderberries, pawpaws, and hickory nuts, and butchering hogs.

If you’re not familiar with Leonard Hall, check out his books. I particularly recommend his Stars Upstream: Life Along an Ozark River, about the Current and Jack’s Fork rivers. It’s a classic every Missourian ought to read.



Since I was inspired to write about these books by my late-winter longing for spring, and being on constant watch for signs that springtime is coming, I’ll quote a few sections from Hall’s Journal of the Seasons on an Ozark Farm.



“This is a time of year we could do without. There are gloomy days when I have a profound sympathy for those furbearers which hibernate or for the birds that fly south in autumn. But then comes a snowy morning when the earth might have just been born and the chickadee sings as if it were summer, or a mild evening when the sunset paints the western sky in vivid colors and the young calves chase each other across the pasture with tails high in the air. Then I decide that one way or another, we’ll somehow ‘make it through to grass.’” (“January: The Sun Starts North,” p. 190.)



One of my favorite signs of spring is the sound of spring peepers, tiny peeping frogs that, in full chorus, sound to my ear like thousands of little jingle bells, though they symbolize anything but Christmastime. Here’s Hall’s description:

“When the worst blizzard of winter struck the western states this week, our thermometer at Possum Trot dropped sharply and a hard wind out of the northwest rattled the shutters, sifted in through the storm sash, and set the phone wires to singing. We hurried out in the morning to have a look at the baby calves, but found them galloping about the pasture with tails high in the air as if it were summer. Then on Sunday afternoon the wind dropped to a whisper and the mercury climbed into the fifties again. After supper, when I went to make sure the biddies were safely shut up in the hen house, I heard the first spring peepers singing, down in the pond in the woods.” (“February: Spring Edges Closer,” p. 205.)



And that’s how you always hear the first spring peepers of the season. It will be some supremely welcome warmish day, and you will be walking outside in a light jacket some evening after supper. And suddenly you hear them, jingling away, in some seemingly insignificant little pond in the woods.



Of course, there’s still an excellent chance it may snow and freeze again, but I agree with Hall: “There is something optimistic about the note of the first spring peepers that braces us against the occasional spell of cold weather which may still lie ahead” (p. 206).



Here’s to the birds who are remembering their songs
and the young birds who are tuning up for the first songs of their lives;
the geese honking, winging north on the heels
of warming weather,
and stopping overnight in marshes in gabbling flocks;
and tiny frogs awakening,
slipping out of cold mud,
and perching at the water’s edge
to peep their riot of love songs.

And here’s to the reawakening of the entire green world.

Corn Griddlecakes an’ Sorghum Molasses

Another cool morning here in Central Missouri! This spring, we’ve had remarkably warm weather remarkably early, so these brief “cool-downs” have been especially welcome. And it makes one hungry for a warm, hearty breakfast!

I’ve been dipping into some small-time, down-home Ozark-cookin’ cookbooks, and Sue and I have given our Jane Austen reading a rest, in favor of reading more of the colorful folk tales Vance Randolph collected from southern Missouri and northern Arkansas. Plus, last weekend was the Big Muddy Folk Festival in Boonville . . . so I had a hankerin’ for something, well, “indigenous.”

You can’t get more indigenous to the Ozarks than corn (and ham, and greens), and old-fashioned sorghum molasses is a regional treat that those poor, deprived people in big cities rarely get to have. But it was our breakfast today, and you can’t ask for anything more delicious at the breakfast table.

Recently, my favorite recipes have been coming from the sixty-year-old Good Housekeeping Cook Book, edited by Dorothy B. Marsh (New York: Rinehart, 1949). I love it because it provides tons of basic, foolproof recipes without much reliance on premade, frozen, boxed, canned or “glassed” foods. The following formulation is a golden example.

I’m completely paraphrasing this; the original appears on pages 443–44 of the book and is a variation of the basic “step-by-step” Griddlecakes recipe.

Corn Griddlecakes

3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup corn meal [not too coarsely ground; also, I prefer yellow because it’s so pretty!]
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg
3/4 cup milk
3 tablespoons melted butter, margarine, vegetable oil, or other fat

Instructions: I’m not going to retype the book’s method, because I’ll bet you know what to do to heat the griddle or skillet to the right temperature, to know when to flip the cakes, etc. And you know how to mix the batter, too: Combine the dry ingredients and set aside; beat the eggs and beat in the rest of the liquid ingredients; then combine all together with as little stirring as possible.

The cakes will be about 4 inches in diameter; this recipe makes about 12 cakes.

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The jug of sorghum we’re currently enjoying is from a Mennonite producer, Daniel Hoover, in Bates County, Missouri. You can order it here!

Notes on the Cakes

I recommend making a double recipe of these corn cakes, so you have plenty of leftovers!

You can also make up your own convenient “corn cakes mix” by combining all the dry ingredients and putting them in a jar; all you have to measure out in the morning is about 1 1/4 cup of the mix plus the liquid ingredients.

Corn, in all its forms, is the official grain of the Americas, and leftover corn cakes are more versatile than regular pancakes when it comes to having with a dinner:

—They can go with anything down-home, like with greens and ham, say, or with a bowl of bean soup. Use them like cornbread.

—They can also go Mexican—topped with salsa and sour cream or guacamole, next to some huevos or refried beans; treat them like pudgy corn tortillas.

—Eat them with a bowl of chili!

—Or travel vicariously to South America, serving them beside grilled steak, roasted bell peppers, and a chimichurri sauce.

—They also make good breakfast sandwiches, filled with a fried egg and a couple pieces of bacon, and topped with some maple syrup. (Mmm! Maybe if we have a couple more of these cold mornings—!