Mullet Love Affair Part 1 This weekend is the Swansboro Mullet Festival, where you can get jumping mullet fried whole, their little bones soft like canned sardines (which I I love). It's also the start of mullet fishing season along Bogue Banks, and unfortunately, it could be the end of it as well. This Thursday, … Continue reading Mullet Love Affair Part 1
Trailer Park Date I've seen paradise, and it's a trailer park. I remember, years ago, driving through a mobile home community around Varnamtown, NC, and suspecting I'd stumbled into heaven. It bordered the Intracoastal Waterway near the NC/SC line - I could hear the ocean's waves; sailboats drifted by with the seasons. The land was … Continue reading Trailer Park Date
When I Paint My Masterpiece This summer, I watched a masterpiece take shape. A team of carvers created a nine foot tall sand castle in front of the NC Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores, with an octopus, a shark, a school of three dimensional fish, and dry waves crashing around its base. Every day, I … Continue reading When I Paint My Masterpiece
Enmarshed Enmarshed is the best kind of word - the made-up kind. It's also a stolen word, filched from my friend Autumn Ware's blog, which only adds to its appeal. What does enmarshed mean? Intertwined, connected, with many pieces making up a whole (Jessi's Dictionary). A net is enmarshed. In fact, "marsh" is a local … Continue reading Enmarshed
Hurricane Tattoos Last Thursday, the pine trees were dancing like inflatable tube men, the power was out, Hurricane Idalia was here, and I was in my element. I suspect that hurricanes and I are made of the same substance, and despite their danger, I love them. Which is why I got this hurricane tattoo on … Continue reading Hurricane Tattoos
An Abundance of Curiosities When you're down by the sea, and an eel bites your knee, that's a moray... I got excited this week, reading about eel life cycles in An Abundance of Curiosities: The Natural History of North Carolina's Coastal Plain. So excited, I had to stop and draw a diagram: Larvae --> glass … Continue reading An Abundance of Curiosities
How to Make Quickles That's quickles, not quickies. Quickies are a whole other blog post - stay tuned for that one. But this post is about quickles. Quickles are pickles, yes, but this not a homesteading journal. I'm not preparing you for the apocalypse (sorry, hubbie). I'm not a housewife-gone-wild, growing and canning my own … Continue reading How to Make Quickles
Handmade World You'd recognize it at a glance, even if you don't subscribe, don't read it, or don't even like it (How is that possible?) The magazine with the yellow border - the one with the naked people, the one from your childhood. National Geographic, may it never go out of print. I've been a … Continue reading Handmade World
Coquina Soup Last week, I came across a quote in An Abundance of Curiosities: The Natural History of North Carolina's Coastal Plain (Bolen and Parnell), that took me back to the summers of my childhood. “With a little effort, gourmands can acquire enough coquinas as stock for a savory broth or chowder.” I call baloney, … Continue reading Coquina Soup
Egg Snatcher You probably don't think much about eggs, except for that point last year when they cost five dollars a piece. Brown or white, organic or the cheapest possible, extra-large or medium. Sunny-side up, scrambled. These are our choices. Not so for oologists. I recently finished The Falcon Thief, by Joshua Hammer, an account … Continue reading Egg Snatcher
Jessi Waugh Writer 