Port Potager

Every summer Miss Katherine would pick bushels of peaches and preserve them in jars with cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and other spices which she kept secret. The jarred peaches would last all winter. They probably would have lasted a lot longer than that, but they were always eaten by the end of winter. ~ from Holes , by Louis Sachar It's been a long time since our last Kids' Corner , because it turns out our kids are pretty busy with playing piano and baseball and school and theater and karate and friends. But here we are with today's featured author, Jonas Trach: Jonas is a ten-year-old boy who will be starting fifth grade in September. He likes to show off his karate skills, sometimes in the cloud forests of Costa Rica. Below is his account of making spiced peaches, which were inspired by Miss Katherine's prize-winning spiced peaches in the book Holes , by Louis Sachar.  (He asked us about making these months ago, and now that the peaches are in, we cou...

This is the first of an occasional series, in which the kids guest blog about kid stuff. Today's featured author is Tiegan Trach: Tiegan is an 11-year-old middle schooler who normally wears modern clothing. Here's her account of making Sunday dinner last night with her brother. America Runs On Butter The cookbook that we used was Meals of Many Lands . The country/place we made was America and the food we made was Oven-Fried Chicken, Candied Yams (actually sweet potatoes), Green Beans, and Apple Crisp. We waited until it was fall so we could have sweet potatoes from the garden.  To make the Oven-Fried Chicken, we cut the whole chicken into pieces, brushed melted butter on them, and shook a few pieces at a time in a bag that had crushed cornflakes in it. Then we baked them for an hour at 375 degrees. To make the Candied Yams, we mixed brown sugar and salt in a pan with melted butter. Then we put the sliced, peeled sweet potatoes in the pan in one layer. ...