It's a Chowda kind of Day

The weather has gone from sunny and warm to rainy and cool.  The kind of weather that makes me feel nostalgic and a bit antsy.  When I was very young my mum would say " She really doesn't have the sense enough to get out of the rain!"!  It's true.  Too many days of sunny blue skies would make me long for more exciting weather.  Some of my favorite memories coincided with rain soaked days.  Uncle Jimmy (who was actually our great uncle) adored wild weather and would take my sisters and me on spontaneous day trips and drive along the coast to wherever the waves were particularly high.  We surf fished in what seemed to be near hurricane winds at times, our bodies anchored down by weighted belts.  Still we tumbled on to the sands.

Here is one of my favorite photographs of Uncle Jimmy, Aunt Betty, my sisters and me.

Uncle Jimmy usually spent time alone on Nantucket in early autumn, but one year he invited us to visit.  We roamed the moors as he called out "Heathcliff, Heathcliff". Wuthering Heights was one of his favorite books. One day, during a horrendous rain storm, he announced that we were going to visit his friend Madaket Millie.  Lacking raincoats, we went to the store and bought big, black plastic trash bags, which we fashioned into tunics, by cutting slits for head and arms.  Off we went in the open jeep, more plastic bags atop our heads.

I was thinking that it was time for tea and I envisioned Millie to be a sweet old lady who would tut tut tut over our soaked clothing and offer us tea and cinnamon toast.  Uncle Jimmy had his own agenda.  And what turned out to be a very bad plan.  He was irked, because even though he considered Millie to be a friend, he had never set foot inside her house.  His plan was that I would take a roundabout way around the cottage and peer into her windows and later report what I had seen.  In the meantime, he and my sisters would approach the house from the front and engage Millie in conversation thereby distracting her from my activities.

Bad plan.



Millie's house looked more like a shack to me; gray and dilapidated, with electrical wiring attached to the shingles on the outside.  Out at the back, Millie was already there to greet me and any thoughts of tea and cinnamon toast quickly flew out of my head.  She stood there barefoot in the pouring rain, inspecting me from head to toe.  Her hair caught up in a careless bun, she wore a plaid skirt and a brightly flowered blouse held together in the front with wooden clothespins instead of buttons.  Most notable though, were the many dogs surrounding her and the shotgun pointed towards me.  Millie said to me, "Is that what the girls in the mainland are wearing these days?"


Millie told us wonderful stories and graciously gave us a tour of her shucking shack, which had a mountain of shells beside it and unlike her house, was tidy and spotless within.  She later apologized for the shotgun.  She mistook me for a certain girl reporter, whom she was not feeling kindly towards.


My Uncle Jimmy was a criminal lawyer.  (I am sure that the Madaket Millie peeping tom plan was a momentary aberration in behavior.) In his life he had also been a soldier, a policeman, and FBI agent.  One of his first jobs though, was that of a bricklayer. In Nantucket, we strolled along the brick paved streets of the island examining the architecture.  He taught us the names of the brickwork, windowpane patterns and door styles.  We learned about widow's walks and cupolas.  Large pieces of glass were expensive, which gave way to windows with many panes, called 12 over 12, 6 over 6, 9 over 6 etc.

Rainy days can be delightful, as long as there is tea and cinnamon toast and steaming bowlfuls of chowder available.


Potato Chowder with Chives

• one medium onion chopped medium fine
• three medium potatoes chopped
• 2 cups of chicken stock
• 2 cups of milk
• Tablespoon of butter
• fresh thyme, parsley sprigs,  bay leaf gathered into a coffee filter and tied with string
• salt and freshly ground pepper
• chopped chives, chive blossoms and freshly ground nutmeg

Cook the onion in bacon fat until transparent and tender and then add the potatoes, stock and bouquet garnis. When the potatoes are cooked, reserve some of the potatoes, remove the herb bundle and blend until smooth and then pour it back into your soup kettle.  Heat 2 cups of milk with the tablespoon of butter until steaming . Do not boil.  Add the milk mixture to the potato in the soup kettle. Add the reserved potatoes.  Add salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.


Ladle chowder into bowl and garnish with chopped chives, chive blossoms and freshly ground nutmeg.

Hint:  When I want to simmer a soup with fresh herbs and spices for the taste, but don't want any of the actual leaves or spice bits in the soup, I make a bouquet garnis by placing the herbs in a small coffee filter and gathering it together with string.  I might not always have cheesecloth available, but I always have coffee filters.  It is like making a big tea bag.