I’m back with a great rendition of the sweet corn soup that Beth made last night. She had an idea that the sweetness of corn stock would be a great balance to a spicy Italian sausage that I had made recently. She got it started and after briefly conferring with me, was off to the races. As one of my mentoring chefs, Herve, used to say, “Ex-ce-lant!” (He was French.) Beth called it a “kitchen sink” soup - meaning that it was made out of the odds and ends we had lying around

Growing up on the farm in Iowa, there was one day each summer that my sisters and I dreaded, but never managed to avoid. It always arrived in late July or early August, a hot sunny clear day when my mom would suddenly announce “Don’t make any plans for tomorrow, we are cutting sweet corn.” It wasn’t horror filling or something to keep you up at night, but more of a groaned ‘Oh crap!’ because you knew from past experience what a hot, itchy, exhausting, mind numbing task lay a

Shirley Gray’s nails are painted an orangey red that matches her lips and hair. The kind of orangey red that, before Trump, was the domain of spicy, powerful grandmothers with something to say. Even with lungs that now don’t always cooperate, Gray is still as involved in her rural Iowa community as ever - if you want to know who can fix your toaster, who to talk to in the county Supervisor’s office about a hole in the road or who grows the best tomatoes in the region, Shirle

I barely remember Green Acres, the old TV show where city loving Eva Gabor marries a man with a dream to be a farmer. They move to the country, “Lisa” with her proper and elegant 1950s shoes and hats, he in a suit as he drives his tractor. Hilarious hijinks ensue. What I do know is that I am no Eva Gabor. I don't wear blingy jewelry. I don't speak with a dramatic Hungarian accent. And I don't wear frilly housecoats in the city or on a farm. Yet I do feel like I have inadve