Well my friends, this is it - the final post that I will be making in tribute to my late brother, Bob Gurkin. It has been a pleasure posting all of Bob's (and mine too) recipes and stories. I hope he is smiling down from Heaven.
I encourage you all to feel free to post your own favorite recipes. It doesn't matter if they aren't southern recipes. And also please share any of your own "tall tales". The more the merrier.
With that, y'all take care and stay safe! So long.
- Rick Gurkin
Wednesday, May 20, 2020
Shamus and the Hot Air Balloon
Shamus O'Tool was watching one of them explorer channels on TV and happened to see a whole bunch of hot air balloons out of California or some such pace, floating so calmly through the sky. It flung a fire into Shamus and burning with the flames of desire, he set out to purchase a hot air balloon for himself. A week and $30,000 worth of long distance calls later, he found that to quench this fire would cost him somewhere in the vicinity of $23,000 US. "By Jaysus" he says to himself, "I don't have to spend that kind of money. I'll just build 'er meself".
Over the next month, people all over St. John's started missing articles of clothing, awnings off buildings, car covers, just about anything made of cloth. Even the schooner, Pride of The Maritimes, was missing a set of sails. As none of the purloined goods were ever fenced, the police were absolutely stumped as to what was happening with them. Shamus borrowed his wife, Martha's, foot peddle Singer Sewing Machine and over the next few weeks was busy cutting, basting and sewing in his basement. This morning he phoned his good friend, Mick O'Brian and some of the other byes and invited them over to help him get rid of a few cases of beer and launch his balloon.
After 14 cases of beer and 3 jugs of screech, it was a merry crowd, indeed, that dragged what appeared to be a huge pile of cast-off clothing into the driveway. Shamus had made the heater for the balloon out of his bar-b-cue grill and since he didn't have anything to use as a basket he had attached the balloon to his lawn chair. As the heat from the bar-b-cue grill entered the pile of cloth, it shuddered and rippled and slowly began to get larger and larger. By the time it stood 50 meters over the roof of Shamus's house, about 30 of his neighbors were standing at the head of his driveway, craning their heads up and in awe of the majesty of such a magnificent creation. At least they did until Mr. Gilroy yelled out, "Hey! Those are my trousers sewed on the side of that thing". Then Mrs. Gilroy chimed in with "And ders me under drawers over der".
The balloon slowly turned, and about the time a triangular sail came into view with the Pride of the Maritimes painted on it, the police pulled up to the front of the house. Seeing that he might have more explaining to do than he wanted, Shamus jumped into the lawn chair and cut the rope attaching the balloon to the bumper of his Ford Pinto and majestically rose into the afternoon sky. Shamus forgot to take one small fact into consideration. His house is dead in line with the runway of the St. John's International Airport and about the time he got up to 500 meters, an Air Canada jumbo jet was just taking off. When last seen, Shamus was about at about 35,000 feet and heading toward Toronto at 500 KPH.
Over the next month, people all over St. John's started missing articles of clothing, awnings off buildings, car covers, just about anything made of cloth. Even the schooner, Pride of The Maritimes, was missing a set of sails. As none of the purloined goods were ever fenced, the police were absolutely stumped as to what was happening with them. Shamus borrowed his wife, Martha's, foot peddle Singer Sewing Machine and over the next few weeks was busy cutting, basting and sewing in his basement. This morning he phoned his good friend, Mick O'Brian and some of the other byes and invited them over to help him get rid of a few cases of beer and launch his balloon.
After 14 cases of beer and 3 jugs of screech, it was a merry crowd, indeed, that dragged what appeared to be a huge pile of cast-off clothing into the driveway. Shamus had made the heater for the balloon out of his bar-b-cue grill and since he didn't have anything to use as a basket he had attached the balloon to his lawn chair. As the heat from the bar-b-cue grill entered the pile of cloth, it shuddered and rippled and slowly began to get larger and larger. By the time it stood 50 meters over the roof of Shamus's house, about 30 of his neighbors were standing at the head of his driveway, craning their heads up and in awe of the majesty of such a magnificent creation. At least they did until Mr. Gilroy yelled out, "Hey! Those are my trousers sewed on the side of that thing". Then Mrs. Gilroy chimed in with "And ders me under drawers over der".
The balloon slowly turned, and about the time a triangular sail came into view with the Pride of the Maritimes painted on it, the police pulled up to the front of the house. Seeing that he might have more explaining to do than he wanted, Shamus jumped into the lawn chair and cut the rope attaching the balloon to the bumper of his Ford Pinto and majestically rose into the afternoon sky. Shamus forgot to take one small fact into consideration. His house is dead in line with the runway of the St. John's International Airport and about the time he got up to 500 meters, an Air Canada jumbo jet was just taking off. When last seen, Shamus was about at about 35,000 feet and heading toward Toronto at 500 KPH.
Tuesday, May 19, 2020
Bob Gurkin and his Newfoundland Stories
My brother, Robert (Bob) McCollum Gurkin, was born in St. Johns, Newfoundland on March 17, 1942. Our father, James (Jim) Lewis Gurkin was one of the first US Army troops to arrive via ship in St. Johns in 1941. He soon met and married our mother, Alice Hicks Gurkin, a young girl who lived not far from dad's Army barracks. Bob was born on base in 1942. After the war, dad was stationed or a short time in Boston. And then after being discharged he moved back to Selma, North Carolina. Obviously Bob wouldn't remember very much of his early childhood in St. Johns.
Later on in life, Bob moved to Toronto, Ontario, Canada and worked at a ball bearing factory. He met his first wife, Peggy Bowdring, while working in Toronto. As it happened, Peggy was from Bell Island, just off the coast from St. Johns, so they had much in common.,Eventually they moved back down to North Carolina.
In the late 1990's, Peggy was diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer and her wish was to spend her final days on Bell Island. So they moved back there, where she passed peacefully not long after. While on Bell Island, Bob fully embraced his childhood in Newfoundland and it's fabled history and lore. And that is where his remarkable imagination and gift for story telling led to the tales he spun in his notes, and now into this blog.
There was a time after Peggy's passing that he seemed to be wanting to die and join her. But miracles do happen and he luckily later met the true love of his life, Lynn. Lynn's husband had also passed recently and they found each other at just the absolute right time.They married and had a wonderful life together before Bob unfortunately died after complications from heart surgery in 2013. I'm so happy they found each other, and so sad that Bob left us too soon.
This is just a chapter in a part of Bob's history. I have a final few to post from his old notebook. We all miss you brother.
- Rick Gurkin
Later on in life, Bob moved to Toronto, Ontario, Canada and worked at a ball bearing factory. He met his first wife, Peggy Bowdring, while working in Toronto. As it happened, Peggy was from Bell Island, just off the coast from St. Johns, so they had much in common.,Eventually they moved back down to North Carolina.
In the late 1990's, Peggy was diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer and her wish was to spend her final days on Bell Island. So they moved back there, where she passed peacefully not long after. While on Bell Island, Bob fully embraced his childhood in Newfoundland and it's fabled history and lore. And that is where his remarkable imagination and gift for story telling led to the tales he spun in his notes, and now into this blog.
There was a time after Peggy's passing that he seemed to be wanting to die and join her. But miracles do happen and he luckily later met the true love of his life, Lynn. Lynn's husband had also passed recently and they found each other at just the absolute right time.They married and had a wonderful life together before Bob unfortunately died after complications from heart surgery in 2013. I'm so happy they found each other, and so sad that Bob left us too soon.
This is just a chapter in a part of Bob's history. I have a final few to post from his old notebook. We all miss you brother.
- Rick Gurkin
Thursday, May 14, 2020
Shamus O'Tool and the Boat
Shamus O'Tool was working as a carpenter in St. John's and decided he wanted to build himself a boat. Every day he would bring home a few nails or a board or some scrap of wiring from the electricians and every night he would work on his boat. Countless hours were spent in planing and sanding and fitting pieces of wood together. Since the longest board he was able to sneak home was no longer than his pants leg, he got to use a variety of materials. He could discuss for hours the merits or disadvantages of spruce, fir, pine, oak, walnut, cedar and plywood. Since the hull of his boat was built using all of these materials and not one of them was over 1 meter long and most of them about half that, Shamus became pretty good at fitting wood. When he ran out of boards, the plywood would do just fine. And when he had a problem making the boards fit exact, he would tack a piece of linoleum over the holes.
After 6 months of hard work he finally finished the hull and after some serious pleading, he managed to talk his wife, Martha, out of her 1970 Ford Pinto. Another week of work and he had the 4 cylinder motor mounted. It was really ingenious the way he got the drive shaft to come out the bottom of the boat - and a Walmart 3-speed fan blade saw new life as a boat propeller.
Thursday, last week, Mick O'Brian and they guys came down to help Shamus launch his boat. Martha broke a bottle of beer over the bow and with banners flying, a new 30 foot boat was launched. Later that afternoon, after Shamus got her back up off the bottom, he was able to get most of the holes patched and finally got a good launch the next day. "Well bye's" Shamus said, "It's the fisherman's life for me. I've driven me last nail".
The little Pinto motor popped right along and only backfired every now and then, off he goes out of the harbor. Along about 3:00 o'clock that afternoon, Mick and some of the other fellers decide to take a run out and see how Shamus was doing. Shortly after clearing the harbor mouth, they see Shamus heading by them at about 70 KPH. As best we can tell, the U.S. submarine, Nautilus, came through about that time and Shamus must have snagged'er. As he comes roaring by, he yells out, "By the ever Laird Jaysus Bye's, if I can ever get this Codfish up, whack'er with a board or something!".
After 6 months of hard work he finally finished the hull and after some serious pleading, he managed to talk his wife, Martha, out of her 1970 Ford Pinto. Another week of work and he had the 4 cylinder motor mounted. It was really ingenious the way he got the drive shaft to come out the bottom of the boat - and a Walmart 3-speed fan blade saw new life as a boat propeller.
Thursday, last week, Mick O'Brian and they guys came down to help Shamus launch his boat. Martha broke a bottle of beer over the bow and with banners flying, a new 30 foot boat was launched. Later that afternoon, after Shamus got her back up off the bottom, he was able to get most of the holes patched and finally got a good launch the next day. "Well bye's" Shamus said, "It's the fisherman's life for me. I've driven me last nail".
The little Pinto motor popped right along and only backfired every now and then, off he goes out of the harbor. Along about 3:00 o'clock that afternoon, Mick and some of the other fellers decide to take a run out and see how Shamus was doing. Shortly after clearing the harbor mouth, they see Shamus heading by them at about 70 KPH. As best we can tell, the U.S. submarine, Nautilus, came through about that time and Shamus must have snagged'er. As he comes roaring by, he yells out, "By the ever Laird Jaysus Bye's, if I can ever get this Codfish up, whack'er with a board or something!".
HOOHAWWW - True Story by Bob Gurkin
Many years ago, the Dismal Swamps covered most of eastern North Carolina. With the digging of huge drainage canals, and eventually roads and farms, the Dismal's were broken up and reduced to pockets of swamps here and there. In many areas the swamps disappeared altogether. Huge plantations were built on these dried up areas and even today very large farms occupy the same place. To give you an idea of how large some of these farms get, I hunted on the Bell Brothers Farms for many years. ON THE SMALLEST FARM AREA THEY HAD, the main road stretched about 8 or 9 miles back through what was cleared up to that time. The rows of soybeans, corn, or whatever was planted would be at a 90 degree angle to the road and would be about 2 to 3 miles long on either side of the main road.
There was one particular farm that was about 48,000 acres at that time and is even larger now. During the day, you can see herds of deer, and the occasional bear, browsing through the crops. I have a buddy that I hunted with over the years, who at that time was a police officer with the Raleigh PD and one afternoon, about 2 PM, we sat on the main road and counted over 140 deer in one herd in broad daylight. Deer are in such numbers that the Gun Club that now has hunting rights on that land, are required by the farmers to kill a minimum of 300 deer per year, and the salted hides have to be produced to prove it. But that is today. This story is about many years ago; long before bull dozers and drag lines and loggers cut and slashed the trees, and plowed up the earth to make roads and fields. Deer were not as plentiful, because the huge feed crops were not there to support them. At that time, you had better know how to hunt, if you planned to put meat on the table.
I loved to get back into the swamps. It wasn't all water. There would be places where you could go for miles and the ground would be mostly dry, and of course there were places where you placed your life on the line to try to go through. Thick does not begin to describe how dense those woods could get. In many places you could actually hear a deer breathe and never see it. Also, deer have an odor. Many times, I would be laid up in a stand under a sweet gum tree and could smell the deer as they were feeding in the area. Of course, they can smell you even better, so your stand had better be downwind of them.
One October day I had been hunting in what at that time was called Jackson's Swamp and later became Bell Farms. I was about 2 or 3 miles back in the swamps and it had been an unsuccessful hunt for me, and I was working my way back out to the county road. We had this one particularly large black bear in Jackson's Swamp, and I had seen him twice this day and heard him grunting and cracking brush on a couple of occasions as I was working my way out of the swamps. There was a big ole full October moon hanging in the sky and it was almost light enough to read a newspaper by. Down here in the swamps we have another creature that will get your attention every once in a while. It's called a Screech Owl. I cannot begin to describe on paper the loud, deep volume of noise that is produced by a screech owl. The closest I can get to it is HOOOOOHAAAWWWW. Amplify that with a loud speaker and you will be kinda getting close.
Now I was already a little nervous and concerned about that big ole Black Bear and was some kind of glad to see the woods lightening up. At this point I knew I was about 150 yards from the county road and was walking through a grove of Live Oaks and Spanish Moss was hanging low enough to where I had to push it aside as I made my way through ( like walking through a bunch of grey, gauzy curtains). This is a spooky area, even during the daytime. About the time I got under this one particularly gnarly Live Oak, a screech owl went HOOOOOOOHAAAWWWWW about 4 feet above my head. Well son, I too made a sound something like HOOHA, and to this day I don't remember making it out to the road, but I expect my heartbeat to get back to normal any day now.
There was one particular farm that was about 48,000 acres at that time and is even larger now. During the day, you can see herds of deer, and the occasional bear, browsing through the crops. I have a buddy that I hunted with over the years, who at that time was a police officer with the Raleigh PD and one afternoon, about 2 PM, we sat on the main road and counted over 140 deer in one herd in broad daylight. Deer are in such numbers that the Gun Club that now has hunting rights on that land, are required by the farmers to kill a minimum of 300 deer per year, and the salted hides have to be produced to prove it. But that is today. This story is about many years ago; long before bull dozers and drag lines and loggers cut and slashed the trees, and plowed up the earth to make roads and fields. Deer were not as plentiful, because the huge feed crops were not there to support them. At that time, you had better know how to hunt, if you planned to put meat on the table.
I loved to get back into the swamps. It wasn't all water. There would be places where you could go for miles and the ground would be mostly dry, and of course there were places where you placed your life on the line to try to go through. Thick does not begin to describe how dense those woods could get. In many places you could actually hear a deer breathe and never see it. Also, deer have an odor. Many times, I would be laid up in a stand under a sweet gum tree and could smell the deer as they were feeding in the area. Of course, they can smell you even better, so your stand had better be downwind of them.
One October day I had been hunting in what at that time was called Jackson's Swamp and later became Bell Farms. I was about 2 or 3 miles back in the swamps and it had been an unsuccessful hunt for me, and I was working my way back out to the county road. We had this one particularly large black bear in Jackson's Swamp, and I had seen him twice this day and heard him grunting and cracking brush on a couple of occasions as I was working my way out of the swamps. There was a big ole full October moon hanging in the sky and it was almost light enough to read a newspaper by. Down here in the swamps we have another creature that will get your attention every once in a while. It's called a Screech Owl. I cannot begin to describe on paper the loud, deep volume of noise that is produced by a screech owl. The closest I can get to it is HOOOOOHAAAWWWW. Amplify that with a loud speaker and you will be kinda getting close.
Now I was already a little nervous and concerned about that big ole Black Bear and was some kind of glad to see the woods lightening up. At this point I knew I was about 150 yards from the county road and was walking through a grove of Live Oaks and Spanish Moss was hanging low enough to where I had to push it aside as I made my way through ( like walking through a bunch of grey, gauzy curtains). This is a spooky area, even during the daytime. About the time I got under this one particularly gnarly Live Oak, a screech owl went HOOOOOOOHAAAWWWWW about 4 feet above my head. Well son, I too made a sound something like HOOHA, and to this day I don't remember making it out to the road, but I expect my heartbeat to get back to normal any day now.
Tuesday, May 12, 2020
Giant Old Fashioned Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
1 - 1/2 cup raisins
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup softened butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
1 - 1/4 cup flour
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3 cups old fashioned oats
Beat butter, sugars and vanilla until light and fluffy. Add eggs; beat until well blended. Combine flour, cinnamon, baking soda and salt. Gradually add to butter mixture until well blended. Stir in oats, raisins and nuts.
Drop dough by 1/4 cupfuls onto 14 by 16 baking sheet. Bake in preheated 350 degree oven for 15 to 17 minutes or until edges begin to brown. Let stand 3 minutes before removing. Makes 2 dozen.
Variation: Drop dough by tablespoonfuls onto baking sheet. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until edges begin to brown. Makes 5 dozen.
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup softened butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
1 - 1/4 cup flour
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3 cups old fashioned oats
Beat butter, sugars and vanilla until light and fluffy. Add eggs; beat until well blended. Combine flour, cinnamon, baking soda and salt. Gradually add to butter mixture until well blended. Stir in oats, raisins and nuts.
Drop dough by 1/4 cupfuls onto 14 by 16 baking sheet. Bake in preheated 350 degree oven for 15 to 17 minutes or until edges begin to brown. Let stand 3 minutes before removing. Makes 2 dozen.
Variation: Drop dough by tablespoonfuls onto baking sheet. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until edges begin to brown. Makes 5 dozen.
Onion Ring Loaf (ala Tony Roma's Recipe)
4 to 6 white onions
1 cup milk
3 eggs, beaten
2 cups pancake mix
salt and parsley oil to taste
Slice onions crosswise and separate into rings. Combine milk, eggs and salt to taste in mixing bowl. Soak onion rings in mixture for 30 minutes. Place pancake mix in shallow bowl. Heat oil for frying in skillet to 375 degrees. Remove onion rings from milk mixture, dip in pancake mix and place in hot oil. Fry rings until golden brown. Drain fried onion rings on paper towels. Pack fried onion rings solidly, but loosely, without pressing, into 8 x 4 inch loaf pan. Bake at 400 degrees 10 to 15 minutes. Turn into serving plate. Garnish with parsley.
1 cup milk
3 eggs, beaten
2 cups pancake mix
salt and parsley oil to taste
Slice onions crosswise and separate into rings. Combine milk, eggs and salt to taste in mixing bowl. Soak onion rings in mixture for 30 minutes. Place pancake mix in shallow bowl. Heat oil for frying in skillet to 375 degrees. Remove onion rings from milk mixture, dip in pancake mix and place in hot oil. Fry rings until golden brown. Drain fried onion rings on paper towels. Pack fried onion rings solidly, but loosely, without pressing, into 8 x 4 inch loaf pan. Bake at 400 degrees 10 to 15 minutes. Turn into serving plate. Garnish with parsley.
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