More corn?

Why did you get so much corn? Ralph asks me looking at the huge burlap bag I've carted around to the deck for shucking. Well, fair question, I suppose. The freezer, already pretty full in general, has plenty of corn from when Ralph was the one coming home with dozens of ears. And after thinking about it, I shrug. It's summertime?

There's a new farmstand on my way home from work. I watched them build it over the course of the summer and when they finally put up a sign advertising sweet corn, I stopped and have been stopping every few days ever since. I like it. It's less Vermont and more Ohio. They fill your bag for you. They have the borderland French Canadian accent. They push tomatoes and cucumbers and squash along with their corn. But I'm there just for the corn.

On Thursday, when I stopped for corn for dinner, I honestly don't know why I asked her to reserve four dozen for me for Saturday morning. Sometimes, I think that abundance is important. It's been a bad week- the loss of our tomatoes, and the near-constant pressure and anxiety about work culminating with a very bad meeting Friday afternoon- well, abundance feels good.

After sleeping in and lingering a long time over coffee, I drove over and picked it up. When I saw the size of the bag, I did briefly think... uh oh. I stopped at the hardware store for a bigger canning pot, and at another farmstand for cabbage and peppers, and hauled it all inside.

I used half of that corn for corn relish. It's a vinegar relish with corn, peppers, onions and cabbage from the Ball Blue Book, aka canning bible. The nine pints of relish didn't really make a dent in the pile of corn I sliced off 54 cobbs. I admit, I stuck three more quarts in the freezer (don't tell hubby) and there's too many quarts in the fridge really to use. But I'll make more corn chowder, spoon bread with fresh corn, maybe a corn salad. It will be abundantly sweet, and that's just fine with me this weekend.