This morning, as I was deciding what to make for breakfast, I found myself face-to-face with three over-cooked bratwurst. First served up hot off the grill, then baked at 350° for about an hour (I forgot about them). Still, when there were three left, I decided to put them back in the fridge, where they would stare at me from under the bunched up plastic wrap.

Not only were the three black brats harshing my Sunday morning mellow, Wayne had left part of a Mason jar of beer next to the blackened brats. Great. Black brats and flat red beer. What can you do with that combination? Hey, this is Wisconsin, and I’m the world’s biggest cheapskate—I can work wonders with anything, as long as there’s cheese. And in our house, there’s always cheese. Using the leftover leftovers, I whipped up a frittata (baked omlette) that was gobbled up.

Here’s the recipe:

• One dozen eggs
• Three leftover bratwurst, chopped
• One medium onion, chopped
• Half a tomato, chopped
• Half a green pepper, chopped
• Two tablespoons flat beer
• A cup of grated cheese

Preheat oven to 400°. In a large cast iron frying pan, combine the onion, green pepper, and tomato with a little olive or other oil. Cook until the onions become translucent. Add chopped bratwurst and stir until incorporated into the mixture. Turn off heat.

Beat eggs, a little water, and the beer until very fluffy. Add to pan. Top with cheese. Place pan in the hot oven and cook at 400° for ten minutes, then turn the oven down to 350° and continue to bake until the middle of the frittata has puffed to full height, about 20 minutes. When it’s done, the middle will feel solid.

Just like that, old bratwurst are new again, and I used every last ounce of the meat that we purchased. That little action is just as important as any other in the scheme of things. When you help yourself, you help the planet. Zero-sum for breakfast. Only in Wisconsin.

Generally, I avoid the catalogs from the giant seed suppliers, preferring to buy seeds from smaller providers like Seed Savers Exchange, Territorial Seeds, Fedco and others. I’ve found the seed quality and customer service much better at smaller seed houses. For me, quality is important. I want seeds that will produce healthy vigorous plants with character, not some genetically engineered variety that will produce “adequately.” If I were the least bit interested in adequate, I wouldn’t bother with gardening at all. The grocery store would be adequate.

We have a limited garden space, even though we live on a farm. Because we are dairy producers, every last inch is in grass for the cows. I had to summon up every negotiating skill I had to get Wayne to agree to the 35′ x 100′  plot that I ended up with. We grow a good deal of our own food, and this year, I’m determined to grow even more, and do more with the space I have. So I’m going to be even pickier about my seed this year than usual.  I’m weeding out the catalogs that promise a bunch of buy-one-get-one-free deals. In my experience, these have never been bargains. The seeds usually produce weak plants that will only perform to a pre-engineered standard no matter how much the gardener may coax them to do more. It’s disheartening for the grower and, I suspect, Mother Nature alike. True, seeds from the smaller suppliers may be a little more expensive, but you get what you pay for, and this is especially true of garden seed. Remember that when you’re doing your winter weeding.

The first thing I did was help the kids determine what size refrigerator they need. The space is relatively small, and we decided that a 14-cubic-foot refrigerator would be about as large as they could go. I did the obligatory Internet search to compare prices. Even the smallest of refrigerators ran upwards of $400.00 when purchased new. I need to do much better than that. In fact, those who know me well, will tell you I am so frugal that I will look for a free one first. They’re correct. Never pay for something you can get for free—and they’re are plenty of free things. You just have to look for them.

Without a doubt, the best free stuff on the Web can be found at www.freecycle.org. Freecycle lets you join a mailing list from your area. It’s like a cyber garage sale that never ends. When you sign up, you receive an updated e-mail every day. I’m constantly amazed at some of the items that people are giving away. Here’s a sample from this morning’s e-mail for the Wausau, area:

1. Offer: 25″ Sanyo Color Television – Weston From: Super Lou
2. Offer-small TV stand- Rothschild From: Lisa
3. Offer-Chemistry set-Kronenwetter
4. Offer-Shoe Cabinet

I haven’t found the refrigerator yet, but I do have my eye on the scrap wood and the shoe cabinet. Some folks want the items picked up immediately, which a problem for me, as we only make one trip a week into Wausau (sometimes less). So, we have to coordinate pick-ups and drop offs.

If you have something that someone else can use, and you don’t feel like driving it to the thrift shop, consider giving it away on Freecycle. If you’re looking for something, look at Freecycle first.

Date.

The nourishing properties of dates are well known. They are easily digested, and for this reason are often recommended to consumptive patients.

According to Dr. Fernie half a pound of dates and half a pint of new milk will make a satisfying repast for a person engaged in sedentary work.

Elderberry.

The elderberry has fallen into neglect of late years, owing to the lazy and disastrous modern habit of substituting the mineral drugs of the chemist for the home-made vegetable remedies of our grandmothers. Nevertheless, the elderberry is one of the most ancient and tried of medicines, held in such great esteem in Germany that, according to the German folk-lore, men should take off their hats in the presence of an elder-tree. In Denmark there is a legend to the effect that the trees are under the protection of a being known as the Elder-Mother, who has been immortalised in one of the fairy tales of Hans Andersen.

The berries of the elder-tree are not palatable enough to be used as a common article of food, but in the days when nearly every garden boasted its elder-tree few housewives omitted to make elderberry wine in due season.

It is not permitted to “food-reformers” to make “wine,” but those readers who are fortunate enough to possess an elder-tree might well preserve the juice of the berries against winter coughs and colds.

Preserved Fruit Juice.

The following is E. and B. May’s recipe for preserving fruit juice. Put the fruit into a preserving-pan, crush it and allow it to simmer slowly until the juice is well drawn out. This will take about an hour. Press out the juice and strain through a jelly-bag until quite clear. Put the juice back into the pan, and to every quart add a quarter of a pound of best cane sugar. Stir until dissolved. Put the juice into clean, dry bottles. Stand the bottles in a pan of hot water, and when the latter has come to the boil allow the bottles to remain in the boiling water for fifteen minutes. The idea is to bring the juice inside the bottles to boiling point just before sealing up, but not to boil it. See that the bottles are full. Cork immediately on taking out of the pan, and then seal up. To seal mix a little plaster of Paris with water and spread it well over the cork. Let it come a little below the cork so as to exclude all air.

The juice of the elderberry is famous for promoting perspiration, hence its efficacy in the cure of colds. Two tablespoonfuls should be taken at bed-time in a tumbler of hot water.

The juice of the elderberry is excellent in fevers, and is also said to promote longevity.

Elderberry Poultice.

“The leaves of the elder, boiled until they are soft, with a little linseed oil added thereto,” laid upon a scarlet cloth and applied, as hot as it can be borne, to piles, has been said to be an infallible remedy. Each time this poultice gets cold it must be renewed for “the space of an hour.” At the end of this time the final dressing is to be “bound on,” and the patient “put warm to bed.” If necessary the whole operation is to be repeated; but the writer assures us that “this hath not yet failed at the first dressing to cure the disease.” If any reader desires to try the experiment I would suggest that the leaves be steamed rather than boiled, and pure olive oil used in the place of linseed oil. It must also be remembered that no outward application can be expected to effect a permanent cure, since the presence of piles indicates an effort of Nature to clear out some poison from the system. But if this expulsion is assisted by appropriate means the pain may well be alleviated by external applications. (Pepper should be avoided by sufferers from piles.)

Fig.

A “lump of figs” laid on the boil of King Hezekiah, as recorded in 2 Kings xx. 7, brought about that monarch’s recovery. The figs used were doubtless ripe figs, not the dried figs of our grocers.

“This fruit,” says Dr. Fernie, “is soft, easily digested, and corrective of strumous disease.” The large blue fig may be grown in England, in the milder parts and under a warm wall. The fresh figs were rarely seen at one time outside of the large “high-class” fruit shops, but for the last year or two I have seen them peddled in the streets of London like apples and oranges in due season.

Green figs (not unripe) were commonly eaten by Roman gladiators, which is surely a sufficient tribute to the fruit’s strength-giving qualities.

The best way of preparing dried figs for eating is to wash them very quickly in warm water, and steam for twenty minutes or until tender.

Grape.

The special value of the grape lies in the fact that it is a very quick repairer of bodily waste, the grape sugar being taken immediately into the circulation without previous di[Pg 40]gestion. For this reason is grape juice the best possible food for fever patients, consumptives, and all who are in a weak and debilitated condition. The grapes should be well chewed, the juice and pulp swallowed, and the skin and stones rejected.

In countries where the grape cure is practised, consumptive patients are fed on the sweeter varieties of grape, while those troubled with liver complaints, acid gout, or other effects of over-feeding, take the less sweet kinds.

Dr. Fernie deprecates the use of grapes for the ordinary gouty or rheumatic patient, but with all due deference to that learned authority, I do not believe the fruit exists that is not beneficial to the gouty person. One of the most gouty and rheumatic people I know, a vegetarian who certainly never over-feeds himself, derives great benefit from a few days’ almost exclusive diet of grapes.

Cream of tartar, a potash salt obtained from the crust formed upon bottles and casks by grape juice when it is undergoing fermentation in the process of becoming wine, is often used as a medicine. It has been cited as an infallible specific in cases of smallpox, but I do not recommend its use, as it probably gets contaminated with other substances during the process of manufacture. In any case its value cannot be compared with the fresh, ripe fruit. I have little doubt but that an exclusive diet of grapes, combined with warmth, proper bathing, and the absence of drugs, would suffice to cure the most malignant case of smallpox.

Sufferers from malaria may use grapes with great benefit. For this purpose the grapes, with the skins and stones, should be well pounded in a mortar and allowed to stand for three hours. The juice should then be strained off and taken. Or persons with good teeth may eat the grapes, including the skins and stones, if they thoroughly macerate the latter.

In the absence of fresh grapes raisin-tea is a restoring and nourishng drink. Dr. Fernie notes that it is of the same proteid value as milk, if made in the proportions given below. It is much more easily digested than milk, and therefore of great use in gastric complaints. Sufferers from chronic gastritis could not do better than make raisin-tea their sole drink, and bananas their only food for a time.

Raisin Tea.

To make raisin-tea, take half a pound of good raisins and wash well, but quickly, in lukewarm water. Cut up roughly and put into the old-fashioned beef-tea jar with a quart of distilled or boiled and filtered rain water. Cook for four hours, or until the liquid is reduced to 1 pint. Scald a fine hair sieve and press through it all except the skins and stones. If desired a little lemon juice may be added.

Gooseberry.

The juice of green gooseberries “cureth all inflammations,” while the red gooseberry is good for bilious subjects. But it has been said that gooseberries are not good for melancholy persons.

Gooseberries are an excellent “spring medicine.”

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