If you’ve never read Elizabeth Gilbert’s book, “The Last
American Man”, I suggest you pick it up this Fourth for a bit of
quirky, patriotic fun. It chronicles the true story of a modern day
hero who lives in a teepee in the Appalachian Mountains, eating only
what he himself picks, raises or kills. The guy is an egomaniac and a
genius, and the writing, especially when detailing how he forages in
the woods, is funny and sensitive and page-turningly good.
The only problem with that book is the title. He’s not the last American man. My mother is.
She spends every summer, and most of every fall, wading through rivers
with a fly-fishing rod, and hiking giant, shale-covered mountains to
sleep under the stars. She’s had staring contests with bears and
cougars, weathered lightning storms under scraggly trees, and once
hiked three miles back to her truck with a broken tailbone.
My son and daughter-in-law, Andy and Katie, and their sweet baby Claire were here for a few days. Andy and Katie enjoy being in the kitchen and appreciate good food. It seems nine-month-old Claire will soon be joining in on kitchen fun. There's no doubt she is turning into a little foodie. She sits in the Tripp Trapp chair (we've had it since our boys were little) at the table with us, gumming small chunks of cooked potatoes, avocadoes, sweet potatoes and peaches. Before long, she'll be wanting garlic mashed potatoes, fresh guacamole, sweet potato pie and peach salsa. And probably some of her mom's Frozen Lime Pie.
cookbook, I was only mildly excited. I love lime and I know anything that comes from one of Ina's cookbooks has got to be delicious. I figured there was a chance I might like the frozen pie.
There is a difference between jam and preserves. Jam is sweet fruit you spread on toast. Preserves are a frozen moment in time—a piece of summer that you can carry with you the rest of the year: high grass, long naps, warm evenings, your front porch… 
My grandfather Mervin was an inventor. He invented hairclips. To make money as a lad, he got a job sweeping up hair in a beauty parlor. Soon he noticed a need for clips. Clips that held the hair in place while the barber cut, clips that put waves in the hair, and doohickeys that crimped and flattened. He had patents on all these. Some were profitable, like the Jiffy, the Teeny, and others weren’t. But I guess the successful ones more than made up for the duds because he did pretty well for himself. 