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Volume 7 Number 195
US Library of Congress ISSN: 1530-3292
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RECIPE DU JOUR
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Zucchini Bites

1/2 cup Italian dressing
1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1/4 teaspoon cracked black pepper
2 medium zucchini -- cut into 1/2-inch slices
3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Mix dressing, Italian seasoning and pepper in shallow nonmetal dish or
resealable plastic bag. Add zucchini, turning to coat with marinade.
Cover dish or seal bag and let stand at least 15 minutes but no longer
than 1 hour.

Heat coals or gas grill for direct heat Brush grilling screen with
vegetable oil.

Drain zucchini; discard marinade. Toss cheese and 4 to 6 slices zucchini
at a time in resealable plastic bag, coating zucchini with cheese.

Place zucchini on grilling screen. Grill zucchini uncovered 4 inches
from MEDIUM heat 3 to 4 minutes, turning 2 or 3 times, until cheese is
light brown and zucchini is crisp-tender. Yield: 6 servings.


Per Serving: 147 Calories; 13g Fat (75.0% calories from fat); 5g
Protein; 4g Carbohydrate; 1g Dietary Fiber; 8mg Cholesterol; 342mg
Sodium. Exchanges: 0 Grain (Starch); 1/2 Lean Meat; 1/2 Vegetable; 0
Fruit; 2 Fat.

NOTES : Marinate Time: 15 min

Using a grill screen prevents the bite-size vegetables from slipping
through the grill grids. If a screen is not available, use 2 layers of
heavy-duty aluminum foil punched with holes; a cookie sheet is useful to
transfer the foil to and from the grill.
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AT THE MIDDLE PASSAGE

By Walter Mills


Reaping the Whirlwind

On our trip home we stopped for gas a few miles south of Staunton,
Virginia on Interstate 81. Eight hours on the interstate and the kids
were hungry and I was both drowsy and jangled.

We had made some sandwiches but this 30-pump truck stop was no place to
unwind and enjoy the sweet late autumn afternoon. Against all masculine
reason, I agreed when Andrea suggested we drive up the country road a
little way and look for a quiet place to eat lunch. It is a genetic
hard-wired truth that men need to get from point A to point B with the
fewest possible diversions and restroom stops. So dawdling went against
my natural desire to race against traffic for another 300 miles.

A sign up the road said 'Wayside rest 1/4 mile ahead', but we didn't see
anything that looked like a typical rest stop and drove on for several
miles before turning around. Coming back I thought I saw a picnic table
back among the trees, so we took the little farm lane off to the right
and came upon an empty parking lot and some scattered tables in a bower
of trees and grass set beside an old mill. The wheel of the mill dipped
into the stream and splashed water on the stones. We stopped and ate
our sandwiches, half worried that we were trespassing on private
property.

It was, in fact, the old Cyrus McCormick farm and the place where the
McCormick Reaper was invented 168 years ago. A small rustic wooden
building was the blacksmith shop where the machine was hand forged by
the 22- year- old farm boy, and next door was the mill that looked
completely rebuilt and functional. No one was around and there were
only some photos and signs to indicate this was a museum, a kind of
living museum without guides and on a farm that is still productive.
The brochure we picked up says Virginia Tech runs the farm as an
experimental station and educational center.

Most of us heard of the McCormick Reaper in grade school, along with Eli
Whitney and the cotton gin, and Robert Fulton and the steam engine.
They are just names of long ago mechanics, like the Wright Brothers, who
fiddled together a contraption that did something new, or did something
old a little better. In the case of the reaper, at least, that is like
saying that the personal computer is a handy tool for typing letters.
Both the McCormick Reaper and the PC are the catalysts of profound and
unimaginable change.

The first reaper did the work of five men with hand scythes and with
infinitely less sweat and blood. In one of the photographs hanging in
the old mill a line of Virginia Reapers, as they were first known, are
spread out across a plain of wheat, and the vastness of modern
agriculture is being born. From that time, when 90% of the population
lived on farms, to today when only 2% of the population farms, we have
seen a change so all-encompassing that we are barely aware of it.

"They have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind" the King
James Bible says about the consequences of seemingly small events.
Leaving the family farm would change our society in drastic ways. It
would mean either freedom from hard manual labor and a precarious
existence, or alienation from nature and the self-sufficient life of the
farmer; a godsend or a disaster, depending on your perspective.

In a time when our own lives seem yoked to swift and ungovernable
change, it is calming to turn off the superhighway and rest by the old
mill wheel in the bower of autumnal trees. It unjangles the nerves to
contemplate the past and to see that almost 200 years ago we were on the
brink of a change as vast as the one we are expecting now.

In the shadow of the mill a young man is walking with a blacksmith
hammer in his hand. Cyrus McCormick, at age 22, about to forge the
unimagined future of our nation.


(The above column originally appeared in the Centre Daily Times and is
copyright © 2004 by Walter Mills. All rights reserved worldwide. To
contact Walt, address your emails to wmills@chilitech.com ).
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