What? No Music?
I wasn’t fortunate enough as a child to have horses or to be from a horsey family. However, we lived in rural Cleveland County, North Carolina, where a great many people had horses. Being the son of the local Baptist minister, I knew everyone in the community, and, between the ages of eight and thirteen, I was allowed to ride the horses of various church members. At the age of ten or so, I distinctly recall telling Carl DeBrew that I wanted to foxhunt when I grew up. I lived next door to Carl’s wonderful grandparents, who had a true family farm. They enriched my childhood more than any other people, including my own grandparents. Mr. Lee and Miss Carey DeBrew treated me like one of their own grandchildren, and I was allowed to ride their mule anytime I wanted (when it was not working!). Carl had two horses and was great about letting me ride them.
Questions from an Honorary Whipper-In
It’s no secret that standards of correct attire and appointments have been allowed to slip in many hunting fields in recent years. To some, it’s of no consequence. To others, standards are something they value. Why? Perhaps they simply wish to demonstrate their respect for history and tradition, or for being guests on the landowners’ property. Perhaps they want to maintain respect for the memory of those sportsmen/mentors of yesterday who taught them about foxhunting and have left us this special way of life. For whatever reason, it’s fun to listen to those who care about correct attire and appointments, wish to maintain the standards, have questions, and want to understand the finer points.
Aeron Mack is one who cares. She is starting to help her local hunt as an honorary whipper-in, and she has several questions that we have put to our Panel of Experts both here and abroad. Mack asks:
Tuscan Pork Loin
Serves 8-10. Very colorful at Christmas.
Baked Apples
Roasted Potatoes
Mix 8 red potatoes and 4 large sweet potatoes with olive oil and rosemary. Bake for an hour at 325. Serves 8.
Sausage Cheese Balls
1 pound Sausage3 C. Bisquick Baking Mix1 pound Cheddar Cheese Mix all ingredients in a large bowl with hands. Roll into marble size balls. Place on a cookie sheet and bake at 400 for 10 minutes. Serve hot. Makes 75.
Some Good News from England and Northern Ireland
Ginni Beard photo
As 2010 closes, two pieces of good news should bring cheer to all supporters of hunting. A Hunting Bill in Northern Ireland has been rejected, and a case against the Sinnington Foxhounds in Yorkshire has failed.
Northern Ireland
Yesterday evening the Northern Ireland Assembly rejected a Hunting Bill that was introduced into the Assembly by Green Party Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) Brian Wilson. This Private Member’s Bill was virtually identical to the Hunting Act of 2004 in England and Wales, so its rejection by the Assembly sends a strong and clear message to Westminster: the Hunting Act is a bad law, and we in Northern Ireland do not wish to repeat the mistake.
White Chocolate Raspberry Mousse
For variations, after cake is placed in bowl you can soak w/ liquor of choice (rum, brandy, orange or raspberry liquor, etc.). You can also use other flavors of instant pudding with different pound cakes (eg. Lemon on Lemon)
Bacon Bombs
These can be made ahead and warmed, can stay warmed for hours, and can be refrigerated after cooking and served warm the next days or so. Even well received at room temperature.
My party guests would mutiny if I did not serve them. My five year old grandson helps me make them.
The Fox’s Morning & Other Stories
W.H. DeCourcy Wright suffered a fatal fall from his horse while foxhunting on February 3, 1951. The horse stepped in a groundhog hole, throwing his rider heavily and breaking his neck. For years after that, Wassie Ball, another larger-than-life personage from the distant mists of Elkridge Harford Hunt Club history, albeit from a slightly more recent era than Mr. Wright, would thrill local youngsters by showing them that exact groundhog hole and then poking around in the loose dirt and stones surrounding the hole to find tiny shards of glass, ostensibly from the deceased foxhunter’s spectacles.
For my part, other than having a vague knowledge that DeCourcy Wright was one of the defining personages from the glory days of our hunt club before and after The War, and having an exact knowledge of which groundhog hole brought about his demise, I knew little about him.
Little, that is, until his grand-daughter Ann McIntosh left in my mailbox the collection of his writings that comprise this book. It turns out that this is one of the freshest, brightest, most brilliant and original collection of “sporting” pieces I have ever read. By the way, “sporting” is intended to be descriptive, not limiting. This is wonderful writing, period.