Kentucky Day 2

I have never been lost, but I will admit to being confused for several weeks.
Daniel Boone


Monday:

Today was all about Dan'l Boone.

We made breakfast at the cabin then hit the road.

We found Boone Station State Historic Site on a dead end road surrounded by horse farms.  It seems that everywhere here is surrounded by horse farms. And the horses are very boring.  All one color and all they do is eat.  Every horse we saw had its head down in the grass.  Which wasn't blue.

Anyway we found the site.  There is nothing on it except some historical signs, a monument, and a hiking trail.  Jim didn't want to walk and I didn't have my hiking shoes on so we didn't do the trail.   It seems a shame as there are some foundations left which were excavated then covered over again.  But the site isn't manned.  Not enough funding I guess.

Then we went to Fort Boonesborough.  Much more interesting.  It is a reproduction of the fort protected by Danl.  They had re-enactors for us tourists.  They had a soap maker, a candle maker, a spinner/weaver, a blacksmith and a cook.  The spinner/weaver was spinning yarn from wool that she had dyed herself.  Apparently she trades for the things she needs.  She trades two baby goats for the current batch of wool she had.  She was very talented and had been at the craft, she said, for 20 years.

The cook was most interesting.  They have a heritage vegetable garden and a heritage herb garden.  He and his wife are busy putting together cookery journals from the pioneer days.  The journals were passed from mother to daughter and were just hints, as the daughter already knew how to cook.  So there are no measurements and directions are vague and have funny colloquial terms.  He and his wife spend time deciphering the recipes then proving them then release them in a modern cook book.  He was very amusing as he was very full of himself until he realized that both Jim and I were knowledgable about way and means in the kitchen.  There was one really cool apparatus.  It was just a rope upon which a chicken was trussed.  It was the job of the youngest child to wind the chicken up in front of the fire and let it spin until evenly done on all sides.  If I had a proper hearth, I would try it, if I weren't a vegetarian.  OK, so I wouldn't do any of it, but it was ingenious.

Then we went back to Paris and tried to find a place downtown to eat.  We ended up cooking at home.

What I learned:

1. Spatchcocking a chicken means to butterfly the carcass for roasting

2. Dan'l Boone, that quintessential pioneer and outdoorsman died an old man from eating too many sweet potatoes.  Egad, how embarassing.  

3. You can't dine in downtown Paris on a Monday.

bak bak