Flavor: In the garden

RIVER VALLEY and OZARK AREA — She comes to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the cucumbers, and the voice she hears falling on her ear, the son of God discloses.

Cae Cordell, 63, of Pope County, holds hands with her Savior with every step she takes in life - and in her garden.

“It is my Victory garden,” she said. “Growing our own food was just the way I grew up. My grandmother, a godly woman if ever there was one, taught me everything I know. When I garden, I’m back on my grandmother’s knee.”

Cordell had a hard life to hoe, and gardening was always her sanctuary, she said - that and writing.

“Words are my joy,” the ordained nondenominational minister of 47 years and retired college English professor admitted. “Words can save your life.”

Working through life’s hardships, Cordell learned the healing power of the written word. Early on, she wrote to release her feelings and continued to write to encourage others.

“The Lord has truly blessed me by touching others through my writings,” she said.

She’d stay in the garden with Him, though the night around her is falling. But He bids her go; through the voice of woe, His voice to her is calling.

Continuing her desire to encourage and support others, she has become the point gal for many women in the community who are seeking a return to the simple life, and she is teaching them all the virtues of canning.

“It seems almost every day one of the young women in our congregation is asking me a question about putting up summer produce or canning or just healthy cooking,” said Cordell, a diabetic. “When I can pears, I use artificial sweetener, and I promise you can’t tell the difference.”

She made dill pickles and canned Cushew squash, which she uses in place of pumpkin in breads and pies. She’s canning homemade vegetable soup, and she’ll make Tomato Chutney and Cucumber Catsup.

There are undeniable health benefits to preserving your own food, and one of those is the ability to decide what chemicals you want to avoid. Cordell is sensitive to salt andbelieves there’s too much salt in processed foods.

For people who have health issues, it’s a cheap way to eat healthy, she said.

“Having a garden makes it so much easier. Gardening is my pleasure, and I believe every one of us needs a spot of quiet in our lives.”

Claiming that spot serves as another victory of sorts.

Cordell remembers learning to can when she was 4 1/2 years old.

“Daddy put me up on a chair, and when the pressure gauge got to be a certain number, I was supposed to call him,” she said.

A moment passed before she concluded: “I shudder to think of what might have happened had I stepped away for too long. You know, we wouldn’t have had anything to eat if we hadn’t grown and canned our own food.”

She estimates that she has saved between $4,000 and $5,000 in the past 35 years since she bought her own canner in 1971.

Cordell, uncommonly determined and self-sufficient, also builds houses.

“When I build houses, I do it because my father told me I couldn’t do manly things, and if I say so myself, I do build a fine house,” she said. “I grew up in a society that wanted to limit me to being barefoot and pregnant, but my grandmother told me education would free me, and I believed her.

“I was so poor, my grandmother gave me the sheets off her bed when I went away to college later, and she didn’t have them to give, but she didn’t want me to be embarrassed at the dorm. That was the prettiest bed I ever had,” Cordell said.

In her down time, Cordell, a certified counselor and chaplain, carries anointed prayer cloths to hospital patients.

“The nurses tell me I bring comfort,” she said, “and, of course, I share from the garden.”

She plants seeds wherever she goes, sowing and harvesting souls for the Lord, even leading revivals, and filling up the bellies of those in need because nobody’s going to hear the good news if their belly is empty, she said.

And He walks with her, and He talks with her, and He tells her she is His own. And the joy they share as they tarry there, no other has ever known.

Cordell has penned House of Darkness, A Hill Too Far, Pentecostals and Sexual Abuse: Institutional Denial or Healing Ministry? (Counseling the Victim to Become a Survivor), and her poetry has been published in Dry Bones Anthology 2000, printed by the Dry Bones Press Author Community.

The original words (and melody) of the great gospel hymn “In the Garden,” written by C. Austin Miles in 1912, can be found at www.cyberhymnal. org/htm/i/t/g/itgarden.htm.

A Prayer for my Daughter … By Cae Cordell Dear God, When despair grips me, Forget me not.

When breathless terrors come, Forget me not.

If I can’t see, feel, or hear, Though bands tighten my chest, I am confident in you.

When dread shakes me, You are here.

When I cannot speak of you, Sit with me.

Anxiety is not caused by lack of faith, You are you.

With hopelessness, I am overwhelmed, You know me.

Hold my hand in the grip of discouragement, Show me gentleness.

When I have no faith, be my center, Cherish me, I am important.

When fear separates reality, Give objectivity, a neutral place of safety.

When control is lost in panic, Be in control of me.

When my place of hope is disconnected, Center me.

In detachment, forget me not, Be with me in moments of isolation.

Apprehension lives in preoccupation, Be solid earth beneath my feet of fright.

Guard my vulnerability as my special task force, I know you know me.

While I deal with being perturbed, Be my constant promise.

When the living terrors arrive, Forget me not.

When I can’t see, feel, or hear, Forget me not.

Thwart calamity, foster my honor, I am yours.

CUCUMBER CATSUP This makes up a pretty green, Cae said, “and it’s a good way to use up those extra cukes that grow in the dark on us!” Ingredients: 2 quarts seeded cucumbers 2 cups onions 4 green peppers 1 cup water 4 cups apple cider vinegar 2 cups sugar or sweetener 2 tablespoons salt 1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper 4 tablespoons mustard seed Cheesecloth or fabric bag Directions:

Grind up seeded cukes in food chopper. Add onions and peppers and chop. Mix with 1 cup water in Dutch oven and cook until the cukes are tender and turn color.

Return to blender and liquefy. Pour back into pot and add exactly 4 cups apple cider vinegar, sugar, sweetener or half sweetener/half sugar, salt, cayenne pepper and black pepper.

Make small bag or use cheesecloth and fill with 4 tablespoons mustardseed. Tie off bag or do what Cae does.

She saves the big hemmed ends of old sheets and adds the mustard seed to the bag, sewing the end shut with a sewing machine. Place bag into the pot and boil until mixture thickens to desired consistency.

Remove mustard seed bag and discard. Have hot-water-bath pot ready. Fill half-pint jars; place jar lids and rings on the jars, after making sure the tops are clear; and hot-water bath half-pint or pint size jars for 10 minutes, quart jars for 15 minutes.

CAE’S PICO DE GALLO Ingredients: 3 large tomatoes, diced 1 large onion, diced 2 tablespoons jalapenos, diced 1/2 cup fresh cilantro, diced 2 teaspoons salt 1/2 teaspoon black pepper 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder 1 tablespoon olive oil 1 tablespoon white vinegar Directions:

Mix all ingredients together in a large container until well blended. Allow to sit for at least six hours. “It’s best,” Cae said, “if it’s allowed to sit overnight in the fridge.”