In and around the garden with Rita 11/8/2025

Ron chats with Rita about a variety of things

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Our toll free number eight hundred eight two three eight
two five five, And as we promised, she is with
us this morning. It is time for Are you herbally
experienced with our ccpcmajor Award winning syndicated journalist. She is
a member of the Arab Society of America, an appalation
herbal scholar. She is a media personality, motivational speaker. You
will be motivated by the end of this segment. A

(00:23):
regular contributor on Sacred Heart Radio and our iHeartRadio, as
well her website about eating dot com ladies and gentlemen,
the one the only rita natter hike confeed.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Wow, well, good morning. This was sort of a surprise,
not a real planned little chat, wouldn't you say?

Speaker 1 (00:49):
But I like the surprises. I wasn't sure if we
were going to be able to get you on this morning,
and I'm glad that we were because I have so
many questions for you today. It's crazy.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
I'm afraid that that's which the first one is.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
While you were there when they first started. Can you
believe that the Farmer's Almanac is ending the entire thing
in twenty twenty six?

Speaker 2 (01:09):
You know I had heard that how Sad and I
have written for The New Pioneer used to put out
a Farmer's Almanac version very similar. But you know, yeah
it's not only iconic. But was it always accurate? I
don't know, But is any weather, you know, prediction accurate?

(01:32):
And it was a great guy, don't you think plus it.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
I just liked it. I liked all the trivia then
all the stuff that they had in there. I didn't
care about the I mean the weather prediction was interesting. Yeah,
they would hit it sometimes they didn't hit it sometimes,
I you know, it just it was it created conversation,
and like Joe said, you know the news, the news people,
you know, when they came out that would give them
the trigger to go, oh, the Farmer's Almanacs predicting you know,

(01:56):
a warmer, cold or whatever. But I always liked it
for all the rest of the stuff that was into
the stories and the info and the gardening info and
all that I thought was outstanding. I bet I've bought
a Farmer's Almanac since I was a little kid.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
And En Georgia, yeah, well we had we did too.
And my brother in law Jesse always always planted his
crops by the Farmer's Almanac. Sure by the moon, and
he always had wonderful crops. Yeah, we're going to miss that.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
You had the Farmer's Almanac. You held on to that thing.
You've read that all season long.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
Oh, I know, I know. I still have a couple
of old ones. I'm going to keep them, the.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
Original, probably from the original.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Well ago, yeah, yeah, maybe maybe a little after the
original when I started getting into that stuff.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
I love it talking with Rita hiken Feld. Now. Secondly,
Rita hiking fel last weekend, of course, one of your
favorite weekends, a big one for you. On Friday Halloween.
How to go?

Speaker 2 (02:59):
Well, tell you what I think. We're gonna need air
traffic control in the sky, very crowded, and you know,
the bad thing is, I don't know if a you know,
artificial intelligence? Who was real? Who wasn't. I flew sort
of low and I tried to get you a couple
of times, because as you know, I'm geographically challenged, but
you did not answer your phone. So you must have

(03:21):
been out trick or treating or having fun, you know,
just giving out treats. But all in all, it was
a good weekend. I was a little tired, afterwards. You know,
I'm sure more than more than a few years old,
but it was it was all good. My room worked well.
I turned off the GPS because I don't like it.
It never works. But other than that, I did pretty good.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
Good for you. And then when when you get home,
you make your own little medicinal purposes only potion.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
Oh, of course, of course a little cherry bounced to
warm me up because it was a little chilly.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
Well, I'm glad you had a great time. Now, I'll see.
I'm just rolling through this today because I got so
many questions your recipe this week. If I went to
our website, Ron wilsononline dot com and pulled that up
and you're at the very top of this time and
it's eggs in Purgatory, I would say, what's what is

(04:18):
Rena talking about eggs in purgatory? Please explain?

Speaker 2 (04:24):
I thought that was It's a fun title. Okay, So
eggs in Purgatory it's actually from Italy. And think about,
like how I was raised Catholics, think of this image imagery.
The eggs represent, mister Wilson, the souls that are seeking cleansing, purification,
however you want to call it, and the spicy red

(04:45):
tomato sauce. We put some hot red pepper flakes in there.
Does represent the flames of purgatory in our faith. And
the dish came about in Naples, and you know, it's popular.
It's a twenty minute meal. From what I can understand,
the Italians don't eat that for breakfast because I think
they do cheese and bread. Not sure, but anyway, we

(05:07):
would do it for breakfast or a bunch or a
light meal. And it's sort of like check Shuksa, the
Middle Eastern version, because they both use eggs. And you
start out with a little olive oil and a skillet
and add some onion and some garlic and some chili flakes,
and then you add some can tomatoes sort of smushed

(05:27):
those up, and you put those in with the onion
and the garlic and the olive oil, and so that
makes a really nice spicy sauce. And basically you make
some divots in that sauce and crack some whole eggs
into there and sprinkle with the little cheese. Like check Shuksa,
we use feta, but with eggs in purgatory we use parmesan.

(05:49):
So you got to cover them and a lot of
people like their eggs sunnyside up, sort of running. I
like them a little firm, or how about you, I like.

Speaker 1 (05:59):
Them sonny so, but I cannot take them snotty.

Speaker 2 (06:03):
Yeah, yeah, that's a that's a good analogy. Yeah, me too,
done inside up a little firmer. And then with these,
I didn't have any fresh basil eggs, and Purgatory usually
calls for basil, so I sprinkled some dried basil and
really a delicious bunch or dinner dish twenty minutes. You
could add some sausage to it if you want, you know,

(06:24):
do whatever, what else, mushrooms, whatever, But the real simple
version's good. And then as Catholics, we feel good about
eating something so meaningful.

Speaker 1 (06:35):
So to say, hey, Rena, what's for dinner? Eggs? And Purgatory.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
Say what, that's it?

Speaker 1 (06:44):
All right? So what happens if I'm if I'm cooking
that egg and it breaks, Well, you know that's salt,
that's the soul seeking purification.

Speaker 2 (06:54):
Yeah you could say that. Yeah, and sometimes they do,
and again sometimes they turn out a little too. But
as you said, snotty eggs, I've never heard it said
that way. But I'm with you there. But you know,
eggs are so nutritious, talk about minerals and vitamins. White
has a ton of protein. Tomatoes are good for you.
The basil has a little iron and potassium, so you

(07:16):
know you garlic. Oh yeah, I still have some leftover
from Halloween. You know that's good for anything with your
heart and your immune system. So it's a fun It's
a fun dish and one that uses basically pantry ingredients,
so you're good to go.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
Would you sprinkle a little bit of francs on top
of that?

Speaker 2 (07:37):
You know you would? I would not those chili flakes.
I dried some cayenne chili's last year and I still
have them. To me, that's enough heat. But I know
you love all that spice, don't you?

Speaker 1 (07:49):
Not too hot? But I like the flavor and I
like a little kick in there. I just I had
to make my sensational coal slaw yesterday for our company
Thanksgiving dinner, which I put horse radish in thereverybody loves
it because it's got a nice kick to it.

Speaker 2 (08:02):
Oh see that sounds good. Oh that's right. Because you
have your Thanksgiving dinner work early.

Speaker 1 (08:08):
Yeah, we have it early for everybody. And I do
all kinds of different things in the colts law, but
I do the horse rash, and everybody's always like, what
is that in there that's got that little something different
little horse horse ready that?

Speaker 2 (08:20):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (08:21):
So yeah. Talking with Rita Hiken fell at her recipe
this week. Uh, don't let the name turn you off.
Read all about it eggs in Purgatory and you can
find it on our website at Ron Wilson online dot com.
Just take a quick break, we come back. We'll go
out to the garden with Rita. Here in the garden
with Ron Wilson, Green Tom or not.

Speaker 3 (08:39):
Ron can help at one eight hundred eighty two three
talk and they says in the garden with Ron Wilson.

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Speaker 1 (11:03):
Fucking yarding at eight hundred and eight two three eight
two five five. Rita Hickenfelder is with us this morning,
and of course that's are you urberly experienced her website
about eating dot com. We're gonna walk out to the garden.
By the way, you showed me a picture this week
of a lufah you grew. I thought those were kind
of tough. Then they're are long season gord. I mean,

(11:24):
that's not one of the easiest ones to grow.

Speaker 2 (11:26):
I always thought no, and actually that was from my
friend Charlene, who also gave me the passion fruit. Yeah.
I have never had a huge amount of success growing,
but I always say, you know, they're they're my Appalachian friends,
and boy they have a great garden kids, a lot
of success. But she gave me some green ones and

(11:46):
I've got to dry them out before I cut the
tips off and shake the seeds out, and then they're
wonderful natural sponges. You just cut them up in pieces.
But I couldn't peel the skin off. It wasn't you know.
They weren't dry enough yet. So yeah, that'll be fun.
Those are fun. You can put those in homemade soaps
or just cut them up in pieces and package them

(12:09):
up with, you know, some nice soap that you buy,
and it makes a nice little Christmas gift again, a
gift from the garden.

Speaker 1 (12:16):
A gift from the garden, says Rita Hikenfeld. And they
always do work, and the ones that you make are
always outstanding, whether they're irvs or the mixes that you
do and all of that, and folks, you can I've
seen you give those away to people and they just
pretty big smiles that you bring the folks face just
because it's you, Rita, and of course because of the
gift that you gave them as well.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
Huh yes, yes. And it's funny because talking about the garden,
we've got the gardens all killed. The irb garden I
leave pretty much alone because I like it as a
sort of a winter shelter for the you know, God's
good creatures. But when I was I did harvest, as
I think I told you last time, dried some basil
and peppermint and some of those nerves and they're all

(12:59):
dried now. Yesterday I was pulling them off the stems
of peppermint, and here's a tip. Usually we crush them
up between our palms, you know, make them crush them
up so they're easy to shake out of the bottle.
But if you can leave your dried herbs in whole form,
just strip the leaves from the stem. Those volatile oils
will steak leaf until you use them. And it's really

(13:22):
fun to take the whole dried leaf and you know,
rub them between your palms. And the aroma the mint
was just just lovely, just lovely, very strong and aromatic.
And then I got to tell you too, the purple basil.
You know, purple basil I love, but doesn't hold up
so much in cooking the flavor. And so I dried

(13:43):
a bunch and I was stripping it off the stems,
and usually you smell clothes and licorice, but the scent
was very, very faint. So if you're gonna dry basil
for culinary use, just I would say stick with the greens.
You know, the genove, say, the sweet diesel, the tie
you know those kinds. But the purple really pretty, but

(14:05):
flavor wise it doesn't compete.

Speaker 1 (14:08):
Do you ever take any of the annual herbs, pot
them up and bring them indoors?

Speaker 2 (14:13):
I do. It's funny, you know the butterfly pee that
you gave me. I've got that growing so far. It's
great in the basement and my coffee tree. I do.
I bring in the pomegranate, and I have tried basil,
and now I've got rosemary. I dug her up and
put her in a pot, and that don't always have

(14:34):
a great amount of success.

Speaker 1 (14:35):
But you do that in your garage, right, the rosemary.

Speaker 2 (14:38):
I have better luck in the garage. In the house. Yeah,
But I always say, you know, and you've told people
to herbs, don't always follow the rules. Go ahead and try.
Tribes seem to be a good one that transitions from
outdoors to in and you can cut them off at ground,
you know, soil level, and they'll pop back up. You
just you know, it doesn't hurt to try, don't you think.

(14:59):
And that way you may have some pressures in the
winter on the window sill and it makes you smile
just seeing them.

Speaker 1 (15:05):
Oh. Absolutely. Talking with Rita Hikenfeld again. Her website is
about eating dot com. You also sent me a picture
I thought was really cool. You're at the Green Acres.
They had made a fence around a premier guard. I
think that was using weaving Jerusalem artichoke stems, which gets
pretty tall and golden rod.

Speaker 2 (15:25):
Yeah. Aaron, my neighbor and friend, works at Green Acres
and they're educator and they had the kids during a
field trip. I guess, gather the twigs and she said,
what you said, boy, they're very substantial, and they wove
them together and made like an old fashioned water fence
and it was just beautiful. And you know, it's a

(15:48):
wonderful place for wildlife too, to sort of tuck in
in the winter. They call it. I don't know if
they call it a living fence or I forget maybe
the other term, but anyway, just thing against fun. You
would pick up or discard those branches, and they're flexible
enough to weave into a fence and very sturdy too.

Speaker 1 (16:09):
It's sturdy enough to stay up there and hold plants
back and do whatever, you know. I kind of did
the same thing. We had a ruella that was falling
over by out by our front door, and I just
took some bamboo and kind of weave them together. I
didn't tie anything together, put some stakes in and did that.
And it looked pretty neat because it was very natural,
and it held up the held up the ruella at
the same time. So that was outstanding. But it was

(16:30):
Jerusalem artichoke stems and golden rod stems. I always love
it read. I have talked to Rita on the phone.
I'm gonna give this little story away. She'll be driving somewhere.
This is before you weren't allowed to talk on your
cell phone and drive at the same time, and all
had to clear that up, and she will say, oh
my gosh, there's Jerusalem artichoke. Hang on a second, stops

(16:51):
the car in the middle of the country, gets out
of her car, runs across the ditch and it's Jerusalem,
Arta chokes or it's not, and it takes it from there.
I believe that she does. That's that's Rita Eichenfeld.

Speaker 2 (17:03):
Yep. We have many good adventures with finding like wild
elderberries and nature. I told you too when we were
in Michigan and driving along somewhere going to the beach,
and they have a lot of woods and I know,
I know I saw gencing in those woods, but of
course we didn't stop because it's not legal. But anyway, Yeah,

(17:27):
my kids were like, not horrified, but I said, oh,
can we just pull over a little bit, I see
some genzing? And my kids know me. They said, no, Mom,
We'll just go slow and you can observe from the car.
So I think I've all wind up in prison or
jail there.

Speaker 1 (17:41):
I think I've said that a couple of times, Rita.
Somebody lives here. You can't just go into their yard.

Speaker 2 (17:46):
Yeah you did, Yeah, but you do anyway? Well I'm harmless, Yes,
yes you are.

Speaker 1 (17:53):
Hey, does do either your boys still run?

Speaker 2 (17:57):
Shane is still uh and cross country coach. Yeah, I
don't know that they're they're runs like they have they
do other things. But yeah, Shane, Yeah, Shane does because
he's heave his coach and he's still West Claremont cool
and also Walnas Hills he's working there too.

Speaker 1 (18:15):
So Carl ran the New York Marathon.

Speaker 2 (18:18):
She did Oh my gosh, that is big, no kidding finish.

Speaker 1 (18:22):
Yeah, first time. It was pretty cool.

Speaker 2 (18:26):
Oh my, I'm almost seacrest. Yeah, that's wow. Did she
just love doing that?

Speaker 1 (18:35):
Yeah, she's been training for with a team for about
six months or so. And then you have to get
a lottery to get into it.

Speaker 2 (18:41):
Oh yeah, the lottery.

Speaker 1 (18:43):
Oh, there's an app that you can track them through
the whole thing.

Speaker 3 (18:46):
It was.

Speaker 1 (18:46):
It was cool.

Speaker 2 (18:47):
So yeah, how many miles is it?

Speaker 1 (18:49):
Twenty six point two, twenty six point six something like that.

Speaker 2 (18:53):
Oh my gosh, run the pig the Pig marathon here.
But wow, tell her congratulats that she's a nice strong
woman and just wow, good for her.

Speaker 1 (19:04):
Yep, all right, And to just think back when she
used to complain about having to pick a lot of
violence flower outside, yes, and eating all natural and now
she's missed all natural.

Speaker 2 (19:14):
That's a good thing. They always see you planted seat.
There is what it was?

Speaker 1 (19:18):
Well you help? Hey, Rita Hiking felt always a pleasure again.
Her website is about eating dot Com. We will talk
to you a little while in the future.

Speaker 2 (19:26):
That sounds good.

Speaker 1 (19:26):
I see it again all I thank you. Rita Hiken
felt again about eating dot com. Quick break we come back.
Phone lines are open for you at eight hundred A
two three eight two five five coming up the top
of the hour and extended version of the Buggy Joe
Boggs Report. But you and me and between here in
the garden with Ron.

Speaker 3 (19:42):
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