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A Beekeeper's Cookbook (305) · Honey Bee Obscura Podcast

0:01
Hey
0:02
podcast listeners.
0:03
Jim here again this week.
0:06
And
0:06
I
0:06
got a friend with me.
0:08
So
0:08
for once it's not just me talking.
0:10
Nona
0:11
Hurst is here with me.
0:12
Nona, say hi.
0:14
Hi.
0:14
This
0:14
is Nona.
0:15
You did a good job.
0:17
I have been talking to Nona
0:19
and her husband.
0:20
Dr.
0:20
Hurst is a beekeeper
0:22
amongst a lot of other things, as is Nona.
0:24
They have a very diversified life, but beekeeping is a major part of it.
0:29
And some number of years ago, Nona
0:32
began working on a cookbook.
0:33
Today, beekeepers
0:35
I want to talk to you about the successful production of that book and what a nice piece it is.
0:41
Honey bee podcast listeners, I'm Jim Tew
0:43
and I come to you about once a week
0:46
where I try to talk about something to do with plain
0:49
talk beef.
0:51
Welcome to Honey
0:52
Be Obscura, brought to you by Growing Planet Media, the producers of the Beekeeping Today
0:59
podcast.
1:01
Join Jim Tew, your guide through the complexities, the beauty of the
1:06
The fun
1:06
and the challenges of managing honey bees.
1:10
Jim hosts fun and interesting guests who take a deep dive into the intricate world of honey bees.
1:16
Whether you're a seasoned beekeeper
1:18
or just getting started,
1:20
Get ready for some plain talk that'll delve into all things honey bees.
1:25
Nona, from the earliest time, how does one get the notion that they want to ride a
1:31
cookbook
1:33
or
1:33
more than a cookbook, a diversified cookbook.
1:37
Oddly enough, it was John
1:39
Hurst
1:40
that suggested years ago that I write this book.
1:45
And
1:45
I didn't think too much about it
1:48
But
1:49
we had recently started with the beekeeping, her
1:53
humorous story of how it began
1:57
with neither one of us ever having
1:59
been
2:00
around a beehive
2:02
And
2:02
one of the anesthesiologists I
2:05
worked with, I was looking for
2:08
something really unusual for John
2:10
's birthday.
2:10
Thirty-eighth birthday
2:12
and we had moved to the country
2:14
So
2:15
he suggested that I get John
2:17
two
2:17
beeps.
2:19
And I thought,
2:20
well, I like that.
2:21
That's unusual.
2:22
Really
2:22
unusual.
2:23
His father was a beekeeper all his life
2:27
So
2:28
he set it up with his dad
2:30
for
2:31
John and I to go out there and pick up two
2:33
beehives, which
2:35
really
2:36
kinda turned into a crazy story
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because
2:39
we had a one and a half year old, we had
2:42
a closed
2:43
in Jeep
2:45
wagoneer
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and now we know that you have to have a pickup truck.
2:50
So
2:50
we rode out there in the dark
2:53
It was before Interstate 459
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was made.
2:57
So we had to go back roads to Best
3:00
North
3:00
where he lived.
3:02
And
3:02
so we
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drive up in the dark to his beehive
3:06
They went out together
3:09
and came back with the first beehive and they put it in the back of the vehicle
3:14
and
3:15
they're heading back out for the second one.
3:18
And
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I
3:20
looked at it and thought
3:22
Uh, you know, that really doesn't look straight.
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I'm gonna
3:25
fix this straight because
3:27
that's the way women are.
3:28
Yeah, it's gotta be straight.
3:30
It's gotta be straight.
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And so when I did
3:33
the bottom board was rotten
3:35
So
3:36
all of a sudden
3:37
all of those bees came
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rolling out
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my
3:41
molasses
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up my arm
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and I didn't know what to do
3:47
It's not like Matthew
3:48
McConaughey in the movie where he just flicks
3:51
his arm down and all the bees fall on the ground.
3:54
No, I started flailing my arms and
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these
3:58
of course
3:59
they don't fly at night
4:01
and
4:01
that was
4:02
a thing I learned
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early on.
4:05
But anyway
4:05
they come back up with his sack
4:07
on, and Mr. Preston, old fella
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by this time
4:12
said, Sister, you've done it now
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And
4:15
he
4:16
he was not happy.
4:17
He said,
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First thing you're gonna do is get that baby out of the back seat there
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and you're gonna go stand over there by that tree
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So
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that's what happened.
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They cleaned up my
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B
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collision here going home in the car.
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Put the second hive
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in
4:35
and they walked around the car
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while we drove home with as few lights
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So we made it home.
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But
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John
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already knew from a talk with him that we should have our
4:49
cinder
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block
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set up.
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So
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That was the beginning
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and that's had
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to be forty-three years ago.
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I was going to ask how long ago it was, forty-three years ago.
5:01
And it's so interesting to me that
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he has kept this hobby up
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all these years while carrying on a practice, but it seemed to be like a
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pacifying thing to him.
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To go out
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when he got home, check the bees, it became a regular habit.
5:20
We had a lot of ups and downs through the years, but
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he always
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started again.
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Well, he's been doing it a long time.
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I didn't know that John's father was a beekeeper.
5:31
Listen to the big thing.
5:32
No,
5:32
this
5:32
was not his father.
5:34
This was
5:34
Dr
5:35
President
5:36
's
5:37
Yes, it was his father.
5:39
Yeah.
5:39
This
5:40
is
5:40
I was about to tell you John's obviously a physician.
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He's retired.
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But he says he's known now more for his bees
5:46
than he was for being a physician.
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He said that.
5:49
Yes, that's right.
5:50
So what was your role?
5:52
You took his honey to the hospital
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and you had customers there.
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I worked uh
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at that time I was working
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a
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same day surgery.
6:00
and people
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began to ask me to bring
6:04
okay, would you bring me ten?
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It
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got to be a regular thing.
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It was
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like
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Here
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here she comes with her honey box.
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That is
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it.
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And everybody enjoyed, you know
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, they
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love
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the honey
6:17
Well are you a cook
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also?
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Are you a chef?
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How did the cookbook evolve from all these years of beekeeping?
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I am not a chef.
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I am a curious cooker.
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I just
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I enjoyed playing with different recipes and taking the sugar out.
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and converting it to honey.
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I had to do
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had to learn how to
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try to get the pH
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down, add
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more
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soda.
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And then
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I learned that through baking
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you get
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of
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moisture
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bread or cake or whatever you're making, it just
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gives it a good flavor
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to me.
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But
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it is hard to always get that first
7:02
experiment
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right.
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You may do it numerous times before you get it just right.
7:08
I can't imagine, I think I understand what you're saying, that you must have made these recipes
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over and over and over again
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until they met your criteria.
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So you started with a basic recipe
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Mm-hmm.
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You didn't make these up from scratch.
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I mean you
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you basically had an idea of the
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particular product you were cooking and then you just perfected the recipe.
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Well
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exactly what happened was
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when
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our daughters were ten, twelve, we
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we had an eight
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inch binder
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that
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recipes
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that my mother
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had
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given me
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different people had given me
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I would save
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recipes
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about honey
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then
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and that went on for
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Our girls are in their forties
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now, so that's been a while.
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But that has become a prize
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possession
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because
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each girl says
8:00
that
8:01
's mine, you know.
8:03
And then
8:04
so Courtney, the one that designed
8:06
Courtney Wyndham
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who designed this cookbook right here, she actually
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illustrated the binder book that's eight inches
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stick, she went through every category, she drew
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some
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fantastic thing and painted it.
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So
8:22
it's kind of unique that they got involved in it
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Well ironically, my mother did that.
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It wasn't eight inches, it was hardly an inch and a half.
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And a grandkid asked for it early
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on, so it already had a home.
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But the grandkid made copies of it.
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So we all have it and it's just old-fashioned
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southern cooking, a pinch of this
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and a teaspoon of bacon
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fat, and
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some
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of the things you would never expect in those old recipes and you
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probably want to change that out now, but it was good old fashioned
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cooking that I remember.
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So it's a good thing that you've got those
8:54
Well, I did add your requested recipe in this book, 'cause
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with Jim
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being
9:01
from the South
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He
9:02
likes fried okra and he just didn't really know how to do it.
9:07
So I put the recipe in there
9:09
and I put a sassy
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honey sauce
9:12
put on top of his okra
9:14
I do like fried okra, and I don't have it very often.
9:17
In Ohio where I live, I'm off the subject.
9:20
Okra
9:20
's not really happy growing there, and there's one or two people who have it at the farmers
9:24
market, and I have to get there at seven o'clock in the morning
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or
9:27
sells
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out.
9:28
So even though it's not very popular, it's popular enough that everybody buys
9:32
it, it's a different project.
9:34
I wanna tell the listeners that the book is absolutely beautiful.
9:37
Courtney was your daughter. Courtney
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what was her name?
9:40
Courtney Wyndham
9:41
Wyndham
9:42
has
9:42
just designed an absolutely gorgeous book.
9:45
So you could s
9:46
use
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this
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as a cookbook, as a coffee
9:50
table book, as an inspirational book.
9:53
as a bit of artwork
9:54
or
9:55
the layout and the design and the quality of it.
9:57
It sounds like I'm selling the book.
9:59
I'm not.
9:59
It's just not well known right now
10:02
because the book has just come out
10:03
and it's probably
10:05
Not readily available, but the photography, what
10:07
did you give some of these nice pictures here?
10:09
Courtney actually does photography as well
10:13
and we used a professional photographer
10:16
From Louisiana, Hector Sanchez.
10:22
From Louisiana.
10:23
Well
10:23
that is a professional that
10:25
explains
10:25
some of these high quality, high definitions
10:28
photos that you've got here.
10:29
So the visual layout is
10:31
really nice.
10:32
It's a nice visual layout and the pictures are great.
10:37
You get an idea of the Hurst
10:39
family and how they
10:40
come together on this.
10:42
You get a good idea of
10:43
bees.
10:44
And then
10:45
You went into quite a bit of actual bee biology
10:48
and the behavior.
10:49
Are you a beekeeper
10:50
yourself?
10:51
Are you a bee biologist?
10:52
Is that John's
10:53
And behind the scenes?
10:55
No, you're the expert on that.
10:57
But I have
10:58
always loved plants and I've observed what bees go to first.
11:04
I did
11:05
in the beginning
11:06
help
11:07
him a lot.
11:08
We
11:08
we enjoy doing that together
11:10
and
11:11
as life happens
11:12
it
11:13
things start taking over.
11:15
And
11:15
I was less involved getting into beehives when we first started.
11:21
But I am
11:22
just
11:23
so
11:23
curious
11:25
about
11:25
all of the things that go in a beehive.
11:29
I've
11:29
read Karl von
11:30
Frisch
11:31
's book.
11:31
11:33
And then I love
11:35
Honeybee
11:36
Democracy
11:37
all of that fascinates me.
11:39
If I got into the hives more
11:42
I would see it more, but John
11:44
did show me bees dancing on the front board, which I'd
11:49
find that so
11:51
Really
11:51
interesting that they can communicate that way.
11:55
It is remarkably sophisticated.
11:58
Let's talk about some of the recipes, but first let's take a break and hear from our sponsor.
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12:53
You mentioned my favorite fried okra, and I also like fried tomatoes and they're
12:58
hard to get too
12:59
but
13:00
How did you choose out of eight inches of hundreds and hundreds of recipes?
13:04
How did you select the ones that you were willing to test?
13:07
Is it mainly.
13:09
.
13:09
.
13:09
Southern recipes or is it just good recipes?
13:12
It's just good recipes.
13:13
It's not necessarily southern.
13:16
I did send five to America
13:18
's Test Kitchen
13:20
just to see that I was on the right track
13:22
I did
13:23
have
13:24
someone edit my recipes.
13:26
She was a
13:28
Southern
13:28
living employee, but now she just does that.
13:32
consulting.
13:33
But
13:34
she
13:34
had
13:35
just so many hands in it that got me started
13:38
and you as well
13:39
wrote
13:40
the foreword
13:41
because
13:41
I was
13:42
very appreciative of that 'cause
13:44
you and John
13:45
have a good relationship.
13:48
I was honored to do it.
13:49
Thank you for letting me do it.
13:50
You've got some nice recipes here.
13:52
Elegant chicken pot
13:53
pie.
13:54
Is there anything that someone like me could cook by myself?
13:57
Simple to do, Asian lettuce wraps?
13:59
With Oriental chicken filling?
14:01
Do you like salmon?
14:03
I
14:03
literally eat anything.
14:05
That is the easiest thing to do
14:07
in that book.
14:09
You
14:09
get a good frick
14:11
cut of salmon
14:13
and put
14:14
butter in your cast-iron skillet
14:16
And
14:16
I put a lot of herbs in there, I sort of melt it and then put the herbs in there
14:21
and then I put the fillets
14:24
in there.
14:25
And
14:25
if the
14:26
the skin is still on I just let that cook
14:30
and
14:31
I'm not prone
14:32
to eat that but
14:33
we do have some puppies
14:35
that
14:35
Well, like that.
14:36
So
14:37
anyway, it
14:38
you
14:38
you just
14:39
actually
14:40
just keep it on like a medium
14:43
and
14:44
and
14:44
let it cook maybe three, four minutes on each side
14:49
and then I have a sauce that goes with that and then you just pour that on top of that
14:54
while it's in the skillet.
14:55
I mean
14:56
it is so simple.
14:57
That's what I do on days that we're so busy with all
15:01
these
15:02
weddings and
15:03
life.
15:04
So
15:04
I can run by the seafood store
15:07
Pick up some salmon
15:09
and bingo.
15:10
There's
15:11
must
15:11
there is dinner and a salad.
15:13
It's a wholesome meal too.
15:15
Yes it is.
15:16
And
15:16
so we have it once a week
15:19
Okay.
15:21
Yeah.
15:22
They have a lot of other projects going on that we shouldn't go into for lack of time, but they
15:27
They have a very full life all the time.
15:29
How many recipes
15:30
read the book?
15:31
Do you remember?
15:32
I think they're 96.
15:33
Ninety-six tested recipes.
15:36
And the book is two
15:37
hundred and thirty-six high
15:38
gloss pages with an index
15:40
It's just a nice book, The Dancing Bees of Rockhurst Farm.
15:45
If somebody wanted to get this book from you, how would they do it?
15:47
Because right now it's not easy to get.
15:50
Foxhound Bee Company
15:51
is carrying them for me at present, so it can be bought through Foxhound Bee Company
15:57
's
15:57
website.
15:58
All right, Foxhound
16:00
Bee Company.
16:00
They have a website
16:02
and you can pick it up there.
16:04
If you have an interest in it.
16:05
And then we have
16:07
retailers in Birmingham and
16:09
just
16:09
that
16:10
carry the book.
16:10
Well I hope you have nothing but good sales.
16:12
It's really
16:13
a nice book.
16:15
But
16:15
I know there's other recipe books out there, but that I don't know of any of this of
16:19
this quality and I
16:20
probably just offended someone who has recipe books out there.
16:23
But this is nicely done.
16:25
Nona, thank you for talking.
16:27
Thank you for asking me.
16:28
And thank you for doing such a great.
16:30
Great job on this and giving
16:31
and just having a nice book here.
16:33
I'd love to share it with more.
16:35
Listeners, thank you.
16:36
That's enough.
16:37
We'll try it again next week.
16:38
I hope you enjoyed letting Nona talk and tell her beekeeping experiences and how she moves bees at night and
16:45
some of the colorful things that happen.
16:47
It's all in good fun.
16:48
Bye-bye listeners.
16:49
I'll see you next week.