The Corn is Green... or Maybe Too Brown.

I am a sorry excuse for a gardener. All summer I have been waiting for the sweet corn to be just right, waiting for the peak of its sweetness. All I could think about was how it tasted when I was a kid. Corn on the cob, slathered with butter and lots of salt. It was my favorite vegetable back then. Yes, I know that it's not a vegetable. Corn is a grain. A sweet, juicy grain with deliciousness. Over the weekend I picked four ears off of the stalks that are growing along the fence. On Sunday I grilled two steaks, cooked up some onion rings, and steamed those ears of corn. The steaks were fantastic, the onion rings crispy and tasty. The corn that I have been looking forward to all summer, sucked. They were mealy, starchy, and had no flavor. I either picked them too late, or maybe I was just expecting too much. Possibly, I thought, it could be the city dirt that I planted them in. After all, we do live right under the O'Hare flight path. All that jet exhaust from landing planes might have tainted things. But it wasn't really any of that. After the fact, I Googled, "When is the right time to pick sweet corn?" I read Google's answers and It seemed very complicated. You have to pull back the husk and check the kernels for plumpness. You have to be sure the silk tassels are just right. The articles all talked about squeezing the kernels to check the juice. Not too watery, not too milky, not too this and that. I never knew corn was so damn complicated. I suspect I waited too long to pick the corn. I assume that all the other ears out there in the garden are also past their prime. But all is not lost. At least Mark will have some dried corn stalks for his Halloween display in a few weeks.