Hotdish Weather

In the sweltering August heat, I smell drying grass everywhere. Even after dark, warmth radiates from the earth, and open windows provide little relief from the heavy, persistent heat. It is hotdish weather.

I remember the wheat ripening silently beneath the brilliant blue sky. Farmers walked the fields, tested for moisture, checked the weather, and squinted at the horizon. The wait was interminable, but suddenly the entire countryside erupted; swathers and combines and grain trucks roared to life. The very air seemed to tremble with the energy and urgency of harvest.

Farm wives stopped canning tomatoes and started cooking hotdish. They baked large pans full of hamburger, potatoes, and vegetables, packed a box of plates and silverware and jugs of water, and drove an old pick-up into the field to feed the hungry farm crew.

For a moment, the noise stopped. The workers filled their plates and sat on the tailgate, scanning the sky for clouds and exchanging worries about clogged machinery and impending rain. They cleaned their plates quickly, said their thanks, and jogged back to their equipment; once again, harvest was in motion.

It’s been at least two decades since I ate hotdish on a tailgate. Many things have changed in those twenty years, but in every place I’ve lived, the dry, August grass smells like ripening wheat, and I recall running to the fields, barefoot, for a hotdish supper.