There Will Come Soft Rains

I needed to walk today. There are more obvious reasons, such as missing many of my workouts this last week for a variety of impositions in my schedule.  But, there are always other things which weigh upon the mind.  Everyone has them: some things joyful, others more ponderous and stressful all wrapped up in their implications for our daily lives.

The day broke heavy with clouds and a drizzling rain. Motivation to get out of bed can be challenging on a day such as today, when your mattress wraps its arms around you and a book begs to be read.  I steeled myself against what appeared to be another wet and cold day.  It would be warmer and dryer to head to the gym, but I decided to bundle up in sweats and a hoodie and head for my typical 1.5 walk in the neighborhood. 

Spring comes to Boise earlier than to much of the rest of Idaho, still encased in snow and sub-freezing weather.  I often invite family and friends to visit so they can enjoy Spring twice.  As I set out, gusts of wind threaten my comfort. Clouds mist the mountains leaving powdered sugar on their peaks. Almost immediately, however, birdsong becomes apparent. Chickadees are joyfully ringing their message and flirting in their flight path, more fanciful than direct in their course. Quail, who I’d seen scurrying about in covies only a week or two before, are making their way in couples.

Everything seems more vibrant in the rain. Greens are more lush, flowers more radiant. Even the dribbling sound of rain in the sewer grates makes me feel like I am in a Japanese garden listening to a bamboo water fountain. The grass grows in unmowed tufts, which I secretly enjoy, despite my husbands need for a manicured lawn. Everything beckons to slow down and take it in.  I am reminded of one of my favorite poems by Sara Teasdale (1920):

There Will Come Soft Rains

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pool singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself when she woke at dawn
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

I often think about the significance of Spring rain and its ability to wash away ugliness in the world, and replace it with such beauty and a sense of newness. In the same way our Savior, Jesus Christ, is able to cleanse us from the weariness and pain of our sins and vicissitudes. He can renew our spirits whether sullied by sin, war, tragedy, or the evil choices of others and replace it with peace, health, happiness and joy.

Yes, I needed to walk.

Why Not Everyone Should Own a Jack Russell Terrier

I was out in my backyard plantation this week inspecting beds for Spring growth when I was yet again reminded of the vicissitudinous joys and aggravations of owning my Jack Russell Terrier named Spot a.k.a. The Wonder Dog or Spoticus. As with many terrier breeds, you have to have a serious sense of humor, willingness to go the distance (15 years average), and interminable sense of being the Top dog. So here are a few wake up calls as well as brags:

1. If you think you are getting a cute little lap dog like Wishbone or Eddie…think again. Cute yes. Lap dog, not really. Those TV doggie personalities are highly trained and working for treats proffered by dog trainers off stage. Spot is 10 years old and only has time for lap time when he’s tired or it’s dark out. The rest of the time he is on an obsessive-compulsive patrol of the yard for vermin, namely squirrels and cats. In his mind, it is his responsibility, nay, his duty to eradicate the premises of anything with hair that isn’t a person or a dog. He is really quite a show as he checks every knot hole in the fence for possible threats to the Hansen abode.

2. If you want a dog to take out in the field for a game of ball, you had better consider a Lab. As a rule, unless highly trained with a shock collar and radar antenna, a Jack will be way more interested in squirrels, cats, birds, ducks, geese, mountain lions, other dogs, and cars. Jacks are “go to ground dogs” and were bred to tunnel in after fox, rats, badgers and the like. They will stay with their quarry until either it or its quarry dies of exhaustion or the owner digs it out. Many Jacks have been lost to such a situation. Therefore, they are strictly yard dogs.
3. Spot has nearly a 5 foot vertical. Yes that’s right. All 13 pounds of him can jump his head over our 5 foot fence. Luckily, he hasn’t figured out that if he could get his front paws over the top he’d be over and have instant squirrel gratification. This is pretty annoying to one of my neighbors who planted a screen on their side of the fence to avoid seeing Spot’s head continually popping over the fence. A pretty good stand of prickly Oregon grapes on our side hasn’t deterred him so far. This is a video of a Jack jumping: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmW3LDxPKk0
4. Unlike many terrier breeds, Jacks DO shed. Even the smooth coated Jacks shed little white, barbed (I swear), hairs that imbed and weave into all of your clothing and furniture. Solution: leather. Spot is a rough coated Jack like Fraser’s “Eddie”. He requires regular combing/brushing and hand stripping of his coat, i.e. high maintenance. Also allergies abound in terriers, so Spot eats a special trout and salmon Vet diet = expensive.
5. Prepare to landscape a la Canine. Dogs usually take the path of least resistance when it comes to traversing the landscape. Add a Jack’s obsessive-compulsive nature and you get muddy trails right through the middle of your lawn. Now, you could just cover the path with stone or sand, hoping they’ll keep to it or cut your flowerbeds perimeter larger, but they’ll just forge another path. Sigh.
6. Obedience is a relative term to a Jack. Like an eternal teenager pushing the boundaries, Jacks are just too smart to lie down and take it. Once you’ve asserted yourself as the pack leader, expect to have your authority challenged fairly regularly. Typically this isn’t a challenge with teeth behind it, but yes Spot, the garbage is still off limits like it was a month ago.
7. Yappy? Yup. Citronella spray bark collar is a necessary accoutrement to keep peace with the neighbors, and just barely at that.
8. Spot will do anything for treats. He will even perform extra tricks on his own if he thinks you’ll give him more treats. He has a repertoire of about 8 tricks, but could be taught more given something yummy. He learned these tricks in the space of about a week. You’ll probably never find a smarter dog.

Given all of these issues, why have a Jack? They are great company, continually entertaining, and just plain adorable. No squirrels sup at my birdfeeders. There's always something to laugh about. Only Jack owners know.

Apetizers- Will Old School Recipes Make Sense to a Younger Generation?

The game was heartwrenching! The quarterback, injured in the first drive of the game, was replaced with a very young freshman. The team played valiantly, making a comeback in the 3rd quarter, but ultimately lost the much sought after national title. Well maybe next year.

So, how did the new/old recipes fare? Well, that depends on your taste and point of view of course…

The starting lineup included: Braunschweiger Apetizers, Lou Gmitro’s Cheese Spread, Oyster Snack Crackers, and Chicken Wings. Could they stand up to the criticism of two college kids and a highly sensitive 14 year old feeling the pains of her hero quarterback? Would the EC (Eternal companion) slam the unfamiliar tastes down before they were even room temperature? What of the Boise local food critic a.k.a. BFF? Here’s the rundown:

Braunschweiger Apetizers (Page 2)

I was feeling all domestic while making this lovely paté and aspic creation until the reveal when my 21 year old daughter shamelessly and loudly (in ear shot of the sensitive 14 year-old with the undeveloped palate) proclaimed it as “meat jello” and vowed never to let such a thing touch her lips. Luckily, I anticipated such a reception. I actually like Braunschweiger since a child but decided to make a half recipe. Whew! Good call! The middle child did recant later to inform me that although this was very beneath her discriminating palate, it was artfully done. A backhanded compliment, but I’ll take it. Aspic creations are apparently passé to most 20-something and younger individuals.

I am not averse to aspic however, and I thought it quite good on freshly sliced, warmed French bread. If you like Braunschweiger, essentially pork liver pate, give it a spin, but beware of aspic where neophytes are concerned. This might be great for a 50’s or 60’s themed party. Here are a few hints: I used Campbell’s Beef consommé bringing it back to normal concentration with a can of water. Since cream cheese doesn’t come in 6 oz packages, you can increase to 8 oz if you don’t have a bagel to schmear the leftovers. One tablespoon of gelatin is a little less than two packets of Knox gelatin and you can probably through the rest in without any harm. Finally, an immersion blender or food processor makes blending the pate ingredients quick business.

Chicken Wings (Page 4)

This was a clear winner among the young and old. Easily made and appealing on a plate. Make sure to have lots of napkins around. Michael believes that all chicken wings should be deep-fried after consuming hundreds at Wingman while serving his LDS mission in the Denver area. Be that as it may, this disappeared quickly.

Lu Gmitro’s Cheese Spread (Page 8)

This measurement absent recipe is tasty if you enjoy a mild curry taste. Here are the adjustments: ¾ cup mayonnaise, ½ to 1 teaspoon curry powder, 2 scallions, 1 or 2 six-oz cans of tiny shrimp. I went with two cans because I like shrimp in every bite. Turn up the heat with a spicier curry.

Oyster Snack Crackers (Page 9)

These heavily dilled crackers were tasty, but making them was a revelation. Plain oyster crackers require oil to carry and keep the seasoning on them without causing them to go mushy. But one cup??!! I couldn’t quite buy off on so much oil so I used two packages of Oyster crackers. This worked well for the seasonings, but I still think you could use the two packages of crackers and cut back to ½ cup of oil. Hidden Valley doesn’t make Italian dressing mix any longer so I substituted Good Seasons Zesty Italian dry mix. You could probably use the ranch dressing mix satisfactorily as well. Cut out or down the amount dill weed if you aren’t a fan.

Grandma Helen's Cookbook

Grandma Helen Burton (Coon) Thomas left a cooking legacy contained in 161 pages of a cookbook she typed herself originally in 1960 and gave to her three children.  By the time a few decades went by, more recipes were included, some of which were contributed by children and grandchildren who also inherited Grandma’s knack for cooking. The new edition was distributed to the cousins and is a standby in their kitchens.

Helen was an amazing person: raised in the hometown of Uncle Sam (Troy, NY), real estate agent  extraordinaire in the Twin Cities, and world traveler among her many talents and pastimes. She loved to entertain, and collected cultural know-how, skills and recipes that have been blessing her progeny ever since.

 Because two of my siblings were born after the second edition was distributed and other books were misplaced, I scanned the cookbook onto a CD for them. As I did so, I realized there were many recipes that I’d never tried before. Many of the recipes are reminiscent of the war years when certain foodstuffs were rationed.  Others are celebrations of 50’s postwar culinary inventions. Some recipes have ingredients which are no longer available or are substantially different than they were originally created.

So friends and family, I have decided to begin a one year adventure in the spirit of the movie “Julie and Julia”.  Two or three times a week I will make recipes contained in the book until they’ve all been checked off, blogging my results afterward.  Many recipes will require some modernization and possibly substitution where ingredients are no longer available.  I pledge to be as faithful to the originals as possible with one caveat.  Where recipes contain coffee, tea or uncooked alcohol, I will be making substitutions or eliminate altogether due to my religious and personal health beliefs. I do keep a limited amount of wine for cooking, but the recipe will require heat or burning off such that the amount alcohol will be reduced to no more than vanilla extract.

 

The perfect event to kick off this journey begins tonight. The National Championship Bowl game will be running and friends and family will be coming to munch. A great opportunity to play with those Appetizer and Drinks recipes.

Grandma Helen was not as well known as Julia Child for her cooking prowess, but among her family, friends and acquaintances, she was an Iron Chef. Get your immersion blenders running, crack those books open and let’s get cooking!

Remembering Madeleine

As I bake cookies for Christmas, I am remembering a wonderful woman named Madeleine Bonhomme. Our family became acquainted with this fine French woman when we took up folk dancing as an interest in my home town of Toledo, Ohio. She was well into her early seventies and still dancing with our international folk dance group. She wasn’t much over 5 foot, arthritic and a bit round, but she continued to shuffle through dances in her traditional French costume delighting many audiences we performed for.

We were lucky to know this rather temperamental woman who didn’t suffer fools gladly. We often got to be the recipients of her wonderful cooking and she came to our home to pass on her skills to my mother. I, of course, was hanging about, learning too. One time she came over and shared with us her secrets for making that famous French dish, Boeuf Bourguignon. It would seem, according to Madeleine, that in order to properly prepare such a dish, consumption of the beautiful ruby red wine was necessary. That turned into quite a cooking party as I recall.

Puff pastry is another all day kind of cooking feat which really deserves company, and Madeleine was a perfect teacher and conversationalist. First you make dough which then gets rolled into a large square, spread with butter, and folded into thirds and then thirds again. The brick gets wrapped in wax paper and then put into the refrigerator to harden. After an appropriate cooling period, the process is repeated until about a pound of butter is worked into the dough. Because of the folding process, the dough bakes into flaky buttery layers which can be formed into crescents, pastry cookies or used to enfold a meat roast or brie cheese. It is very time intensive, but oh so worth the effort and wonderful to share with a family or a good friend.

But the thing Madeleine was most famous for was “d’ cookie”. By this she meant the shell shaped buttery cake cookies with which she shared her name. She often brought a large tin of these rich little mouth-fulls to folk-dancing rehearsals or as a gift at holidays. The molded pans hold only 12 cookies and they are frightfully fussy to make. I think this is why she was cranky about how quickly they disappeared after being presented. They are usually flavored with vanilla and sprinkled with powdered sugar, but they can have lemon, orange or almond flavorings.

Some years ago, Madeleine must have sensed her approaching death and gave the three Madeleine pans to my mother. She could no long bake “d’ cookie” and she hoped my mother would take on the tradition. A few years later, my mother gifted me with the pans because of my fond memories of the woman who introduced us to the beautiful little cakes. I feel it is such an honor to receive something as intimate as cooking equipment so lovingly used over the years. I love to make these sweets at holiday time and remember our dear friend and hope we meet again some day to talk over dance, food, and “d’ cookie”.

Icing flowers and Embroidery Wool

I recently heard that one of my specialty stores, Sweet Celebrations recently went out of business. I nearly cried. In a previous incarnation and based in Minneapolis area, it was called Maid of Scandinavia. They sold supplies for making candy, cakes and desserts and rose water for flavoring lemonade. Now where will I get the red waxed paper squares for my Christmas caramels? It was a double hit because a wonderful embroidery store closed here in Boise where I could find silk and wool threads and linen fabrics. It feels like loss of culture.

I came to love handmade things as a young girl. My grandmother knitted, embroidered and smocked for me and my cousins.  My mother and father are both very artful and our home was filled with the evidence of their handmade adventures.  We lived the Arts and Crafts movement or rather the 60’s and 70’s revival of it. 

The cradle of my artistic sense as I remember it was when we moved back to Ann Arbor, Michigan while my father resumed his Doctoral studies in romance linguistics,  I was about 7 years old and this time period was filled with some of the most happy recollections of my life.  My mother was always taking my brother and I on adventures. Window shopping in downtown Ann Arbor, trips to the U of M Natural History Museum, farmer’s market trips where we bought produce and armfuls of flowers wrapped in newspaper. I can only begin to name the lovely little specialty stores we haunted.

One of my favorite places was a paper goods store that sold Hallmark items located in an old home.  What a fun place.  You may remember when they made coordinated party goods in all sorts of lovely patterns.  The table centerpieces were often contrived of accordion paper ornaments which opened out from a flattened shape in a packet and clipped together to stay open.  I always dreamed of which one I might get to have for my next birthday.

I also remember a lovely little yarn shop in an old arcade in the middle of town square. My mother bought one of my first wool embroidery projects which had a scene of kittens playing with yarn. It was the start of a life long love of crewel embroidery. It seems now to be out of favor as a pass-time, but I still love separating hanks of yarn by color and perusing the various stitches I’ll be using.

Another favorite store was a party store which sold everything from wines and gourmet delights to table wares and party goods.  I think this is where I was introduced to candied violets. They are magical. Real violets are dipped in fine, shimmering, purple sugar.  Very expensive due to time-intensiveness, they are used to top special desserts. Even the most mundane custard can be elevated to royal status with a few violets perched upon it.

There was a bakery up the road from my grade school in Toledo, Ohio which sold pre-made hand painted icing flowers. Though they aren’t very tasty, they are a beautiful thing to behold. Yellow and purple pansies were my favorite of course, but all of the flowers were enchanting. When this store went out of business in the early 70’s in my economically depressed hometown, I felt so sad.

The loss of my favorite stores because of internet marketing or economic pressures is so devastating. I feel frustrated trying to find what I want in dumb-downed big box stores because the service is poor or non-existent. The only advantage to buying on the internet is that you can do it in your PJs and bunny slippers. It is too hard trying to discern color, hand (the feel of it), taste, and texture via a modem.

So my soap-stand for today is support your local merchants. They might be a bit more expensive, but its way worth the quality products, chit-chat, and knowing you are helping them make a living by selling concrete rabbits, buttons, zebra wood planks or whatever. And while you are at it, put away you poison pen and give a compliment in person or note. They will be happy to accommodate your needs if it helps them stay in business.

Fruits of Our Harvest

It’s the middle of October and canning season has finally wound down to a simmer. What started in the middle of the summer has produced for me a cupboard full of jewel-toned jars of peaches, pears, tomatoes, grape juice, apple juice to name a few.

I especially start to get rather squirrel-ish by about mid August. I start calculating how much fruit I will need to buy to put up for the winter. “Put up” is a Utah/Idaho colloquialism for preserving food, thus “putting it up” on a shelf. At first I begin to think one bushel of peaches should be enough since I only have one child at home.  But then, I get worried, because one year, there was a late freeze which made peaches rare and pricey.  I had better get two bushels then…I can always give away some, and the kids at college will want to take some for their meager menu.

My favorite variety of peaches, “Ida Lady” (“Summer Lady” as it is known elsewhere) is sure to come in for harvest around Labor Day weekend. You can almost bet that my friend Ellen and I will be hunkered in at my house for the holiday weekend peeling, slicing, bottling, and processing quart jars of peaches. For a while we made our children help us so they could learn not only the process of canning, but also for the work value.  But now, we recognize we are much more efficient by ourselves. There is a sort of rhythm that exists in my kitchen which has bonded us over the years. 

Here is the secret to our success of putting up 4 bushels of peaches in a day:

1. Most important. Get a canning buddy.  It could be a like-minded girlfriend, spouse or grown up child. Just make sure it is someone you like spending time and a kitchen with.
2. Get a camp stove.  I mean the kind of stove that has two large burners on four tall skinny legs attached to propane. It is perfect for running two boiling water baths out on the back porch so the kitchen doesn’t get all hot. Sort of harkening back to those summer kitchens so often part of farm houses years ago.
3. Forget the sticky syrup production unless you want to be hosing down your kitchen, dogs, children or anything else that might come in contact with you. Opt instead for putting 1/3 cup sugar in each jar for light syrup and dissolving with an inch of boiling water. Less than this amount we’ve found leads to water-logged peaches because all the sugar goes into the water (remember the principles of osmosis and diffusion?) and the texture really deteriorates over the months in your cupboard. We assembly line about 3 dozen jars at a time on a covered protected card table. Before putting the sugar in, put in about 1/8 of a teaspoon of ascorbic acid in each jar. It is available in bulk at our local health food store co-op. 
4. Fill the jars with sliced peaches. We find that quarters seem to work the best.  If you want to make them all pretty in halves for state fair quality, just make enough to put on the front row of shelves to show off.  Trust me, you won’t get more in the jar and you aren’t going to get the eight boxes of fruit staring you in the face done today if you obsess about looks.
5. Top off the jar to ½ inch from the top with more boiling water (we keep two tea kettles going). Wipe the rims and put your clean lids on. That’s right; you don’t need to put them boiling water first.  When you process them in the boiling water bath it will take care of unwanted bacterial contaminants; more than that is just over-kill.
6. Process your bottles according to size and altitude. Check this website for further information: http://cru.cahe.wsu.edu/CEPublications/pnw0199/pnw0199.pdf

And so the peaches go, followed quickly by pears, applesauce, tomatoes and anything else I can get my hands on for a reasonable price. By the time October is here, I am pretty much getting tired of it all and the squirrel in me has overstayed its welcome.

So why do I bother with all this? Is it worth the time and money?  Good questions.  First of all, let me say that if you haven’t had good home canned peaches or other fruits and vegetables, you won’t ever be able to answer these questions. When fruit is canned commercially, it tends to be either under-ripe or of a variety which is easier to process in mass but lacks flavor and sweetness. So by preserving just ripe fruit of the many flavorful varieties available, you won’t be looking back to insult your palate with the tinned variety; good in a pinch, but not much else.

As to the economy of it all, not including time, it comes out about the same price if not a bit less. The difference it’s made for our family is that they actually eat their fruit and veggies, because they taste good. I also don’t need to run to the store as frequently, thus reducing impulse spending.  Did I mention that the peaches make excellent pies in a jiffy?

I get a lot of personal satisfaction knowing that I have food put away for emergencies, like job loss, natural disasters, illness, or other unforeseen emergencies.  Because it’s there, when someone I know is sick or in distress, I can readily provide some yummy food or treats. I also like the idea that I am helping sustain our local economy.  I really am trying to go with the idea of eating within a hundred square miles of my home.

So, yes, it’s a lot of work, but it is a kind of security I am not willing to live without. As my friend Ellen says: “I don’t see anyone complaining about eating them”.